Hello, currently running an HP laptop in dual-boot setup, Ubuntu Studio 24.04 LTS and Win10 on separate partitions of a SSD. 2nd drive (HD) dedicated to user generated data & files.
I want to upgrade my Ubuntu Studio partition to 25.04, while leaving the Win10 partition intact, and I’ve run into a couple questions before I dive in.
First off, I understand that I’ll need to upgrade from 24.04 LTS to 24.10 as a step to upgrading to 25.04. And I understand the upgrade to 25.04 is not recommended until a few issues have been resolved. No problem there and I can be patient.
But my question involves the upgrade to 24.10. I created the 24.10 Live USB flash drive and started the install, and stopped at the choice of:
Install Ubuntu Studio alongside Windows Boot Manager and Ubuntu 24.04.02 LTS,
Erase disk and install Ubuntu Studio,
Manual installation
My intent is to replace 24.04 LTS, not add a 3rd OS, but that option is not available. If I click Manual installation, it shows ‘sda’ (spinning disc data drive - to be left as is), ‘sdb’ (flash drive with live ISO), and ‘nvme0n1’ with partitions p1-p5. Win boot mgr on p2, Win10 installation on p4, UbSt 24.04.2 LTS on p5. It won’t allow me to select p5 for installation, only the entire drive.
Is there another way to install 24.10 to partition p5 while leaving p2 (WBM) and p4 (Win10) intact? Or do I basically need to upgrade my hardware with separate drives for each OS?
If you want upgrade you don’t need a live USB but just upgrade using update-manager.
You must 1st upgrade to 24.10. see: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1534080/how-to-upgrade-to-24-10
and then with similar steps upgrade to 25.04.
Be sure you don’t have 3rd part software because it may disturb the upgrade process.
Hmmm…
Thanks for that. Removing all non-Ubuntu-provided (3rd party) software could prove challenging, as it’s likely I’d miss a package or 3 installed from outside sources.
I’m starting to lean toward just letting 24.10 install alongside 24.04 LTS and Win10. 24.04 is using only ~150 GB of a 600 GB partition, and all downloads and user-generated data reside on a separate drive, so there’s plenty of room for a fresh install of 24.10. Then, when 25.04 upgrade path is released (in the coming days or weeks?) it can cleanly upgrade 24.10 to 25.04, while 24.04 LTS lies dormant/undisturbed.
25.10 is quite stable and works very well, I recommend you install that and not 24.10 which is near the end of its life. then you can install your data and third-party applications on 25.10 and thus have a much cleaner installation.
Good point. I presume you mean 25.04 (just released), not 25.10 (expected this coming October).
In my original question, I was looking for clarification on the upgrade routine (update manager?). If I understand correctly, it must be done incrementally, i.e., 24.10 would replace 24.04, and then 25.04 would replace 24.10. And if I further understand correctly, it can’t upgrade only one partition of a drive. It’s either wipe the entire drive or divide a partition and ADD another OS.
I’m curious about the upgrade process, as I’ve yet to do that on any version. In the long term I’d like my system to work that way: periodic upgrades without hours of fussing.
There’s a lot to be said for doing a fresh/clean install of 25.04. I need to keep the dual-boot (Win10) intact, and I’m struggling with how to make that happen cleanly, without accumulating partitions.
The live USB will allow me to install 24.10 (or 25.04 presumably) alongside Win10 ~AND~ 24.04 LTS. I presume I could split the EXT4 partition to do that, but then I’ve got an orphan install of 24.04 that’s using up 160+GB. Or maybe, booting from the live USB, I could first wipe the EXT4 partition and then install 25.04 alongside Win10. I gather it’s the partitions that are the complication.
~OR~ I could just install GIMP 3.0 as a 3rd party app (that’s the primary appeal for 25.04) and plan a new system with separate drives for 2 OS’s.
Thank you @corradoventu and @tea-for-one . I decided to skip 24.10 and install 25.04 alongside Win10 and 24.04LTS. 24.04 is using about 160 GB of a 600 GB partition, so there’s plenty of room to divide that. But I ran into a couple new problems that may be hardware related.
I downloaded Ubuntu Studio 25.04, verified it with SHA256SUM, and used ‘Startup Disk Creator’ to create a live USB on a new 32 GB flash drive.
Booting from the new USB took inordinately long (~12 minutes) and when the desktop finally showed up, there was a message indicating something went wrong and that I should try booting again. Tried again, using the other USB port (neither is on a hub), with the same result. Suspecting a faulty flash drive, I created another live USB on another (new) 32GB flash drive. This time, booting resulted in a blue screen system error, with options to run system tests. It took a couple tries, but I finally confirmed I could successfully boot to 24.04 LTS with no USB drive plugged in. I inserted the live USB into the other port and tried booting again, resulting in the same blue screen system error page.
I’m going to give it a rest for now, and probably try again in a couple days. Even though the .ISO verified properly with SHA256SUM, I’ll download a fresh copy and try a different flash drive. If that still doesn’t work, I’ll put the project aside. The laptop is 10 years old. It’s possible that the USB controller may have a problem, and also, either the graphic chip or the screen is showing signs of potential failure (every couple hours the screen will start flashing between the desktop and a black screen for 15-20 seconds - happens in Win10 also). So I need to anticipate a new system anyway.
Success!
Fresh download and new USB flash drive. As noted above I chose to install alongside 24.04 LTS and Win10. Divided the p5 partition and install went smoothly. Ironically, Grub shows only options for Win10 and “Ubuntu Studio”, which boots 25.04. I don’t see an option to boot 24.04, so hopefully I won’t need to.
Yes, os-prober shows “Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS:Ubuntu:linux”. It does NOT show Ubuntu 25.04, which I’m currently using.
In Partition Manager, I notice that the (new) partition …p6 (25.04) shows a locked icon and “/” under mount point. …p2 (Win Boot Mgr) also shows the locked icon and “/boot/efi” under mount point. But …p5 (24.04LTS) does not show anything under mount point.
I suspect that adding a mount point at root (“/”), might trigger this OS to show up in Grub. When I started to do that, there was an extra step to confirm that I was sure I wanted to make the change, and that the action could not be undone. So I left it unedited, except to label p5 and p6.
Am I safe in adding the / mount point? And would that make it an option at boot?
os-prober does not show the system you are using but just the OTHER systems.
Partition manager show a locked icon for your system and boot/efi to signify you can not change.
so if you run sudo update-grub after reboot you sould see your 24.04.
post here the output from sudo update-grub
Don’t try to add a ‘/’ mount point because this may damage your system.
sudo update-grub appears to find 24.04, but running it and rebooting doesn’t seem to change anything. It even says that it’s adding a boot menu entry.
randy@SilverWingsBlu:~$ sudo update-grub
[sudo] password for randy:
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub'
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub.d/ubuntustudio.cfg'
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-6.14.0-15-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-6.14.0-15-generic
Found memtest86+ 64bit EFI image: /boot/memtest86+x64.efi
Found memtest86+ 32bit EFI image: /boot/memtest86+ia32.efi
Found memtest86+ 64bit image: /boot/memtest86+x64.bin
Found memtest86+ 32bit image: /boot/memtest86+ia32.bin
Warning: os-prober will be executed to detect other bootable partitions.
Its output will be used to detect bootable binaries on them and create new boot entries.
Found Windows Boot Manager on /dev/nvme0n1p2@/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
Found Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS (24.04) on /dev/nvme0n1p5
Adding boot menu entry for UEFI Firmware Settings ...
done
That appears to work, as the results show that it found 24.04LTS and is adding (again) a boot menu entry, however upon re-booting, there is still no option to boot to 24.04.
randy@SilverWingsBlu:~$ sudo grub-probe -t device /boot/grub
[sudo] password for randy:
/dev/nvme0n1p6
randy@SilverWingsBlu:~$ sudo grub-install
Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
Installation finished. No error reported.
randy@SilverWingsBlu:~$ sudo update-grub
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub'
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub.d/ubuntustudio.cfg'
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-6.14.0-15-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-6.14.0-15-generic
Found memtest86+ 64bit EFI image: /boot/memtest86+x64.efi
Found memtest86+ 32bit EFI image: /boot/memtest86+ia32.efi
Found memtest86+ 64bit image: /boot/memtest86+x64.bin
Found memtest86+ 32bit image: /boot/memtest86+ia32.bin
Warning: os-prober will be executed to detect other bootable partitions.
Its output will be used to detect bootable binaries on them and create new boot entries.
Found Windows Boot Manager on /dev/nvme0n1p2@/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
Found Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS (24.04) on /dev/nvme0n1p5
Adding boot menu entry for UEFI Firmware Settings ...
done
And truly, that’s OK. My objective was to be up and running on 25.04, and that is accomplished. Optionally booting into 24.04LTS would be a nicety, and may or may not come in handy for system maintenance, although for that I can always boot to a USB drive as well. All my downloads and data files are on a separate drive and I have that auto-mounting, so everything I need is accessible.
And BTW, the partition manager still shows no mount point for nvme0n1p5 (the 24.04 partition). But from 25.04, I can mount the …p5 partition and retrieve files if need be. I’ve already retrieved and installed some fonts for example.
Thank you @corradoventu, your suggestions have helped me get up and running on 25.04 AND have helped me learn more about Linux, which is also an objective. I’m going to let the 24.04 issue rest for now.
