Upgrading Hoary Hedgehog to Oneiric Ocelot

[kio_http]

Hi, I have a Kubuntu Hoary system on an old computer (very surprising and long story to explain). Will upgrading it to each release cycle in between work smoothly. There is a lot of stuff on this computer and upgrading from Hoary is a major change also as its Kubuntu there is a huge difference in KDE 3 and 4.

[2F4U]

It may work, but I would really doubt it. Anyways, whether you do a fresh install or attempt an upgrade, you would have to make a backup of your data. There are uncountable posts about people loosing their data during an upgrade and if you value your data, make a backup before you do anything.

[Lars Noodén]

I would be inclined to recommend a clean installation, especially if you have a separate /home directory. As usual, back everything up first.

[snowpine]

Upgrading Ubuntu is very well-documented. I recommend you read the following page carefully and write back if you have any specific questions:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes

Personally I would do a fresh install of the new release, side-by-side with the old in a "dual boot" configuration. Then I could gradually move files/documents/settings over to the new environment, with dual-boot to the old install as a "safety net."

[kio_http]

It may work, but I would really doubt it. Anyways, whether you do a fresh install or attempt an upgrade, you would have to make a backup of your data. There are uncountable posts about people loosing their data during an upgrade and if you value your data, make a backup before you do anything.

I think I'll back up and try the upgrade.

[mörgæs]

Apart from the risk: Have you thought of how long it takes compared to a fresh install?

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

I have my doubts that it would be successful.

If you upgrade from Hoary Hedgehog to Oneiric Ocelot you will not get all of the changes. For example, it will not upgrade you to the ext4 file system nor will it upgrade you to Grub 2.

Also, upgrading using the old-releases repositories is not a simple process.

You will spend I lot of time downloading updated packages from the repositories, and installing the updates. It would be a lot faster to make a backup of you /home, just in case you run into problems. Then, you could install the new release, or dual boot with Hoary Hedgehog and the new release; then, copy over what you want to keep to the new release from the /home of Hoary Hedgehog. Downloading the newer release from one of the torrent mirrors, that can be found on the Ubuntu website, would make it even faster.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

personally i would do a fresh install of the new release, side-by-side with the old in a "dual boot" configuration. Then i could gradually move files/documents/settings over to the new environment, with dual-boot to the old install as a "safety net."

+1

[kio_http]

I've got time and I can to other things while it upgrades.

I currently upgraded to Karmic 9.10. The switch fro KDE 3 to 4 is over! Except for a few hiccups everything worked out.