How to Upgrade From Fedora 32 to Fedora 33

Brief: This tutorial shows you how to upgrade Fedora version to a new major release.

Considering that Fedora 33 has been released, you as a Fedora 32 user may want to upgrade your system to the latest release to use all the new features in Fedora 33.

In this article, I’ll show you how to upgrade to Fedora 33 Workstation from Fedora 32 Workstation.

Upgrade Fedora to a Newer Release

There are two ways to upgrade to a newer version of Fedora. The graphical way and the command-line way. I’ll show you both ways of upgrading Fedora in this tutorial.

• Use software center
• Use terminal

Use Software Center to upgrade to Fedora 33

The good thing about Fedora is that it doesn’t take long in notifying you of availability of a new version. All you have to do is to open the Software Center and look for updates. You may see the new version available here.

If you don’t see any upgrades available here, try hitting the reload button on the top left corner.

Keep in mind that it may take a couple of days before the upgrade to the newer version of Fedora is available for everyone. If everyone gets to upgrade on the same day, it would stress the servers which would result in slow downloads of the updates. Servers may even crash. This is why upgrades are rolled down gradually.

If you see the upgrade option available, just click on Download and follow the procedure.

The download will take some time depending on your internet speed. Once the required files have been downloaded, you’ll be asked whether you want to install them or not.

When you choose to install it, you’ll be asked to restart your system. It kind of reminds me of Windows upgrade. Upgrading Ubuntu version doesn’t obstruct you from using your desktop.

Once you restart and login to your existing Kernel (the grub screen), you’ll see that your system is upgrading to a newer version:

Once this process completes, your system will boot into the newer Fedora version. That’s it. Enjoy Fedora 33.

Use command line to upgrade to Fedora 33

Another way to upgrade Fedora is by using DNF command line tool. DNF has a system upgrade plugin for the sole purpose of distribution upgrade.

First thing first, make sure that your system packages are updated. Open a terminal and run the command below:

sudo dnf upgrade --refresh

Upgrade or no upgrade, it’s always a good idea to make a backup of your system. I suggest that you make a backup of your important files before the upgrade. It is optional yet recommended.

Next, you need to get the upgrade plugin. Use the command below for that:

sudo dnf install dnf-plugin-system-upgrade

Now that you have everything set, you can start the upgrade now. You should know the version to which you are upgrading. If you are upgrading to Fedora 33, use the number 33 in the command:

sudo dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=33

You’ll see that it starts downloading the Fedora 33 upgrade.

Note: If you face issues when upgrading because of broken dependencies, or obsolete packages, add the ‐‐allowerasing flag in the above command. This flag removes packages that are blocking Fedora upgrade.

Once the download finishes, you can reboot your system into the upgrade procedure. Use this command for that:

sudo dnf system-upgrade reboot

You’ll see the kernel selection screen at the reboot.

And after this, the system upgrades begins. It may take some time in completing the upgrade.

Did you upgrade to Fedora 33?

I hope this tutorial helped you to upgrade to Fedora 33 from Fedora 32. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to drop a comment below.