Creature of habbit...

[KdotJ]

I love Linux, admittedly I have only been using it a total of 10 months or so. That makes me a newbie in some respects, and I have only been using ubuntu for around 6 months. This means I have only been around for one cycle from Karmic to Lucid.

Currently I have got a fair few PPA's set up for my current configuration. And have edited various bits and pieces along the way. My concern comes when 10.10 is here... I know that I can upgrade but I'm not a fan of this. This break, not work as expected and it doesn't feel fresh. I know the vast majority would say that a clean install is the way to go, and I totally agree.
What worries me, is that I'm not great on change, I like to have things the way I like and keep it that way, so I worry about things being changed, or even worse, taken away. I know that no ones will force me to upgrade when the time comes, but I like to keep up to date.

My main question is, with regards to PPA's for example, are there many times in the last where PPA's cease to exist? Where packages are no longer available?

[ajgreeny]

Not often, though it may be a short while before the new version ppa is available. Very often the newer version of ubuntu will have the new version of the package that you previously had to install using the ppa, so there is little point in using a ppa for the updated ubuntu.

[KdotJ]

Thanks for the reply. I hope they do make it in, I'd be sad to see some of my PPA extras disappear lol

[Ginsu543]

I totally get your aversion to change. The way I protect myself is that I simply install the new version in another partition and keep the current version intact. And then I use GRUB2 to dual-boot. This way, I can check out the new version to see if I like it, but if I don't, I still have my old version there, comfortable and ready to use.

I had exactly this in mind when I put together my current computer system. I have two 1 TB drives, each partitioned this way: 100 GB for Ubuntu and 900 GB for data. Currently, I have Ubuntu 9.10 installed on the 100 GB partition on one 1 TB drive and 10.04 installed on the 100 GB partition on the other 1 TB drive. I can access both 900 GB data partitions from either 9.10 or 10.04. When 10.10 comes out, I will erase 9.10 and install 10.10 on top of it. I will fool around with 10.10 and configure it the way I want. If at any time I don't like 10.10 or it won't do what I need it to do, then I still have a fully working 10.04 still available. By the time 11.04 comes out, my 10.10 should be set up just right.

Your concern about PPA's is valid. When I upgraded from 9.10 to 10.04, I had to wait several months before the PPA's were updated for Lucid. Until then, I just had to go without those programs. But PPA maintainers are people, too, and it just takes them some time to update. You just have to be patient. As of now, all of the programs I use off PPA's have been made available in 10.04. I'm sure that when 10.10 comes out, it will take some time for the PPA's to be updated again. That's just how it goes.