How To Upgrade To Ubuntu 14.10 Beta From Ubuntu 14.04

First beta version of Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn has been released. If you are itching to try the latest features, we shall see how to upgrade to Ubuntu 14.10 beta from Ubuntu 14.04. But before we do that, let’s have a quick look at Ubuntu 14.10 release schedule:

Ubuntu 14.10 release schedule

As per Ubuntu wiki, following is a quick summary of Ubuntu 14.10 release schedule:

• Alpha 1 — June 26th
• Alpha 2 –July 31st
• Beta 1– August 28th
• Final Beta — September 25th
• Release Candidate — October 16th
• Ubuntu 14.10 — October 23rd

But you don’t need to wait till 23 October, you can upgrade to Ubuntu 14.10 beta directly from Ubuntu 14.04. I must mention that since it is in beta (i.e. unstable), it might have several bugs and therefore it is definitely not suited for you if you easily get annoyed by crashes.

Upgrade to Ubuntu 14.10 beta from Ubuntu 14.04

Please note that once you upgrade to Ubuntu 14.10, you cannot downgrade to Ubuntu 14.04. The only way to go back is a fresh installation of Ubuntu 14.04.

Step 1:

Open a terminal and use the following command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Step 2:

Now use the following command to open update manager

sudo update-manager -d

In general, update-manager will just run Update Manager but with option “d”, it will also look for distribution upgrades.

Step 3:

When you run the command mentioned in step 2, it will open Update Manager which will take some time to check for updates and at the end it will notify you of the availability of a new release:

The software on this computer is up to date.

However Ubuntu 14.10 is now available (you have Ubuntu 14.04).

Click on upgrade to upgrade to Ubuntu 14.10 and follow the instructions afterwards. I hope you can handle things from here:

Possible troubleshoot:

It may happen that you might not see Ubuntu 14.10 upgrade option even after following the above mentioned three steps. To solve this, go to Unity Dash and look for Software & Updates. In here go to Updates tab and make sure that you have Pre-released updates checked:

These steps can be used to upgrade Ubuntu 14.04 to Ubuntu 14.10 be it beta or not. Though this tutorial was written for Ubuntu, you can use the exact same steps to upgrade to Xubuntu 14.10 beta, Kubuntu 14.10 beta or Lubuntu 14.10 beta. Any questions, suggestions, a word of thanks is always welcomed. Stay tuned for Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn related articles. Ciao :)