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How to Upgrade to Ubuntu 26.10 Stonking Stingray (2026)

Figure: AI-generated illustration of the do-release-upgrade TUI running the Stonking Stingray upgrade. Real screenshot was unavailable at time of writing.

Ubuntu 26.10 “Stonking Stingray” released on 15 October 2026, and the upgrade channel from 26.04 LTS (and from 25.10) typically opens a few days after the announcement. This guide walks through the exact steps for both desktop users and server admins, plus the three known issues you should clear before you click “Upgrade.”

For the full feature overview, see Ubuntu 26.10 Stonking Stingray Lands: Myna, GNOME 51, Rust Done. For help deciding whether to upgrade from a 26.04 LTS box, see Ubuntu 26.10 vs 26.04 LTS: Which One Should You Run in 2026?.

What you need before you start

• Backup your data. Upgrades almost always go smoothly, but the edge cases — power loss, third-party repo conflict, full disk — are unforgiving. Snapshot or rsync your home directory and any server state to an external drive.
• Currently running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, 25.10, or 26.04.x. If you are on an older LTS (24.04 or 22.04), you must first upgrade to 26.04 (or 25.10) before going to 26.10. There is no direct path from 24.04 to 26.10.
• At least 10 GB free space on the root filesystem for the new package downloads and obsolete-state cleanup.
• Mains power for laptops. Do not start an upgrade on battery — the process can take 30-90 minutes and you cannot pause it cleanly.
• Three caveats specific to 26.10 — see the “Pre-flight checklist” at the end. Skipping these is the difference between a 45-minute upgrade and an afternoon of debugging.

Desktop GUI path (Software Updater)

1. Open Software Updater. It will tell you that “Ubuntu 26.10 is available.” If it does not see anything, you may still be set to “Notify for LTS releases only” — go to Software & Updates → Updates, and change “Notify me of a new Ubuntu version” to “For any new version.” Then run Software Updater again.
2. Click Upgrade. The upgrader reads the release notes, then displays a package overview — what’s being installed, removed, and held back.
3. The “Foreign Packages Installed” prompt will appear if you have any PPAs or external .deb sources enabled. The safe answer is “keep” (the upgrader disables the third-party repo and proceeds); you can re-enable afterwards.
4. Watch the progress. The screen will go through downloading packages, unpacking, configuring services, and cleaning up obsolete packages. Visual glitches (icons changing, wallpaper flashing) are normal and the docs explicitly warn about them.
5. When prompted to remove obsolete packages, say yes unless you have a reason to keep them.
6. Restart when prompted.

Command-line path (do-release-upgrade)

This is the same flow the GUI uses, just without the wrapping TUI.

# Make sure you are fully up to date on your current release first.
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade -y
sudo reboot   # only if a new kernel landed

# Start the upgrade.
sudo do-release-upgrade

If do-release-upgrade returns “No new release found,” you are either already on the latest version, or the upgrade channel has not opened yet (interim upgrades usually go live within a few days of GA). For the impatient:

# Force-upgrade to the development release (NOT recommended unless you read the release notes):
sudo do-release-upgrade -d

Walk through the prompts as for the GUI flow. The process is interactive and asks you to confirm at each major step. Keep the SSH session alive if you are upgrading a remote box — closing your laptop lid can drop the connection. Run it inside tmux or screen if you are doing this over the network:

tmux
sudo do-release-upgrade
# ... walk through prompts ...

Server path (no GUI)

On a headless box the flow is identical except there is no update-manager shortcut — do-release-upgrade is the only entry point. Same caveats:

# /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades must have:
# [DEFAULT]
# Prompt=normal
sudo sed -i 's/^Prompt=.*/Prompt=normal/' /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades
sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y
sudo do-release-upgrade

You will get a heads-up email (via /etc/motd) and a “config file changes” prompt for services you have edited by hand. Answer carefully — the default is to keep your version, which is usually correct on a server you have been hand-tuning.

From 25.10 to 26.10

If you are on 25.10 Questing Quokka, the upgrade is the same procedure but the support window is shorter — 25.10 EOLs on 9 July 2026, which has already passed by the time you read this. So if you are still on 25.10 in late October 2026, the canonical advice is to go straight to 26.04 LTS, not 26.10. But do-release-upgrade will let you pick — choose 26.10 only if you want the latest and can live with the 9-month support window.

From 26.04 LTS to 26.10 — when does the channel open?

Interim upgrades become available a few days after the official release date. If you are reading this within 2-3 days of 26.10 GA, the prompt in Software Updater may not yet be active. Refresh every few days; the upgrade channel rolls out progressively.

For the LTS-to-LTS users: you do not need to go through 26.10 at all. The 26.04 → 26.04.1 → 26.04.2 LTS path keeps you on five-year support. The 26.04 → 26.10 path exists but trades stability for currency.

Pre-flight checklist — three blockers that hit real users

These are the known issues at release time that will stop an upgrade if you hit them. Check all three before you start.

1. Dangling /lib32 symlink

If /lib32 is a dangling symbolic link (i.e. points to a path that no longer exists), the upgrade may stop while installing base-files. This has been reported on systems that were upgraded through several older releases (especially ones that touched the multiarch layout).

How to check:

ls -ld /lib32
# If it is broken, fix it BEFORE the upgrade:
sudo rm /lib32          # only if it is genuinely broken
# or, if you need the multiarch lib32 directory back:
sudo ln -s /usr/lib32 /lib32

See Launchpad bug LP: #2131303 for context.

2. TPM-backed full-disk encryption

Systems running under TPM-backed FDE cannot upgrade from 26.04 LTS to 26.10 on release. Canonical anticipates enabling these upgrades during the 26.10 lifecycle, but at GA the upgrader blocks them.

How to tell if you are affected:

sudo cryptsetup luksDump /dev/nvme0n1p2 | grep -E '(HW_ROT|tpm)'
#  -- if HW_ROT=1 and there is a TPM token, you are on TPM-backed FDE.

Options:

• Wait until the upgrader is enabled for TPM-FDE systems during the 26.10 lifecycle (likely within 1-2 point releases).
• Decrypt the disk and re-encrypt without TPM backing (this requires a backup-and-restore; not trivial).
• Do a fresh install of 26.10 instead of an in-place upgrade.

3. Unsupported /boot configurations

Work is under way to make the release upgrader detect affected systems and block an unsafe upgrade (LP: #2170211). If your /boot is on a separate partition and is too small (under ~750 MB), the upgrader will refuse rather than brick the box. Check df -h /boot and resize if needed.

After the upgrade

# Confirm the new version
lsb_release -a
# Distributor ID: Ubuntu
# Description:    Ubuntu 26.10
# Release:        26.10
# Codename:       stonking

# Confirm the new kernel
uname -r
# 7.3.0-9.9-generic (or similar)

# Re-enable any third-party PPAs you disabled during the upgrade,
# then update:

sudo add-apt-repository --enable <ppa-name>
sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y

If you want to try **Myna** (the headline new feature), install it on the freshly-upgraded system:

```bash
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-desktop-team/myna
sudo apt install myna-config
# Open Myna settings from Activities and follow the setup.

When to stay on 26.04 LTS

Do not upgrade to 26.10 if any of these apply:

• You run a fleet of machines and rely on the five-year support window.
• Your hardware vendor certifies 26.04 LTS specifically. NVIDIA’s data-center driver, certain workstation GPU drivers, and a few commercial ISVs only validate against LTS releases.
• You rely on stability over currency. Interim releases get fewer bug fixes between point releases than LTS.

If any of these is true, stay on 26.04 LTS, take the 26.04.1 point release, and wait for 28.04 LTS.

Verdict

Upgrading to 26.10 Stonking Stingray from 26.04 is a routine, well-trodden path. The three blockers above are the only ones with public launchpad bugs attached; everything else is the same dialog flow that has worked since 18.04. Give yourself an hour for a desktop box, 90 minutes for a server with lots of packages, and have a backup before you start.

For the broader release overview, see Ubuntu 26.10 Stonking Stingray Lands: Myna, GNOME 51, Rust Done. For the kernel/RISC-V/AI specifics, see Ubuntu 26.10 Deep Dive: Kernel 7.3, RISC-V, amd64v3, Myna.

Sources: Upgrade Ubuntu Desktop (official docs), Ubuntu 26.10 release notes — known issues, do-release-upgrade(8) manpage.