business 12.10 or 13.10

[Sherman_Willden]

We are using Ubuntu on an HP for a home business. I am presently using 12.04.03 because it does not EOL or so it appears. Will it hurt to upgrade through 12.10 to 13.10 since the support ends for those versions? I read about the EOL at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases . We are basically using the computer for e-mail and normal business operations. I am not performing sys admin duties with it.

Thank you;

[slickymaster]

Coming April, 17th, Ubuntu Trusty Thar (14.04) will be released. Since you're now on 12.04 you can directly upgrade to 14.04.

Ubuntu 13.10 will itself reach end of life at the end of July this year.

[grahammechanical]

First, Ubuntu does not have versions for business and versions for the home user. We have the same Ubuntu whether we install it on a home use desktop/laptop machine or on many business use machines.

Second, in a couple of weeks Ubuntu 14.04 will be released (April 17th). That will also be a Long Term support Release (LTS) with 5 years support. My advice would be to wait until Ubuntu 14.04 is released then upgrade to it. The OS will give you a reminder and an offer to upgrade. Some of us recommend a fresh install as preferable to an upgrade.

If you choose to upgrade you should certainly deactivate any proprietary video driver using the Additional Drivers utility and activate the Nouveau open source driver. And also take the desktop user interface back to its default look as far as possible. Doing this removes possible complications that can ruin the upgrade experience.

Regards.

[Sherman_Willden]

Thank you both. I will burn the 14.04 when I am ready and perform a fresh install. I upgreaded from the 10.n to 12.14.03 so a fresh install should be the thing to do.

[mörgæs]

Agree on the fresh install, but if 12.04 is working well and you don't have any special need to get to 14.04 I suggest waiting 1-2 months.