Upgrading ASUS Laptop 7.10 to 8.04 - Any Caveats?

[KentonS]

Hi.

I have an ASUS laptop currently configured with Ubuntu 7.10. I'm current with all updates and am running the 2.6.22-16 kernel. I would like very much to click on the Upgrade button in Update Manager and take the upgrade path to 8.04. After reading in this forum about all the problems people have had, though, I'm very afraid to do that.

Here's the hardware configuration of my laptop: Processor - Intel® Core 2 Duo, Core Duo Processor, Celeron with 2MB or 4MB on-die cache
Chipset - Intel 965PM Chipset
Memory – DDR2 533/667 support with up to 4GB RAM
Screen – 15.4” WXGA (1280x800)
Video – Nvidia geForce 8600 with 256MB VRAM
Video Connections – 1 x VGA port/Mini D-sub 15-pin for external display
Mouse – Touch Pad with 2 buttons – supports tapping, horizontal and vertical scrolling
Optical Drive – DVD/CDRW or DVDRW
Card Reader – 4 in 1 card reader support (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO)
Web Cam – 2 Mega Pixel Web Cam *
Card Slot – PCI Expressx1 Card Slot for Express Card 45/54 devices
Wireless –Intel Pro Wireless 3945 - 802.11 a/b/g
USB – 4 USB 2.0 Ports
Firewire – 1394 B Type jack
Audio – Intel High Definition Audio with integrated speakers and Headphone and Mic jacks
Modem – 56 kbs V.92 Fax Modem *
Ethernet – LAN 10/100/1000 Base T PCI
Everything (except the Web Cam, of course) is working fine.

So my question is this: Is there anything there that suggests I might run into trouble should I choose to upgrade? And should I run into trouble, how do I recover? I'm VERY new to Linux and know nothing about what I should backup, how I restore a system should I need to, etc.

I would greatly appreciate any insights, references, etc. anyone can offer that will enable me to approach this task with confidence.

Oh... I should probably mention that I'm using WICD, rather than network-manager.

[snowpine]

Hi Kenton, I would strongly recommend that you burn two Live CDs: Ubuntu 8.04 (the long term support release) and 9.04 (the current stable release). Spend some time using each CD, without any change to your computer, to see which you like better and which is most compatible with your hardware. Once you have made up your mind, back up all of your personal documents, then do a fresh install of either 8.04 or 9.04. Good luck!

[KentonS]

Hi, snowpine, and thanks for the quick (immediate!) response.

A question, though: After I've burned the 8.04 LTS Live CD, tried it out, and presumably found that it works great and I love it, why wouldn't I just hit the Upgrade button in Update Manager? What's the advantage of doing a clean install as opposed to an upgrade?

[snowpine]

You could try that too... it has been a long time since I used 7.10, but I have a hunch that feature might not work any more, because 7.10 has reached its "end of life" and is no longer supported. It is worth a try I suppose.

Personally, I prefer a clean install, because it is a good opportunity to start fresh and get rid of the junk I no longer need.... I guess I am a minimalist that way. :)

Please report back either way, so others reading this thread might benefit from your experience...