Nervous user

[dee119]

Hi to all - I wonder if I could ask for some advice please.

As a newbie ( I have limited knowledge with Ubuntu and Linux
in general ) would appreciate your input please regarding my
need to upgrade to a higher version of Ubuntu.

At present I am running Ubuntu 10.10 which has taken me ages to
get set up with different apps and of course the Internet. The latest
version of Ubuntu is now out and my version is out of date and will not
be supported any more.

My question which I hope is not too trivial is this: How long is it possible
for me to continue using Ubuntu 10.10 before I run into trouble with my present
set up?

I realize that this is like asking how long a piece of string is, but I am
really reluctant to change things which are working so well. In fact you could
say I am a bit scared to start messing with things, so your thoughts would be
much appreciated on what to do, or even a simple way to make sure that if I were
to try and upgrade, things would work first time.

I have recently moved house so the Internet is pretty important to me here, with
very few people around to help get me going again, you can see how I need to be
up and running without any Hic Cups.

Many thanks for looking and hope you can help shed some light on what appears
to be a simple problem for the vast majority of the forum.

[darkod]

One way to check if a new release has some issues on your computer (but not a 100% fault proof), is to download the image, burn a cd at slow speed (8x or 10x), boot with it in Try Ubuntu live mode and see how it goes. Most things working in live mode should work out of the box too.
Likewise, most problems you see in live mode will probably be there once you install (or upgrade to) that version.

I would say, wait until April 26th for the 12.04 LTS to be released. Burn a cd with it. Check it out in live mode.

If you like it, consider making a clean install, not upgrading. Depending what sort of settings you have, you might be able to move them by simply copying files. On the other hand, maybe not. Only you know what tweaks you have running, so you are the best person to make the decision whether a clean install is possible or not.

If you like your settings long term (regardless which version you are using), try to stick with LTS releases which at the moment come every 2yrs. The LTS means that the desktop version is supported 3yrs, not only 18 months like the "standard". So, you can easily keep your system fully updated with all security updates and fixes until the next LTS 2 years later.
Another nice feature is that you can upgrade LTS to LTS directly, without upgrading to every version in between. Doing few upgrades in a row is not recommended in any way, you are 95% sure to get issues.

[dee119]

Many thanks Darko for your input and taking the time to answer
my question. It has been much appreciated. You have put my
mind at ease over this question of upgrading. Will do as you
suggest and try a live run first and see what the new version
is like.
Again my thanks for your help and advice.

[lisanels47]

Also, I always partition my disk with about 15G for the operating system / , and the rest for my /home partition. By doing this, I can preserve all my settings etc. when changing between linux distributions, or just reloading. I do this often while playing with the different distros.

I can install linux by formatting ONLY the 15G partition, and mounting the /home partition without formatting. When it's done installing, I have a fully functional system with all my book-marks and e-mail unchanged. Even the desktop items remain.

As far as installing the latest and greatest, wait. Once a release has been out for about a week, there are lots of updates and fixes. That's a good time to load it. Plus at first the servers are really busy, so downloads take longer.

[al111]

Why don't you continue to use 10.10...if it ain't broke, don't fix it-

al111-> still using 10.04 :D

[oboedad55]

According to this: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS Ubuntu 12.04 will be supported for five years, which is great. It says a new LTS version is released every two years, but support lasts five years. I can't figure out what that exactly means... Here's another link; https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases
In any case, 10.10 is already EOL so if it were me I would install 12.04 when it's released and have five years of stability. I'm running the 2nd beta with no problems, so as was mentioned you could download a copy and see how you like Unity, etc.

[grahammechanical]

What problems do you think that you will have?

Did you have any difficulty setting up internet access on 10.10? No? Then why would you have problems getting internet access with 11.04 and 11.10 and 12.04?

If Ubuntu is already recognising and using your hardware then these later versions will also recognise the hardware.

Regards.

[oldfred]

I have several 25GB / (root) partitions. What got me started was a new hard drive and an update from 32bit to 64bit requiring a clean install. So I just installed to a new /, found I had to go back once or twice to find things I missed, but liked the total clean install as it housecleaned several versions of updates that left bits & pieces.

If you have a larger hard drive besides the first test with a liveCD, you then can install a test version in a new root partition of 10 to 25GB.