Ubuntu 9.04 update to something newer

[Nils Kassube]

sandman42 at libero.it wrote:
> in a VM I have an ubuntu 9.04 (not accessible from internet), and I've
> been trying to update it in order to install newer releases of the
> programs I use on it.
> Particularly, I've been trying to update tp 10.04, that's LTS, and
> then to 12.04, that's LTS too.
> 
> The problem is that neither I can do it, nor i can do a simple 9.04 ->
> 9.10.

Others have already explained how you could do the step by step upgrade 
9.04 -> 9.10 -> 10.04 -> 12.04. I'd like to mention that you need quite 
a lot of time to do those four upgrades and at each step something bad 
might happen. Therefore I would suggest to skip most of the steps and 
simply download the 12.04 image and reinstall. However to keep the setup 
of your home directory, you should select manual partitioning and reuse 
the existing partition(s) for "/" (and swap) - select the previous file 
system (probably it is ext3) and DON'T format the partition. Then the 
data in your home directory will be preserved.


Nils