8.04 to 10.4

[K-Sub]

I recently purchased a Dell Mini running Ubuntu 8.04. I understand that 10.04 is coming out in April. True? I have also gottent the impression that I will be able to upgrade directly from 8.04 to 10.04. Is that true? Finally, can anyone point me to a source that tells me what has changed from 8.04 through the various other version and up to 10.04? Have they been just maintenance changes? New features? Improved stability? Improved speed? Other stuff? Enquiring minds want to know. Thanx.

[kansasnoob]

I understand that 10.04 is coming out in April. True?

Yes

I have also gottent the impression that I will be able to upgrade directly from 8.04 to 10.04. Is that true?

Yes

You can learn more here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=377

I have Lucid installed on a testing partition and it's a bit rough right at this moment as would be expected during the Alpha stage of development. Definitely not nOOb friendly at the moment

Here's a bit of an overview:

http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/lucid/alpha2

One thing you should be mindful of is that, even when the final is released, upgrades sometimes work and other times fail. So you should always be prepared for failure just in case.

[K-Sub]

Yes

One thing you should be mindful of is that, even when the final is released, upgrades sometimes work and other times fail. So you should always be prepared for failure just in case.

Thanks for the information. Since this is a netbook that I will use primarily for travel, it is actually my tertiary computer, so, if it crashes I can bring it back at my leisure.

[snowpine]

The Dell Mini comes preinstalled with a special "Dellbuntu" remix that is not 100% compatible with "regular" Ubuntu. There is no official word from Dell yet whether you'll be able to upgrade to 10.04 or not. 8.04 will be fully supported through April 2011, so it is not a pressing issue (in Dell's mind).

I would recommend a fresh reinstall (when the time comes) if you're curious about 10.04. There are some new features (ext4 filesystem, grub 2 bootloader) that are only available with a fresh install, not an upgrade.

Whichever version you decide on, Ubuntu is one of the premier netbook distros, welcome to the forums!

[OrangeCrate]

The Dell Mini comes preinstalled with a special "Dellbuntu" remix that is not 100% compatible with "regular" Ubuntu. There is no official word from Dell yet whether you'll be able to upgrade to 10.04 or not. 8.04 will be fully supported through April 2011, so it is not a pressing issue (in Dell's mind).

I would recommend a fresh reinstall (when the time comes) if you're curious about 10.04. There are some new features (ext4 filesystem, grub 2 bootloader) that are only available with a fresh install, not an upgrade.

Whichever version you decide on, Ubuntu is one of the premier netbook distros, welcome to the forums!

Confirming your suggestions to the OP...

My Ubuntu Dell Desktop (used at the office) came with 7.10. After a quick look at how Dell had set up Ubuntu, I did a fresh install of 6.06 (the LTS at the time), and then upgraded it to 8.04. Everything went fine. Approximately one month after the release of 10.04, I will do a fresh install, as I want to upgrade to ext4, grub 2, etc.