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How to Upgrade Manually to Ubuntu 26.10 "Stonking Stingray"

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  With the development cycle for Ubuntu 26.10 officially underway, Canonical has published stonking/snapshot-1 . For early adopters, developers, and enthusiasts looking to ride the absolute edge of the open-source wave, the temptation to jump from the stable shores of 26.04 LTS, Resolute Raccoon, into the development stream is strong. Because the automated release pathways are not populated so early in the cycle, the standard do-release-upgrade -d tool will politely decline to find the new branch. To make the leap, we must step past the guardrails and manage our repository tracking manually. > Important Prerequisite: Upgrading to a day-one snapshot moves your environment into a highly experimental space. Ensure all core personal files, configurations, and local development repositories are thoroughly backed up before executing these steps. Ubuntu 26.04 has transitioned to a modern, structured deb822 formatting layout for core package sources. This means standard mod...
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I Turned ON All Ubuntu Telemetry.

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I did something today that will make certain corners of the internet audibly gasp.

I didn’t disable telemetry.
I didn’t firewall it.
I didn’t put on a tinfoil hat and boot into a Faraday cage.

No.

I installed every Ubuntu data-donation tool
and opted in manually
like a lunatic
with intent.

Yes. Telemetry.
On.
All of it.

Step 1: Installing the “evil” telemetry tool

First, I installed Ubuntu’s main data-donation package:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ubuntu-report

Then I looked at the data it collects:

ubuntu-report

And what did I see?

  • CPU model
  • GPU model
  • RAM size
  • Screen resolution

Oh no.
My computer… exists.

Step 2: Opting in aggressively

Not satisfied with a passive existence, I explicitly told Ubuntu:

ubuntu-report -f send yes

That’s right.
Not “ask me later”.
Not “maybe”.

YES. SEND IT.

Somewhere, a Canonical server blinked awake like:

“Another one has chosen… participation.”

Step 3: Package usage stats (aka “He installed VLC”)

Next up: popularity-contest.

This reports which packages are installed, not how you use them.

sudo apt install popularity-contest

During install, it politely asks if you want to participate.

I clicked Yes like a villain pressing a red button.

To check it’s alive:

systemctl status popularity-contest

It runs about once a week and basically says:

“User has Firefox. Again.”

Step 4: Crash reporting (because software crashes, shockingly)

Then I enabled Apport, Ubuntu’s crash reporter:

sudo apt install apport

Edit the config:

sudo nano /etc/default/apport

Set:

enabled=1

Then:

sudo systemctl enable apport
sudo systemctl start apport

Now when something explodes, Ubuntu can go:

“Ah. That’s why.”

Instead of:

“Guess we’ll never know.”

Step 5: Confirm I went full chaos mode

To verify I installed everything:

dpkg -l | grep -E "ubuntu-report|popularity-contest|apport"

If all three show up, congratulations—you’ve joined me in telemetry enlightenment.

What Ubuntu actually receives (brace yourself)

  • CPU: yes
  • GPU: yes
  • RAM: exists
  • Installed packages: known
  • Crash stack traces: occasionally

No:

  • Browsing history
  • Files
  • Keystrokes
  • Thoughts
  • Dreams
  • The thing you regret Googling at 3am

Meanwhile, Windows is out here like:

“We noticed you hovered over the Start menu for 2.4 seconds. Are you okay emotionally?”


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