why upgrade?

[rebeltaz]

First, I wanted to say that after upgrading to 9.10, I no longer need the madwifi drivers installed - Atheros based laptop wifi works fine out of the gate after reboot.

But my question, is other than that, what is the advantages of upgrading every time a new release is released? I mean, if my system is working fine, why would I want to fix it?

[judge jankum]

I'm still using 9.04, it's working great...I would like to know if there are any reasons i should though...

[PorkyPie]

Well, upgrading is sometimes good if you have a problem with your current version. It might be fixed in the next release. It's a good thing then to read the Release Notes.

A lot of people upgrade because there are new or updated features.

But, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". You don't have.

One disadvantage I can think of is that things could go wrong with upgrading. So, it's advised to do a fresh install.

[ed-koala]

There are plenty of people that only upgrade from one long term support version to the next. As long as your software doesn't get so dated that to use, say, a new Firefox, requires you to use an updated OS version, there's no great reason to rush upgrading. It takes a long long time, usually, for a program to stop being supported due to age.

That said, I like to keep current if possible. Makes me feel better knowing programs I'm using are (supposedly) being improved.

[J-Buntu]

Jaunty worked perfectly for me, but this little nagging voice was there telling me to upgrade, so i did. If i hadn't upgraded, i'd still be wondering what i was missing out on. Of course there are little niggles with Karmic, but there will be in any upgrade, from any OS. I upgraded on launch day and had no trouble with it apart from small work arounds, like enable this or disable that etc, simple things.

For me Karmic knocked 20 seconds off the boot time and the whole boot to desktop is just much nicer, it fades in nicely now from the login screen to the desktop. It shuts down in 8 seconds, which is about 3 seconds faster than Jaunty for me. I did a clean install, so i have fresh Ext4 file system, which is gonna be around for a while now, meaning i wont have to clean install Lucid - the next LTS. Also the new Grub of course. My lappy just seems to be cooler as well, which is odd because i regressed to the Nvidia 173 from the 185 i used in Jaunty, although it's made no difference in performance, with compiz effects etc, as before it works beautifully.

I'm happy with Karmic, i'm glad i upgraded, because how long do you wait ? You can never be sure of anything.
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HP dv6910ea
Intel Core 2 duo 2Ghz
NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
3Gib RAM
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