upgrading ubuntu and software

[dtdave]

Hi, have a question, last time I upgraded ubuntu from gutsy to hardy my compiz was corrupted after the upgrade, and I did have some experimental plugins installed like snow and the aquarium one, anyways, I tried fixing it, uninstalling compiz totally and this still hung around. I would assume that compiz was broken where compiz was upgraded to a new version and the experimental plugins never did upgrade. So I did a new install of hardy in the end. My question is, that if I install lots of programs and tweak my system and all that, am I going to have a broken system again when I upgrade because something didnt upgrade that needed to that I installed or tweaked, that is my worry, I understand programs will update that I install from the package manager, I see those updates for things I have installed. But if I compile a program and install it that way, will it not be updated like other programs? Bottom line is, I love ubuntu and I want to take advantage of all it offers but I dont want a system that breaks or programs that don't work anymore after a new system upgrade. Thanks for anyones help.

[cariboo]

I never do a system upgrade, because of exacty what you are saying. I have a separate home partition, so I just reformat / . I have a shared swap partition, that usually gets reformatted too.

I have been running Interpid since it came a available in the repositories, and have done a clean install for each alpha and the beta. I intend to do a clean install when the release candidate comes out, as well as the final release.

As for programs that you have compiled and installed your self, you will have to do it all over again, unless you still have the source directory, then you may just have to run make install agian. THe only programs that get updated automatically are those that are in the repositories.

Jim

[dtdave]

thanks for the response! So you are saying that any programs I have installed through the repositories would be fine on an upgrade, they should continue to work. But if I do any compiling, I have to take care of that myself. Is that right?

My second question is, is there a program out there to clean up a system after it is upgraded and get rid of all the old stuff, so it is running fast. Or does the upgrading clean up all the old stuff as it does the process. Thanks!