Ubuntu – Upgrade Ubuntu option not availiable when installing from USB stick!

upgradeusb-drive

I want to upgrade my current O.S. Ubuntu 13.04 to Ubuntu 13.10. For that purpose I created bootable usb stick using unetbootin. When the laptop boots, it boots from the usb. Now after a few steps there comes options as how to install. Here there isn't the option for upgrading ubuntu which is supposed to be there as clear from this installation manual of Ubuntu. For your ease I'm showing the options as mentioned in the manual below.
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Please see the image below that shows what I get when my usb stick boots. It's not having the option for upgrading. ( Also its not having the option for erasing the current O.S. Rather it has option for erasing the whole disk!!! Because of this I can't replace the current Ubuntu 13.04 with 13.10. )
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It may happen that the problem won't be resolved using usb stick. Then tomorrow I will purchase DVD and burn the Ubuntu 13.10 iso image there. DVD should work as earlier also when usb stick didn't work to install my Ubuntu 12.10 then DVD worked perfectly.

Also I would like to add how I prepared my usb stick. Using fdisk, I deleted the partition there. I Created only 1 new partition to occupy whole 2GB of space of my usb stick or flash drive whatever you say. Then using mkfs created file system of ext4 type. Then using unetbootin created bootable ubuntu 13.10 from its iso.

I have a related thread here.

Best Answer

Upgrading from the install medium is only available if you have internet access during the install. The source you are referring to had internet access during the install, that is why he had that option. But gaining internet access during install won't help in your case, because you don't want to rely on your not reliable internet connection.

Official source for the above: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1170531

Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox):

It is correct, we do not support offline upgrades via ubiquity/desktop CDs. And even for servers, it is not recommended to use new server CD to do offline upgrade.

The support upgrade methods are with internet connectivity or a local mirror / package pool. One can for-example use tools like aptoncd to snapshot all installed packages, download them on a machine that has internet connectivity, bring them to the offline machine and upgrade it.

The reason behind this move, is enourmous amount of support cases of broken and partial upgrades since newer installation media will be missing manual additionally installed packages; packages that have now transitioned to new names; packages that have been removed from the default installation. Thus default install media for next release simply doesn't contain everything one will reasonably need to upgrade, hence the internet connectivity requirement.

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