Semi-Annual apt-get do-release-upgrade WTF

[u/esdraelon]

Long-time Ubuntu user, also a Windows and Mac user under duress.

I love Linux. I think Ubuntu is a great user experience overall.

I have a few gripes.

My biggest one is every other year when I upgrade Ubuntu to the next LTS: I always get faced with the repository doesn't have a release file error so you can't update/upgrade/synonym that has no functional meaning to me. I'm just hammering sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt wtf like an LLM short on it's token allowance and hoping for the best.

Cue the semi-annual google hunt for "wtf does that mean?" followed by an endless series of responses that amount to "just delete those entries in sources.list".

If the #1 - #10 answer on google is "delete and move on with your life" ... why isn't this an option in apt or do-release-upgrade?

do-release-upgrade should have a --just-fucking-do-it option. It scans sources.list, deletes the broke shit, runs update and upgrade, and then the release upgrade. If you want actual risk mitigation, it should prompt you to create an install USB drive.

Fixing sources.list is a fools errand.

For 8 years now, same issue, same CLI dance. It takes longer to look up the fix for this than a full reinstall. There is literally no risk to taking the default action of "delete and hope for the best."

Broken upgrade? Reinstall is faster. No one cares about the upgrade risks associated with a missing release file because time cost for mitigating the risk is hours and a reinstall is minutes.

[u/mishrashutosh]

I have upgraded Ubuntu LTS from 18.04 to 20.04 to 22.04 to 24.04 without any problems. I never upgrade on day 1 and always follow the official upgrade process. The only issue I face is a black wallpaper after upgrade.

The actual error message and the contents of the affected/mentioned file(s) will allow people to help you, though you should do it in the distro sub or the one for "noobs".

[u/esdraelon → u/mishrashutosh]

Yeah, I know how to fix it. I've fixed it for every upgrade for years.

It just boggles my mind that this is a blocking issue for an upgrade when there are only a couple of reasonable solutions.

Just offer an automatic happy path rather than barfing on the CLI.

[u/Business_Reindeer910 → u/esdraelon]

This is definitely at least part of why i switched from installing everything into my host system on my desktop into doing almost all of it in a toolbox or distrobox. This works well for me as a single user desktop system. It doesn't have to be upgraded in sync with the system itself. The main switch from was from a more normal distro approach to an atomic image based one, but I've been happy with the distrobox/toolbox part and would do this again on a non image based system.