Ubuntu 19.04 Reached End of Life, Upgrade to Ubuntu 19.10 Now

Ubuntu 19.04

If you’re using the Ubuntu 19.04 (Disco Dingo) operating system on your personal computer or server, you should know that it has reached end of life on January 23rd, 2020. Of course, this means that Canonical will no longer provide software updates and security patches that address bugs or vulnerabilities.

Dubbed as the “Disco Dingo,” Ubuntu 19.04 was released on April 18th, 2019, and it was supported for 9 months. Ubuntu 19.04 was the first Ubuntu release to adopt the Linux 5.0 kernel series. This added quite some goodies, including  AMD FreeSync display support, advanced ARM hardware support, Btrfs swap files, support for Raspberry Pi touchscreens, and support for the Adiantum file system encryption.

Ubuntu 19.04 also shipped with the GNOME 3.32 desktop environment, which introduced the long-anticipated fractional scaling feature, as well as an updated toolchain including GCC 8.3, Python 3.7.3 by default, Golang 1.10.4, OpenJDK 11, Glibc 2.29, etc.. Other changes included a new icon theme, improvements to the Yaru theme, a new “Safe Graphics Mode” option in the GRUB menu, and improved VMware integration.

But, as all good things must come to an end, starting January 23rd, 2020, Ubuntu 19.04 (Disco Dingo) is no longer a supported release. Canonical will stop seeding software updates and security patches. Therefore, if you’re still using Ubuntu 19.04, you will have to upgrade to the latest release, Ubuntu 19.10 (Eoan Ermine), as soon as possible.

How to upgrade Ubuntu 19.04 to Ubuntu 19.10

Upgrading a desktop system:

To upgrade a desktop system you will have first ensure you have a recent backup of your most important files on an external drive. Open the “Software & Updates” utility. Go to the 3rd tab called “Updates,” and set the “Notify me of a new Ubuntu version” dropdown option to “For any new version”. You may soon get an upgrade notification like the one below.

If you don’t see the upgrade notification, open the Terminal app or press Alt+F2 and type in the “update-manager -c” command, without quotes. The Update Manager utility should appear and tell you that “New distribution release ‘19.04’ is available.” All you have to do now is click the “Upgrade” button and follow the on-screen instructions to upgrade to Ubuntu 19.10.

Upgrading a server system:

To upgrade a server system, you must first make a backup of all of your configuration files. Then, install the update-manager-core package from the repositories, if it’s not already installed.

Set the prompt line in /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades to normal. After that, run the “do-release-upgrade” command (without quotes) to launch the upgrade utility. Follow the on-screen instructions to upgrade your machine to Ubuntu 19.10.

Last updated 4 years ago

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