Upgrading Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10 when Update Manager doesn't let you

I replaced jaunty with karmic in /etc/apt/sources.list, then re-ran apt-get update, apt-get upgrade, apt-get dist-upgrade.

$ sudo vi /etc/apt/source.list

then in vi substitute jaunty for karmic

:%s/jaunty/karmic/g

Save it:

:wq!

Then run apt-get update:

$ sudo apt-get update

Then run apt-get upgrade:

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

Then run apt-get dist-upgrade:

$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

None of the other solutions recommended by anyone else fixed the issue for me. This worked like a charm to force an upgrade from 9.04 to 10.04.

Maybe the upgrade documentation does help you. There are two other ways on how to do it.

Edit: This guide does also have a new method using the console...if that doesn't work I'm out of ideas, sorry:

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

Did you already tried to upgrade using a CD/DVD?

Went through the same channels outlined here to try to get it to upgrade. None of them worked.

So I went back to the drawing board.

I had ignored posts that said to just do Alt + F2 (for the Run App window) then type "update-manager -d".

I assumed it was just a keyboard shortcut to Update Manager and I could do that just as easily using System | Administration | Update Manager.

But that -d switch must've made the difference because when I accessed Update Manager through the Run Application window using the -d switch there it was! - the mysterious missing Upgrade to 9.10 prompt.