Can I upgrade to v.12 from 8.10 Intrepid easily?

[himagain]

Hi guys,
Need to upgrade an old Sony as a slave for Her new tablet. It is running V. 8.10 Intrepid.
THe old system is very well setup for Her as a user and isn't exhibiting any problems right now - everything works ok.
SO.... should I even think about updating?
If I do from that far back how safe would it be for the existing programs? (Would I have to painfully multiple version update?

[sudodus]

Hi guys,
Need to upgrade an old Sony as a slave for Her new tablet. It is running V. 8.10 Intrepid.
THe old system is very well setup for Her as a user and isn't exhibiting any problems right now - everything works ok.
SO.... should I even think about updating?
If I do from that far back how safe would it be for the existing programs? (Would I have to painfully multiple version update?

I would be a long and risky path with four major upgrading steps to new versions.

8.10 - 9.04 - 9.10 - 10.04 LTS - 12.04 LTS

I would not recommend it. I might not even work, because all versions before 10.04 LTS have passed end of life and are not supported. If the computer is used for internet browsing or email, I would recommend using a system which gets security updates, and 12.04 LTS is a good alternative. You would have to tweak it from the beginning, but it could mean a lot of improvments.

However, the standard Ubuntu today needs a lot of horsepower (cpu and ram) to run well, so please post the specs of her computer, at least cpu, ram, graphics chip/card and wifi chip/card to make it easier to advice with flavour of Ubuntu to run: Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu or Kubuntu. Without any specs, I would recommend Lubuntu or Xubuntu.

[himagain]

Well, took a while to get back here, sorry.
The old machine died in the process!

Was surprised to read that Ubuntu was system heavy!
Does that mean other "light" versions - say Mint aren't so processor/memory intensive?
(I understand Mint is a cutdown Ubuntu, right?)

Thanks for the advice to "forget it", anyway.

So replacement machine will get a new install, anyway.
Also , the LT version means auto-updating I think so will go check this too.

Cheers!

[black veils]

no mint is not a light version of ubuntu.. but lubuntu is

[sudodus]

This is a simple attempt to rank the 'weight' of the desktop environments. The machinery behind it is pretty much the same, based on Ubuntu, and the choice of bundled software is different but can be easily modified.

- Standard Linux Mint is medium light (but there are lighter versions at the Linux Mint community)
- Xubuntu is light and Lubuntu is ultra-light
- while Ubuntu with Unity and Kubuntu with KDE are heavy but provide a lot of eye-candy for powerful computers.

So you can download several iso files and test the different flavours booted from a live CD or USB drive and install what gives you the right balance between speed and eye-candy.