Upgrading from 14.04 LTS to 16.04 LTS [duplicate]
You can upgrade smoothly through LTS releases whether it's Server or Desktop. It doesn't matter what you use, you just need to use these commands:
For Desktop Version:
sudo do-release-upgrade
For Server Version:
sudo apt-get install update-manager-core
sudo do-release-upgrade
NOTE: Please always make sure you test the target LTS you're being prompted to upgrade to in a LiveCD on the machine you're using to make sure everything works properly before going in for the real upgrade itself.
Yes, you can upgrade from one Ubuntu LTS version to the next one, skipping the non-LTS releases in-between. It's intended to work that way and it gets tested.
I trusted other answers and proceeded to the upgrade from an up-to-date 14.04 to 16.04 using do-release-upgrade. Now I am facing a kernel panic.
Here are other relevant questions (not mine), most unanswered :
- Problem with installing 16.04. Tried upgrading from 14.04
- Upgrading from 14.04 to 16.04 LTS causes black screen on boot
- Upgrade from 14.04 to 16.04 failed at startup
- Upgrading Xubuntu from 14.04 to 16.04.1 hangs at kernel panic
- Dell XPS 13 DE won't restart after failed update to Ubuntu 16.04 from 14.04
- Ubuntu 16.04 will not boot after update from 14.04
- I can't boot after upgrading to 16.04 (from 14.04)
- https://askubuntu.com/q/830298/136964
- Unable to login to Ubuntu after upgrade from 14.04 to 16.04
- etc. — there seems to be dozens of such opened issues on AskUbuntu, see the "related" tab on each of these links…
Therefore the actual answer to the question "can I smoothly upgrade from one LTS to next LTS release", in particular when applied to 14.04->16.04 upgrade as suggested in the OP, is clearly not "yes" — and most if not all answers are wrong in this regard.
At best, you might smoothly upgrade.