Keep upgrading or stick with a LTS?

[Welly Wu]

I have an ASUS N61JV-X2 notebook PC with Crucial 8 gigabytes of DDR3 1,066 MHz SDRAM and an Intel 2nd Generation 2.5" 34nm MLC NAND Flash X25-M 160 gigabyte Solid State Drive. I originally installed Ubuntu 10.04.3 64 bit Long Term Support, but I found that quite a number of my hardware devices were unsupported. I used the Update Software program to upgrade to Ubuntu 11.10 64 bit progressively from 10.10, 11.04, and 11.10 64 bit. I had no problems whatsoever and the entire upgrade process was simple and easy.

Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit Long Term Support will be released on April 26th, 2012. Canonical plans to support it for a full five years.

I need help in deciding whether I should continue to upgrade every six months each April and October to the latest stable version of Ubuntu 64 bit or stick with Ubuntu 64 bit Long Term Support versions every two years.

The reason why I chose Ubuntu 64 bit is due to the fact that it has the best support for device drivers as Ubuntu 11.10 64 bit supports all of my hardware devices right out of the box. I expect Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit LTS to continue to support all of my hardware devices right out of the box once the stable version is released on April 26th, 2012.

On one hand, I place a premium on stability, reliability, out of the box device driver support, and dependability. I want to be able to use my computer to surf the Internet, read and write e-mail messages, chat online in real time with my friends, talk and do video chats in real time using Skype, download software packages and install them from the Ubuntu Software Center or PPAs, and be able to rip, encode, and convert my CD and DVD-Video library to loss less audio and video formats, play music and DVD-Videos, listen to Internet radio, use BitTorrent to download torrents and data, read Amazon Kindle and non-DRM e-books, Adobe .PDF files, and various documents, use LibreOffice Writer to create and edit my English creative writing portfolio consisting of American fiction and poetry, do research on the Internet, and stay in touch with my family and friends using social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Skype, and e-mail. In other words, I just want to be able to use my computer without having to troubleshoot problems all of the time since I do not expect to upgrade my computer hardware and accessories for the rest of 2012.

On the other hand, I also value being able to download, install, and run the latest stable software packages and I welcome future improvements, refinements, bug fixes, and new hardware and software innovations introduced into the computer and electronics industries.

Two years is a long time in the computer and electronics industries. There will be significant improvements and new technologies that will be introduced in that time period in the future. I do not want to get left behind the times by sticking to old hardware and software. In fact, I plan to buy a top of the line custom configured System76 Bonobo Professional notebook PC for well over $5,250.00 USD to replace my ASUS N61JV-X2 notebook PC by late April 2014.

What should I do?

Should I continue to upgrade every six months to the latest stable version of Ubuntu 64 bit?

Should I stick with Ubuntu 64 bit LTS versions?

To be fair, ASUS released the N61JV-X2 notebook PC in March 2010. Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit LTS was released in April 2010. My notebook PC was considered to be too new at that time so Super Speed USB 3 and Nvidia Optimus technologies were not working properly right out of the box on a default installation. Two years later, Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit LTS is expected to be fully compatible with my ASUS N61JV-X2 notebook PC with the installation of the Bumblebee Project PPA which I installed and tested to work. I do not know if Nvidia will officially support Optimus technology in GNU/Linux environments in the near future due to legal and moral restrictions surrounding the free software philosophy and open source along with the GNU public license.

What do you recommend for me to do? Please support your reasons with sound arguments.

Thank you.

[jerrrys]

To answer a few of your questions:

It doesn't look good for Optimus right now. Take a look at all the post.

http://www.googlubuntu.com/results/?cx=006238239194895611142:u-ocqbntw_o&q=Optimus&sa=Search&cof=FORID:9

Some have used a work-a-round and disable the external card.

As for LTS vs upgrading, theres a ton of post on that too. I run 10o4 and 11.10. 10o4, just because of its stability, is for business. And 11.10 is for playing with. After all, 12o4 will be pretty much just like 11.10, only refined like an LTS should be. I would wait for 12o4 to come out and do a fresh install. Thats my plan for 10o4.

[hansdown]

To answer a few of your questions:

It doesn't look good for Optimus right now. Take a look at all the post.

http://www.googlubuntu.com/results/?cx=006238239194895611142:u-ocqbntw_o&q=Optimus&sa=Search&cof=FORID:9

Some have used a work-a-round and disable the external card.

As for LTS vs upgrading, theres a ton of post on that too. I run 10o4 and 11.10. 10o4, just because of its stability, is for business. And 11.10 is for playing with. After all, 12o4 will be pretty much just like 11.10, only refined like an LTS should be. I would wait for 12o4 to come out and do a fresh install. Thats my plan for 10o4.

Fresh installs, fix all. I remember upgrades, when ubuntu was switching from, ext1 to 2.

+1

[sudodus]

To answer a few of your questions:

It doesn't look good for Optimus right now. Take a look at all the post.

http://www.googlubuntu.com/results/?cx=006238239194895611142:u-ocqbntw_o&q=Optimus&sa=Search&cof=FORID:9

Some have used a work-a-round and disable the external card.

As for LTS vs upgrading, theres a ton of post on that too. I run 10o4 and 11.10. 10o4, just because of its stability, is for business. And 11.10 is for playing with. After all, 12o4 will be pretty much just like 11.10, only refined like an LTS should be. I would wait for 12o4 to come out and do a fresh install. Thats my plan for 10o4.
+2
And have a look at the different flavours [KLX]ubuntu running live sessions! Lubuntu might give new life to an old computer ...

[Welly Wu]

I don't want to do a clean and custom installation in order to enable full disk encryption using LUKS/LVM again. I spent a lot of time and effort into customizing my Ubuntu 11.10 64 bit and I am not even close to done with my goal to harden it as of yet. I don't know what I am going to do once Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit LTS is released, but I will upgrade to it. Whether I stick with it as a LTS release for the next two years will depend very much on what Nvidia decides to do to offer official Optimus support in GNU/Linux environments. I am not going to expect Nvidia to do so in the near future, but they do have a proof of concept to get Optimus working in GNU/Linux environments, but it will not be in keeping with the free software and open source philosophy or the GNU public license.

[Skara Brae]

My first version was 7.10, and I could only agree with the phrase "Ubuntu rocks". I really like Ubuntu (Gnome).

So, when support for 7.10 was stopped, I was kind of annoyed, because it meant I had to do what I had done so often with Windows - get a new version (I've had them all; from Win95 to Vista).

Is it a bad idea to keep 10.04 on my computer without updating, next year? I 'love' 10.04 the way it is now, and I really would not want to switch to Unity (I don't think I would like it).

[Welly Wu]

I like Unity 3D and I think that I will like the new HUD feature. It is certainly very different from classic GNOME 2.x, but you should give it a whirl to see if you will like it or not.

I think that you should definitely upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit Long Term Support when it is released on April 26th, 2012. I am going to do so myself. Whether I stick with it or continue to upgrade will depend on Nvidia's decision to support Optimus technology in GNU/Linux environments and the usefulness of new hardware and software technologies in future Ubuntu 64 bit releases.