I’m confused as heck. The installer does a clean install of Kubuntu Resolute Raccoon? I don’t want to have to reinstall all my apps. I already was advised by Claude AI to back up my current config directory. Can someone help me out here? I’m a fairly new user of Kubuntu, and I thought upgrading would just install whatever new components and files were necessary, not wipe my system clean.
@oirudleahcim2025 Welcome to Ubuntu Discourse 
I moved your post to its own topic for better support.
I have never done an in-place upgrade with one of the flavours.
However, if you burned the 26.04 ISO to USB and want to install then, yes, it will wipe everything clean and do a fresh install.
See this topic about the upgrade process, which should also apply to flavours I believe, but best to wait for community input.
In any case, make sure you have backups of all your important data.
Hope this helps.
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Excuse me, but is that not what the installer is supposed to do? There are two ways we can move on to the next/latest release. 1) Do a fresh install. 2) Do an online upgrade.
We can directly upgrade (online) from one LTS to the next LTS. Or, we can directly upgrade (online) from the last/present release to the latest release.
We can also completely wreck the operating system. In that situation a fresh install is usually the easiest solution.
What version of Kubuntu are you using? How long is its support life? What need do you have to move on to Kubuntu 26.04 so soon after its release?
When you decide what you want to do would you please open a new topic on that subject. This topic does not have a title that invites help to upgrade.
Regards
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Hi, please tell us what version of Kubuntu you are using so that we may help you. I can tell you that if you are upgrading, you won’t use the installer as it only installs fresh installs.
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The upgrade instructions are probably similar to those on Ubuntu Studio, but like everyone here is telling you, you’ll be automatically notified when upgrades are available for your machine. There is no need to download the installer .iso image to upgrade.
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Good to review this advice:
I backup /home, list of installed apps, my separate data partition and settings I manually change in /etc (copy to /home so backed up).
But I normally have two / (root) partitions, one current LTS, and other last or next LTS version. And link data from my data partition into both. I restore apps, but may or may not restore all of /home.
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I call this an in-place upgrade; the other kind of upgrade is to do a new install from an iso file. If you prefer not having to setup all the apps and customization, as I do, go with the in-place type and wait until the software updater informs you of a new version of your distro. If you currently use a standard release, like 25.10 (which I am using), it doesn’t take long - usually within 2 weeks of the release date.
There is a case where in-place is the only way to upgrade: You have a multi-boot setup using LVM. It is impossible to do a new install of Ubuntu with LVM using the current Ubuntu installer without erasing the entire disk. Obviously, you don’t want to do that if there are other distros on your disk that you want to retain.
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Ubuntu used to have a repair option on the installer, which did what you wanted; allowing a ‘in-place’ upgrade, as you could ‘repair’ your system with a newer release, or the same release. It was a feature I loved.
It is still possible for some releases, and I talk about on a support question I was asked to write on another site, ie. here. It works on all releases using ubiquity installer (which Kubuntu did up to 23.10) and calamares (24.04 & later for Kubuntu).
A problem was discovered late in the noble cycle with ubuntu-desktop-installer (problem with ubuntu-desktop-provision) which was fixed by forcing a format of / thus programs will not be restored… Of course this didn’t impact Lubuntu, Kubuntu or Ubuntu Unity using the calamares installer, but it did mean some of the install scripts maintained by Ubuntu teams assume that the / partition is always formatted (as is now done with Server/Desktop and flavors using ubuntu-desktop-installer) which has ‘reduced’ the usefulness of the install method I talked about.
You didn’t specify a release of Kubuntu, which means I can’t speaking anything but generic, as results are impacted by that detail.
I have used what I call a non-destructive re-install, but it could also be called an unclean or in-place upgrade too, but results can vary depending on a number of factors, being
- most importantly the release
- what software packages types you have installed; it’s really focused on deb packages from Ubuntu repositories; not third party, and whilst I’ve actually had it auto-reinstall all snap packages too!! in most cases I just manually re-install the snap packages myself post-install (I’ve had to do this on recent releases almost always)
- the link I provided says the installer will “erase system directories” which used to be done, but hasn’t been done for a number of releases now; and this CAN HAVE EFFECTS that can create problems & leave crud from prior installs on your system that shouldn’t be there & thus make maintenance more of a burden… Usually file-system metadata (file date/stamps) reveal this, but if you’re changing that data via a script or something it may not be there anyway… ie. it’s just more complicated.
ps: in that link I provided; you can read every reference I made to Lubuntu as if it were Kubuntu; as the installers used by Kubuntu were either identical to Lubuntu (24.04 & later) OR it worked equally due to use of ubiquity.
I still like the feature, and it’s useful (I’ve used it on all releases up to and including resolute/26.04), but it’s not ideal for a newcomer anymore (not as useful as it was in Ubuntu many years ago)
- ie. a clean install (and restore of data) is better for newcomers than this unclean install now in my own opinion.
ps: I mention I was ‘asked to write’ that answer, as I happened to write it to an existing and somewhat old question that I felt was appropriate… Many just look at the date of the original question (2014) & thus dismiss it as ancient, but my answer was in 2023, and I’ve updated it numerous times since then you’ll note, esp. via comments.
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I want to give another perspective. It is not always that clear to the user. Some distros like openSUSE (DVD) installer, may be Slackware and if I am not mistaken BSDs offer ‘upgrade’ option. So, that could be a reason.
Second reason is the write-up in the kubuntu release notes.
Ready to dive in? Download Kubuntu 26.04 LTS and install fresh, or upgrade from Kubuntu 24.04 LTS. If upgrading, remember to back up and clear your
~/.configfolder for the smoothest experience.
I am not sure if other flavors are clear about install/upgrade.
I have a suggestion (call it a paper-cut) that there be a note on the download page, beside download button, saying something like “For fresh installs only!”.
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Thank you. I’m new to the forums and trying to mind my Ps and Qs with forum etiquette. I take hints pretty well!
Thank you for the detailed response. I greatly appreciate others’ sharing their knowledge here. I’m coming to Linux as a lifetime Apple user, sometimes Windows 11 user (yuck) and tried Kubuntu 25.10 as my first run at Linux. I am enjoying the journey. BTW, I am 69 years old and still kicking it with my tech fascination. We old folks are supposed to be playing pickle ball and doing crossword puzzles. I explore tech.
Salut!
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Thanks. Kubuntu 25.10 is my first encounter with the Linux ecosystem. Since the mid-80s when I worked with dedicated typography systems, the mantra was always backup, backup, backup! So I’m always prepared if something goes awry with an upgrade. IDrive is my friend.
Agree! I like being an early adopter (I’m very active in the Apple Public beta program), but I also think there should be a clear warning about what the .iso installer will do.
The installer does what I expect of it, and whilst its a different installer to the first release back in 2005 (Kubuntu 5.04), I’d expect it is similar to twenty years ago too. It’s also what I expect of installers, but my first OS install was back around 1979 and thus I’ve had lots of different experiences with installers over the years (on many platforms), and while they’re not all are identical; essentially they’re equivalent and follow pretty standard methods.
If you feel something is lacking; you should file a bug report, make a suggestion on Matrix (link in release notes), and/or you can try and add your own tips and tricks to help users like yourself here too that could help other users who may have experiences more like yours, as our experiences do differ significantly & thus we have different assumptions when we start.
A method which could be used to basically repair a broken system or do an upgrade is to reinstall and select to NOT format your partitions. This is similar to what is described above by guiverc. I’ve done this several times with Slackware and it worked well and I’ve also done it with Ubuntu. Given your level of knowledge/experience, you would be best off to use the standard update/upgrade methods rather than doing a new install with the Kubuntu iso.
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