Upgrading Fedora 25 to Fedora 26

Fedora 26 was just officially released. You’ll likely want to upgrade your system to the latest version of Fedora. Fedora offers a command-line method for upgrading Fedora 25 to Fedora 26. The Fedora 25 Workstation also has a graphical upgrade method.

Upgrading Fedora 25 Workstation to Fedora 26

Soon after release time, a notification appears to tell you an upgrade is available. You can click the notification to launch the GNOME Software app. Or you can choose Software from GNOME Shell.

Choose the Updates tab in GNOME Software and you should see a window like this:

If you don’t see anything on this screen, try using the reload tool at the top left. It may take some time after release for all systems to be able to see an upgrade available.

Choose Download to fetch the upgrade packages. You can continue working until you reach a stopping point, and the download is complete. Then use GNOME Software to restart your system and apply the upgrade. Upgrading takes time, so you may want to grab a coffee and come back to the system later.

Using the command line

If you’ve upgraded from past Fedora releases, you are likely familiar with the dnf upgrade plugin. This method is the recommended and supported way to upgrade from Fedora 25 to Fedora 26. Using this plugin will make your upgrade to Fedora 26 simple and easy.

1. Update software and back up your system

Before you do anything, you will want to make sure you have the latest software for Fedora 25 before beginning the upgrade process. To update your software, use GNOME Software or enter the following command in a terminal.

sudo dnf upgrade --refresh

Additionally, make sure you back up your system before proceeding. For help with taking a backup, see the backup series on the Fedora Magazine.

2. Install the DNF plugin

Next, open a terminal and type the following command to install the plugin:

sudo dnf install dnf-plugin-system-upgrade

3. Start the update with DNF

Now that your system is up-to-date, backed up, and you have the DNF plugin installed, you can begin the upgrade by using the following command in a terminal:

sudo dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=26

This command will begin downloading all of the upgrades for your machine locally to prepare for the upgrade. If you have issues when upgrading because of packages without updates, broken dependencies, or retired packages, add the –allowerasing flag when typing the above command. This will allow DNF to remove packages that may be blocking your system upgrade.

Upgrading to Fedora 26: Starting upgrade

 

4. Reboot and upgrade

Once the previous command finishes downloading all of the upgrades, your system will be ready for rebooting. To boot your system into the upgrade process, type the following command in a terminal:

sudo dnf system-upgrade reboot

Your system will restart after this. Many releases ago, the fedup tool would create a new option on the kernel selection / boot screen. With the dnf-plugin-system-upgrade package, your system reboots into the current kernel installed for Fedora 25; this is normal. Shortly after the kernel selection screen, your system begins the upgrade process.

Now might be a good time for a coffee break! Once it finishes, your system will restart and you’ll be able to log in to your newly upgraded Fedora 26 system.

Upgrading Fedora: Upgrade in progress

Upgrading Fedora: Upgrade complete!

Resolving upgrade problems

On occasion, there may be unexpected issues when you upgrade your system. If you experience any issues, please visit the DNF system upgrade wiki page for more information on troubleshooting in the event of a problem.

If you are having issues upgrading and have third-party repositories installed on your system, you may need to disable these repositories while you are upgrading. For support with repositories not provided by Fedora, please contact the providers of the repositories.

Using Fedora Atomic Host?

Please see the Atomic host upgrade instructions.

Further information

For more detailed instructions on using dnf for upgrading, including a breakdown of other flags, check out the DNF system upgrade wiki article. This page also has frequently asked questions you may have during an upgrade.

Happy upgrades!

Fedora Project community New in Fedora

65 Comments

  1. aniki

    hello, should I use DNF system upgrade to upgrade from Beta to final release ? can I use dnf distro-sync for it ? which one better ?

    • You should be able to continue with just the normal updates process, either using GNOME Software or dnf on the command line — no need to do anything special. Sometimes we end up rolling back things from the beta, making distro-sync necessary, but I don’t think that happened this time around.

      • aniki

        Thank you, I did dnf update and its working properly to upgrade to final release.
        F26 is awesome, I love it.

  2. Mike

    I’m stuck, when I attempted to upgrade via the terminal I get the following error message:
    The downloaded packages were saved in cache until the next successful transaction.
    You can remove cached packages by executing ‘dnf clean packages’.
    Error: Transaction check error:
    file /usr/share/locale/en/libfwup.po conflicts between attempted installs of fwupdate-libs-8-2.fc26.i686 and fwupdate-libs-8-2.fc26.x86_64

    • @Mike: It sounds like you either have two architecture packages installed, or that you’re trying to update a package that requires the .i686 version of fwupdate. You might want to try removing unnecessary .i686 packages you installed previously, or things you didn’t get from Fedora, before upgrading. Please remember the Magazine is not a help forum, so refer to https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicating_and_getting_help for more information.

      • Mike

        Thanks Paul, I fixed the problem by removing fwupdate-libs-8-2.fc25.i686 then starting the upgrade process again. Upgrade went smooth and all is working well so for. About the only thing I needed to do after upgrade was to install the new wallpapers, they were not included in the upgrade.

    • Brian

      I just upgraded from fedora25 to fedora26 and had the same issue. It’s an easy solution. Rerun your install script with dnf and include ” -x fwupdate-libs-8-2.fc26.i686″ assuming that you have a 64 bit system. I also needed to use ” –allowerasing ” to remove an incompatible version of Chromium. After a couple of tries as noted, the upgrade went smoothly…the best yet. Good luck

  3. Germano Corrêa

    One question: I have alternative repos configured in my system, all of them for F25. If I upgrade, they coud be automatically upgraded to a F26 version, if avaiable, or I have to manually change it?

    • @Germano: If the repository owners provide their repo configurations using the right tags, they should. You’ll need to consult with the folks who run those repositories if they don’t, since Fedora doesn’t control those configurations.

    • I have had a similar issue with the Resilio Sync repo.

      Disable it, upgrade, then enable after reboot and successful upgrade.

    • Brian

      I just completed the upgrade to Fedora26 using the command line install and dnf. Aside from the need to affirm download of repo gpg hash #, everything was included by default. Nice distro.

  4. Patrick

    The webkit package got downgraded from 25 to 26? Strange

  5. Tshiamo

    Upgrade’s looking fantastic. Thank you so much to everyone who was involved!

    I just feel I should make other peeps aware of a certain bug I had to deal with after upgrading.

    If you get that dreaded blank screen after logging in, it might be because of this:
    https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F26_bugs#screen-recording-freezes-gnome

    Hopefully this might save someone else some time (stole an hour or so from me).

  6. No problem upgraded from version 25 to version 26 using the command line. Everything works! Thank you!

  7. Jean-Philippe

    Awesome post,
    The upgrade worked like a charm, (The command line one) no problem to report, I feel I need to give back a bit, this is awesome.

    Thank you,
    Jean-Philippe

  8. Anon

    Be warned: If you loose power during the install, you will be screwed! This happened to me (everything bad happens to me).

  9. Marcello

    The upgrade via the command line run smoothly with no glitches at all. Thank you!

  10. Al

    No problem upgrading from F24 to F26 using cli. Good job.

  11. Laszlo

    Upgraded to F26 via Gnome Software (its even offered me to remove an uncompatible packege in order to have smooth installation) Great job Team, everything is working fast.

  12. horizon brave

    many people use RPM Fusion repositories to have a usable Fedora system (who doesn’t?).. so I think at least information for people using these BASIC repositories should be added. I also imagine that if the attitude is going to be, we don’t provide them we won’t help them a little mention regarding the need to address eventual repository conflicts before the upgrade should be added to the article.. since a lot of non-power users (like me) use fedora nowadays and that graphical update tool (in Gnome Software) seems designed right for them 🙂 Many thanks

    • Al

      @horizon brave, I also use RPMFusion and those repos were automatically upgraded at the same time. Happy days!

  13. Bartosz Piekarski

    For me, dnf stopped working after the upgrade.
    https://pastebin.com/gfiRCx8e

  14. wang ming heng

    I’ll check it out later maybe, though I don’t want to break my current GTK theme. I’ll see how gnome software will work. Somehow these graphic tools have left me an impression that they probably won’t work correctly on my machines. -_-|| . But on my company’s computers windows 10 has many issues too, such as missing power options, proxy setting being some god-knows-how-it-works stuff, glad to see that windows is broken too.

  15. Can I upgrade from Fedora 25 Mate to Fedora 26 Mate through dnf? I saw in the list of ‘Installing’ packages that it had gnome related stuff and I don’t want that.

    • antikythera

      that GNOME related stuff is actually GTK+3 without which MATE 1.18 wouldn’t run. If you install a fresh copy you’d get the same and fully updated Fedora 25 will also contain the same.

      • *Fedora 24 Mate,can I upgrade from F24 to F26 via dnf?

        • antikythera

          yes, same method as detailed above. you don’t need to apply F25 first but just in case something goes wrong in the middle of the process, take a backup of your important files first.

  16. Dan

    Today I got “Failed to get AppStream metadata: Commit hash_goes_here : GPG verification enabled, but no signatures found.” out of the blue in GNOME Software after pressing “refresh”. Exhilarating.

  17. Greg P

    The last time I tried this will remain the last time I tried this. First of all, this process takes a long time, seemingly longer than just installing. Then I ended up with an unbootable system.
    My preferred method is using a netinstall disk.

    • Sorry it didn’t work out for you. Most reports I’ve seen (and my own experience) is that the upgrade process is fast and painless.

    • Anatoly

      You are right, but there are the reason not install f26 as a new one. So first time I do that. But get not that I want. I’ve already wrote that some soft is extremely desirable to have in version of f 25, not f 26. For example Kate, KWrite, dolphin, okteta. Because of new version don’t work as root. After installed f 26 as new I noticed that. It’s not satisfactory for me… So I remove f 25 tune this soft as block for update and upgrage and only after that I upgrade f 25 to f 26. I got satisfactory variant of f 26 with working dolphin an others as root. I am very glad such result!

  18. Edward

    Got some issues with i686 apps, removed them and restarted the system upgrade, other then that the installation was flawless for me.

  19. Jakub

    Just upgraded to 26 and I can’t boot into gnome now. After boot animation instead gnome login prompt I get kicked back to tty7 and last line is somehow strange: [ok] started wpa supplicant.anager….ods from akmod packages.ats…..ion as a Server daemon..

    • Jakub

      I managed to fix this issue and avoid reinstalling system by removing every infinality package and installing a standard one. It’s a pitty that system didn’t say anything just stopped before running gnome. I had to switch to another tty console and after executing command to run gnome I got some more errors indicating a problem with infinality.

      • pepe

        Same problem – after a few hrs of searching I’ve managed to find out that the problem is from Infinality. Uninstalled it and now the gui starts but I am unable to login (kicks me back to login screen). I am tired of this and I cannot live without infinality (I cannot stand ugly fonts). It is kind of a shame, that nobody tested it – many ppl use infinality.

  20. Anatoly

    It is bad advice to allow upgrade plugin to remove packages. Because of you may have them not to upgrade. And special block them from upgrading/updating process.But if you allow to remove pluging do that and install new version one – exact that you want to avoid. Instead you must resolve conflict. Forbid this process upgrade some programs is good idea. But this process try to upgrade dependences packages not upgrading an own package. This thing occurs conflict. So ins want to install lib from f 26 and program from f 25. Program from f 25 know nothing about new version of libs. They only for f 26. In short you must forbid to upgrade libs too. And other dependence packages too that plugin try to upgrade. This conflicts will be solved.

  21. Anatoly

    usual there is a line in installator menu with name Upgrade as it is done in openSuse instolators. That is very advanced instolator in compare to fedora one. There are detailed soft tune. In addition to you have match better tune of disks, partitions, set attributes of mounting, formatting and so on. fedora installator require to format root partition though it may be already formatted to be empty and ready for install. Using utility mkfs.ext4 and similar. I know instalator used the same command but I can’t do so! Instolator of openSuse allows this variant but get warning about that. You may even write root partition above old one. But it is very bad idea except the case you have already installed OS with the same version but forgot to install boot loader. And wipe old one. So if you format partition they set new UUID to that and you can’t mount. So you may write UUID on paper before and then change it for an old on by fdisk for example. Than you may start OS…
    The names of disk left unchanged in any cases but UUID every time new one. This will work even if you change mount by id. Never mount by label! because of labels of different disks often the same and if you try to mount another disk you will get error. But only at automount. Manually you may mount any case. If you don’t forget to attach disk certainly.

  22. Pixel

    The DNS upgrade works on KDE?

  23. Wacom still not working on wayland, i still have the same double cursor and i can’t configure button mapping on my intuos (PTH 451).Gnome advertises wacom will work out of the box in this kernel 3.24 on wayland but mine are not working at all.Such a letdown.

  24. I successfully installed today using Gnome (after a bit of a fail trying to do it overnight) and everything is working very nicely indeed:)

  25. vaughn

    Did the upgrade via the command line on a couple boxes that have been upgraded each new version since 23.Each of the previous installs went flawlessly. Going from 25 -> 26 I lost sound. There is nothing listed for devices for sound output on 2 out of three machines. These are standard HP workstation class machines with nothing funky.

  26. Anatoly

    after upgrade version number not changed!!! Also Os is fedora 26 all soft see them as 25… How to change version number I don’t know. All soft installed for fedora 25 it takes conflicts. I suspect there is come file in witch manually is wrote version number. I see there are some environment variables that still 25 not 26.
    So this procedure is not correct. We get something between 25 and 26. Certainty you’ll get f25 soft only for files connected with this technique. All others are fedora 25…

  27. Gilson Rodrigues

    The upgrade occurred smoothly, no problems at all. Congratulations to all!

  28. Brian

    A warning to users installing LXQT Desktop or just trying out Qupzilla web browser. If you have an NVidia card, don’t waste your time with Qupzilla web browser…any version. Qupzilla crashes repeatedly, and David Rosca of Qupzilla writes “nowrep commented Feb 13, 2017

    Well, nvidia is crappy either way 😀 You should use –disable-gpu then.”

    Don’t waste your time.
    LXQT itself is a nice tight Desktop and quick, but use another web browser.

    • Brian

      After checking Qupzilla’s issues page…apparently Qupzilla crashes alot, for various reasons. Considering that Fedora26 is an excellent distro and that there are a number of much better options, I don’t understand why Qupzilla Web browser is even included. It fails miserably.

  29. Shubham

    i’m unable to boot into my os after upgrading from 25 to 26.
    Startup struks at
    [ok] Starting gnome display manager

  30. Billy

    The upgrade via the command line went fine but Gnome extensions no longer work. They’re all grayed out in Tweak and enabling extensions via extensions.gnome.org/local/ doesn’t do anything.

    I found that after the upgrade the chrome-gnome-shell package was installed from the @System repo. I tried uninstalling the package, giving the region51-chrome-gnome-shell repo a higher priority and reinstalling the package but that hasn’t made any difference.

    I’ve also found that it’s not an SELinux issue. Hope I won’t have to do a fresh install to get my docky back…

  31. Jakub

    Just afer upgrading from version 25 I can’t see close buttons on windows preview screen anymore (the one which is shown on super+S keypress)

    http://imgur.com/a/epyCF this screenshot everything.

  32. Funcionou. Ótimo!

  33. wale Akins

    I used to Gnome Store, effortless upgrade.

  34. Luciano Bontempo

    Hi, during the upgrade instalation, in 80%, I had to turnoff the computer! when I restarted the computer the Fedora 25 start normally, but with looks Fedora 26. I have traing to repeat the updrade process but when i try command system-upgrade download –releasever=26 return the mensage that the package dnf-system-upgrade is not staled , how to re-install the upgrade?

  35. A

    After upgrade booting stuck on started gnome display manger. Dispatcher service… With blinking cursor.

    Not able to do tt 2/3/4/5 using F-2/f-3/f-4/f-5.

    How to move ahead??

    • @A: try using Ctrl+Alt+F2/F3/F4 etc. for different tty terminals. This is not a troubleshooting forum, but it sounds to me like it might be a compatibility issue with your video card. Check the forums or IRC for help.

      • Jakub

        @A – have you been using infinality in your installation?

        Problem you describe is not necessarily related to video card. In my case Gnome display manager was also not starting and it looked like it froze and despite pressing ctrl+alt+F2/3/4… to switch to other tty nothing was happening. Nearly nothing as it was visible that fonts are blinking a little on keypress. So I continued with pressing the shortcut until it worked. Then it was working fine – I was able to login and there were no lags at all. I removed infinality related packages and installed standard ones. After that system was booting just fine! *see my previous post.

  36. Massimo

    Does this procedure work also with Fedora Server edition?

  37. Yogesh Vedpathak

    I upgrade Fedora 25 to Fedora 26 successfully using command line. But the postgresql service was in failed state.

    • Jerry

      f25 uses postgres 9.5.x f26 uses 9.6.3. The versions are not compatible.

      You need to move the old postgresql directory to a new location and
      use initdb to create a new database cluster.

      You can then start the new but empty version of postgresql.

      If you have a backup you can load the backup with something
      like: psql -f db.backup

      if you don’t have a backup you might have to install the old f25 server rpms
      and start old server pointing to the old saved cluster and take a backup ( pg_dumpall)

      then replace the old server rpms with the new server rpms and try to restore the
      backup,

      Good Luck

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