When do you upgrade?

[samalex]

Just curious, when do you upgrade to the latest version of Ubuntu? I for one am loving 10.04 now that it's installed, and I can see how it's a much improvement over 9.04 ... but with that being said I loved 9.04 when I ran it as well.

So just curious, do you reinstall/upgrade with every release (every 6 months), maybe every major release (every year), or just with every LTS version (every 2 years)? Or do you have no cycle?

I wish Ubuntu would just release software for each major version as updates for prior versions without requiring an entire distro upgrade. Is that even possible? For example I really love the latest version of OpenOffice and Evolution, but the versions in the repositories for 9.04 were behind what 10.04 offered.

Thanks -

Sam

[chriswyatt]

I'm very impatient and often update to the beta or the release candidate, I can't help it!

[ubunterooster]

Using 10.10 occasionally

[cariboo]

When the latest tool-chain is uploaded.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

The releases are every 6 months. However, I thought that any release is supported for 18 months, the desktop LTS releases for 3 years, and the server LTS releases for 5 years. :confused:

[NMFTM]

Every 6 months. Although, I usually wait a few days after a new release just in case.

[marshmallow1304]

I usually start dual-booting at beta or a little before, then do a fresh install a few weeks to a month after release.

[Khakilang]

I choose every 6 month so that I don't miss out anything new. Anyway I got some computer to run older version.

[NightwishFan]

I generally use the latest stable version if my hardware works. I keep the development version in a virtual machine for testing and bug reporting (I am aware of when I should/should not report bugs due to it being in a virtual machine, though generally my bug reports are only useful for usability issues anyway).

I generally give to friends or interested parties the current LTS edition, unless of course they have a laptop or newer piece of hardware. (Unless of course the newest edition IS the LTS ;). I am fond the "point" releases of LTS editions.

[xpod]

As far as my main machine(Desktop) is concerned it has the same dual boot setup now as i`ve been using since my very first months with Ubuntu. The "main machine" itself has changed & evolved in that time but the actual Ubuntu setup generally stays the same.
It has the two hard drives with a matching Ubuntu installation on each. About a month or two before final release time i`ll upgrade one of the drives to the development version with a clean install and start using that. Once it becomes the current release then i upgrade the other drive via apt.
I`ve never really had any serious issues that have prevented me using the development version although leaving it till a month or so before it`s a final release probably helps......unlike many who are always busy waiting for the next development release as soon as the previous version becomes final.

I`m keen but i`m not that keen.:p

[Maupertus]

It depends a little bit, but I usually upgrade with the release of the Beta (strangely enough, it has never been a problem, but 2 times has given me a small migraine with the final update from beta to final)

My laptop and netbook are where I fool around and are almost always running an alpha release.

So I've ticked the every six month box, but it doesn't really apply. :)

[samalex]

I'm surprised so many upgrade every 6 months... For me one reason I enjoy Linux is the stability of it and the lack of needing to reinstall every few months or even years to keep a stable box. I guess that's my biggest gripe, I want the latest and greatest, but I don't want to start from scratch every 6 months or even year to get that. And yeah there are distro upgrades to the latest version, but I rarely have those go 100% perfect.

In the Windows world it's common to reinstall every so often just to avoid bit rot or to clean spyware, viruses, rootkits, etc, and I'm proud that this isn't something that plagues Linux.

So personally 10.04 is rockin' along, but the only reasons I moved from 9.04 to 10.04 were because of Ubuntu One support, faster boot times, GRUB2, and a few other software updates that were never available for 9.04 (Evolution, OOo, etc). If 10.10 or 11.04 offers similar advances I may consider a move to the 'latest and greatest', but for now my system is quite honestly perfect.

Sam

[irv]

I went with every 6 months because I keep two hard drives for my laptop, and I keep switching them out when a new version comes out. This way if the new release has problems with my hardware, I can just pop the other drive back in and I am back running. (I never had to do this, but it is my safety-valve just in case).

[cpmman]

i went with every 6 months because i keep two hard drives for my laptop, and i keep switching them out when a new version comes out. This way if the new release has problems with my hardware, i can just pop the other drive back in and i am back running. (i never had to do this, but it is my safety-valve just in case).

+1

[Frogs Hair]

I really like Lucid Lynx , but I know I will have a hard time avoiding the download option in October . As the 10.10 release comes closer and reports from the alpha & beta users come in , I will get curious and impatient .

[LowSky]

Once a release goes into Beta I usually install it.

[ELD]

Every release as i like to play, but i will probably download to 9.10 at the moment since 10.04 has constant hard freezes.