Moving to Natty

**jermza** · February 24th, 2011

I know it's not quite time yet, but I've been reading about the newer interface coming in April and wanted to get some thoughts from those in the know.

When the time comes to do the major upgrade from 10.10, would you recommend that we do it? Or should we wait a few months still? I've heard that Unity is designed for netbooks and not desktops, which worries me especially because I have a large monitor with high resolution and don't want to end up with an OS that isn't designed for this.

What do you know about Natty and its compatibility with larger screens and higher resolutions? Will the top panel still be able to be checked to "not expand"?

Am I just being ignorant?

**wilee-nilee** · February 24th, 2011

Don't upgrade to it boot it with a OS that works.

Natty is in development you have to ask yourself can you afford to have your only OS stop working randomly.

**zenwalker** · February 24th, 2011

Its in ALPHA stage. And i tried it on my dell T3500 workstation machine in Virtualbox over XP host. It worked for a while, i did upgrade to the new packages. Then it didnt boot at all. It always hangs at boot. i dont understand why.

So use virtualbox to try it out. Yes it uses unity as a new GUI Framework. Its quite good.

**jermza** · February 24th, 2011

So would you recommend that, when the time comes, I DON'T upgrade but rather wait a few months?

Or should one upgrade immediately?

**rburkartjo** · February 24th, 2011

jer wait about a month after the release they update if you want to. you could always google search for problems with 11.04 and then make an informed decision

**Zill** · February 24th, 2011

Originally Posted by jermza

So would you recommend that, when the time comes, I DON'T upgrade but rather wait a few months?

Or should one upgrade immediately?

A friendly bit of advice (un-original!):

If it ain't broke, don't fix it

**walt.smith1960** · February 24th, 2011

Originally Posted by Zill

A friendly bit of advice (un-original!):

If it ain't broke, don't fix it

How about "If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is"

If Linux & Ubuntu change their "you can have as many operating systems installed as you want" philosophy, I'm in trouble. Have one that works, one (or more) to mess with.

**rburkartjo** · February 24th, 2011

walt done that so many times i have lost track

**eolson** · April 8th, 2011

If it was me, and it isn't, I'd be for waiting a long, long time. Probably until 11.10 or after. Unity looks cool, but is not nearly a polished product. It takes away some of the things you used to be able to do and depending on your applications can give you a big hit in productivity in it's current form. I'm hoping for the best, but becoming more disillusioned as time goes on. I've had to take three of our four machines off of Natty. The productivity (not the alfa/beta bugs, those I was ready to accept and take the hit for, the extra steps involved are what hurt). It was coming to about 15 minutes a day per employee. So what's the big deal about 15 minutes a day? I'm paying my employee's $15/hr or $.25 per minute. 15 minutes a day comes to $3.75 per day or $18.75 a week per employee. Four employees makes $75 per week. 52 weeks per year you get $3900. Adds up. Somebody has to eat the dollars. I'd just as soon stand pat or move to another distro if necessary. I'm hanging in there and hoping for the best.

**Zill** · April 9th, 2011

Originally Posted by eolson

...52 weeks per year you get $3900. Adds up...

If you are running a business then this is a very good point! Generally a business just needs good reliable software that will meet its needs. There is generally no need for the "latest and greatest" software!

This is why, imho, a business should simply use the latest LTS (Long Term Support) version of Ubuntu. Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS gives a stable platform that will not need desktop PCs to be upgraded until April 2013.