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Upgrading Linux in WSL

Ubuntu

  • It is best to first make sure that your current Ubuntu is up-to-date:

    sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

    You can optionally add the -y command line flag to the last command to automatically assume the answer "yes" to all questions asked during the process.

    The apt update command downloads package information from all configured sources that is used by other apt commands. The apt full-upgrade command install available upgrades of all packages currently installed on the system, installs new ones as required but also removes currently installed packages if this is needed to upgrade the system as a whole.

  • It may be a good moment for some clean-up:

    sudo apt --purge autoremove

    This command will remove packages that were automatically installed to satisfy dependencies for other packages and are now no longer needed as dependencies changed or the package(s) needing them were removed in the meantime.

    It may remove more than you like though as some software that came in as a dependency of explicitly installed packages may still be used by itself. See the manual pages of the apt command on how to deal with this.

  • The actual release policy is set in /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades. Edit this file (using an editor via the sudo command) to change the policy if desired. If Ubuntu was installed via the Windows store, this should be set to only installing LTS versions, but you can change this at your own risk.

  • To initiate the actual upgrade, run

    sudo do-release-upgrade -d

    The -d option (which tells to use the latest development release) turned out to be essential though many sources don't mention it. Without it the do-release-upgrade command failed to recognise that there was a new version of Ubuntu available when I tested the procedure. It might be because I tested too early. The new release of Ubuntu was already available in the Windows store but it might not have been marked yet for general distribution via the upgrade mechanism. (See also the do-release-upgrade manual page)

    You will be asked a few questions during the process about how to proceed. y is most of the time a suitable answer.

    Note that on WSL2 (and I guess WSL also) you will see an error message when Ubuntu tries to restart at the end of the process as the Linux infrastructure that is used for that is not supported on WSL/WSL2. You'll have to leave all Ubuntu sessions and it may even be a good idea to simply restart Windows.