You might be able to skip a Fedora release when upgrading

Jan 16, 2016 21:10 GMT  ·  By

Fedora developers are currently discussing the possibility of a new upgrade method for future versions of the operating system that might allow users to skip a certain Fedora release and upgrade to the most recent version available.

As you might know, Fedora and many other GNU/Linux distributions require users to do an Incremental upgrade when attempting to move from an older version of the operating system to the most recent one. For example, if you want to upgrade from Fedora 21 to Fedora 23, you will have to first upgrade to Fedora 22.

No one complained about this before, though we have to admit that it is a bit strange, mostly because that's how GNU/Linux operating systems work. You either upgrade to the next-in-line release or make a fresh install. This is also the case for other operating systems out there, including Mac OS X and iOS. You can't skip a version when upgrading.

"The official ‘story’ on this was that even if you wanted to skip a release entirely, you were supposed to upgrade to it – so if you wanted to run Fedora 21 until it went EOL then go to Fedora 23, you were still supposed to upgrade to Fedora 22 first, then straight to Fedora 23. This has long struck many people as a bit odd, though, and recently we’re taking steps to do something about it," said Adam Williamson, Fedora QA.

The future of Fedora upgrades

Lately, Fedora upgrades have become more stable and reliable, mostly because of some brand-new technologies that have been introduced in the latest versions of the distribution, such as the DNF package manager. Mr. Williamson theorizes about an innovative method that might support official upgrade of the Fedora Linux operating system across two releases in the future.

You can read more about the new concept proposed by Adam Williamson in his full-length post, where you can also drop a comment if you want to share your thoughts on the matter, as feedback is always welcome. However, we believe that if this new upgrade method is implemented in Fedora Linux, more distributions will switch to it afterwards, which is kind of cool if you think about it and it will save us a lot of time.