How will upgrading to newer Ubuntu releases work on Ubuntu tablets?

[pythonscript]

I've been looking at the Ubuntu tablets (http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/tablet) but I'm wondering how upgrading is going to work. I assume that the tablet will run a LTS support release, but nevertheless, when it comes times to upgrade to a newer version of Ubuntu, will it be as problematic as upgrading a desktop or laptop? When I used Ubuntu I normally just did a fresh install, but I don't know if that will be an (easy) option on a tablet, unless I could install it from USB.

[Paqman]

will it be as problematic as upgrading a desktop or laptop?

When was the last time you upgraded a desktop or laptop? Upgrades used to be flaky, but have been pretty reliable for the last few years.

Given that touchy-feely Ubuntu is aimed at Android hardware and is intended to be installable by the user there's nothing stopping you from just doing a fresh install if you prefer.

[pythonscript]

I upgraded from 11.04 to 11.10 (I think) and my system seemed to break in a lot of places and never really worked the same from then on. To be fair, I was already moving away from Ubuntu in spirit, so I moved to Arch and then LMDE. If I could install a fresh copy of Ubuntu easily, I imagine I could drop another Linux distro on an Ubuntu tablet, assuming the former supported Android hardware.

[grahammechanical]

I suggest that there are two ways of looking at this issue. 1) The tablet is now old fashioned. so, buy a new one. It works for you know who. 2) As the distribution is tailored for the hardware it just might be no problem at all. Regards.

[Paqman]

I imagine I could drop another Linux distro on an Ubuntu tablet, assuming the former supported Android hardware.

That's probably not that likely. Ubuntu on tablets supports Android hardware because it uses the Android kernel, drivers, etc. Another distro with a generic kernel (albeit an ARM one) isn't likely to work as well. Maybe that'll change in the future if other distros decide they want to start targeting Android devices too, which is at least possible I suppose.