Published 2025-05-07.
Time to read: 2 minutes.
SOP
When it is time for me to upgrade Ubuntu my standard operating procedure is to:
I set the following because I want to upgrade to the newest major releases of Ubuntu, not just LTS releases:
Prompt=normal
I run the upgrade:
$ sudo do-release-upgrade
This Time Was Different
I tried the GUI upgrade process from Ubuntu 24.10 to 25.04. I found it to be a user-friendly experience; however, I only realized there was a serious problem after rebooting.
After rebooting, only the mouse cursor was visible on the screen. The system was otherwise serving content and responding appropriately to SSH, git, Plex, Emby, etc.
Even RustDesk continued to work fine. It was helpful to have the Ubuntu desktop available remotely while diagnosing and fixing the problem. I also used SSH to access the server.
Incomplete Upgrade
I noticed something odd after logging in:
$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources Types: deb URIs: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu Suites: oracular Components: main restricted universe multiverse Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg
I thought that the value of Suites for Ubuntu 25.04 (Plucky Puffin) should be plucky instead of oracular.
After making the change, I ran:
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade ...Bazillions of programs got upgraded...
$ sudo apt dist-upgrade ...More programs got upgraded...
$ sudo apt autoremove
$ sudo apt autoclean
$ sudo pkill snap-store
$ sudo snap refresh snap-store snap-store (2/stable) 0+git.90575829 from Canonical✓ refreshed
So the Ubuntu GUI upgrade tool did not perform most of its tasks. The above typing mostly took care of that issue.
Missing NVIDIA Kepler Video Driver
This server has a GeForce GTX 760 (Kepler) GPU. The NVIDIA driver for Kepler GPUs has number 470, and is no longer provided by Canonical. I tried the following to make the driver available, but it also failed:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa Adding repository. Press [ENTER] to continue or Ctrl-c to cancel. Hit:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu plucky-updates InRelease Hit:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu plucky-backports InRelease Hit:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu plucky InRelease Hit:4 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu plucky-security InRelease Get:5 https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/graphics-drivers/ppa/ubuntu plucky InRelease [24.1 kB] Get:6 https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/graphics-drivers/ppa/ubuntu plucky/main i386 Packages [4,300 B] Get:7 https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/graphics-drivers/ppa/ubuntu plucky/main amd64 Packages [17.2 kB] Get:8 https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/graphics-drivers/ppa/ubuntu plucky/main Translation-en [3,420 B] Fetched 49.0 kB in 1s (69.9 kB/s) Reading package lists... Done N: Some sources can be modernized. Run 'apt modernize-sources' to do so.
$ sudo apt update Hit:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu plucky-updates InRelease Hit:2 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu plucky-security InRelease Hit:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu plucky-backports InRelease Hit:4 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu plucky InRelease Hit:5 https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/graphics-drivers/ppa/ubuntu plucky InRelease 3 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them. Notice: Some sources can be modernized. Run 'apt modernize-sources' to do so.
$ sudo apt upgrade Not upgrading yet due to phasing: python3-distupgrade ubuntu-release-upgrader-core ubuntu-release-upgrader-gtk
Summary: Upgrading: 0, Installing: 0, Removing: 0, Not Upgrading: 3
$ sudo apt install nvidia-graphics-drivers-470-server Error: Unable to locate package nvidia-graphics-drivers-470-server
nvidia-graphics-drivers-470-server still could not be found to install.
Success!
Out of desperation, I tried installing a newer video driver (535 server), and it worked.
$ sudo apt install nvidia-driver-535-server
So the extra PPA I added was not required.
😁 😁I did not expect this to work with a Kepler GPU. But after rebooting, the video monitor was back in business!
Another Machine
On another machine, do-release-upgrade aborted with:
$ do-release-upgrade ...stuff... Restoring original system state
Aborting Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done
Looking at /var/log/dist-upgrade/main.log indicated a problem with snapd.
$ tail -n 30 /var/log/dist-upgrade/main.log
Removing snapd solved the problem.
The upgrade process reinstalls snapd.
$ sudo apt purge snapd
