How do I know what version `do-release-upgrade` will upgrade to?

Question

I'm running Lubuntu LTS 14.04 and I'm looking to upgrade to the latest LTS (16.04). All upgrade guides (for example this one) seem to suggest that I should use the official upgrading script called do-release-upgrade.

But how do I know that this will take me from 14.04 to 16.04 and not some other version, like for example the latest release 16.10?

The output of do-release-upgrade itself does not seem to contain the version it's upgrading to. Or am I missing something here?

Solution

You can check:

$ do-release-upgrade -c
Checking for a new Ubuntu release
New release '17.04' available.
Run 'do-release-upgrade' to upgrade to it.

Or run the upgrade and cancel:

$ do-release-upgrade
Checking for a new Ubuntu release
Get:1 Upgrade tool signature [836 B]
Get:2 Upgrade tool [1,268 kB]
Fetched 1,269 kB in 0s (0 B/s)
authenticate 'zesty.tar.gz' against 'zesty.tar.gz.gpg'
extracting 'zesty.tar.gz'
[sudo] password for muru:

It's clear from both outputs that I'll be upgraded to 17.04 (zesty).

$ do-release-upgrade --help
Usage: do-release-upgrade [options]

Options:
...
  -c, --check-dist-upgrade-only
                        Check only if a new distribution release is available
                        and report the result via the exit code

Comments

[Jacktose]

Weird that that's not in man do-release-upgrade.

[muru]

Odd. It's in do-release-upgrade --help. Probably worth filing a bug report.

[Jacktose]

Done: bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-release-upgrader/+b‌​ug/…