Ubuntu LTS upgrade for netbook

[toomanyhandles]

Hi all-

I have a Dell Mini 9 (netbook, 2GB RAM (maxed out), 32GB SSD, 1.6-GHz Atom, 1024x600 Intel GMA 950).

I am running 10.04 LTS at present.

I use the netbook mainly for moving photos from my camera while I am traveling, plus some light web surfing etc. It is a great low-profile platform for travel.

I would like to start to use this for programming my Arduino, which means I will need newer build of java and such (and there are security reasons as well, of course). So it is well past time to upgrade the OS, last package update was late 2014.

I see from:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS
that both 12.04 LTS and 14.04 LTS are available and will have support for a bit yet.

For this low-horsepower platform, is there a reason to pick one version over the other? Support for modern dependencies until late 2017 will be fine for me for now, which is when 12.04 LTS goes EOL.

Any concerns about upgrading in place from 10.04? That is my preference, if at all reasonable. I could always blow it away and start over if the upgrade fails, but I would rather not.

Thanks for thoughts-

Brian.

[sudodus]

Welcome to the Ubuntu Forums :-)

I suggest that you try Lubuntu 16.04.1 LTS (32-bit which needs less RAM for the same task). Try it live before installing (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2230389).

Lubuntu has an ultra light desktop environment. Alternatives are Ubuntu MATE and Xubuntu with medium light desktop environments. The engine under the hood is the same as in standard Ubuntu.

[ubfan1]

I second the 16.04, the earlier LTSes are still getting security updates, but that doesn't mean they have the latest versions of things like LibreOffice. The update route you prefer is possible, but much more work than simply backing up your files (you really should do that anyway!), and reinstalling a fresh copy, then restore your files. If you had done a great deal of system customization, you might want to save some system config files, but that doesn't sound like what you've done.

[Autodave]

ASUS EEEPC: 700 mhz, 1G ram. Lubuntu 16.04 runs fine on it.