Ubuntu upgrade 11.10 to 12.04

Previous: Exporting only the notes pages from an OpenOffice or LibreOffice presentation

Ubuntu has provided a one-click upgrade option for the past several releases. In the past, the feature has not worked well. Many Ubuntu users recommended doing a clean install of the new release rather than using the upgrade feature.

When 12.04 beta came out, I decided to try installing a fresh Ubuntu in a VM, and using the upgrade feature in another VM with 11.10 installed. It seems as if the upgrade feature worked very well this time. I still wouldn't recommend doing it without having a backup of anything you might need to recover, just in case.

The only difference between the fresh install and the upgrade (in this case) was that the upgrade took considerably more time.

IMHO there are still some advantages to doing a fresh install. For one, it gets rid of old files that I don't need anymore, and that I've forgotten about. I use my main system for developing training materials, presentations, and articles, and for doing software development. So, I'm constantly installing various tools - programming langauges, IDEs, diagramming tools, modeling tools, etc., and I usually don't continue to use the tools for very long. Yet, I'm not diligent about uninstalling things. A fresh install takes care of that for me. When I come to a point that I need a tool that isn't there, I just reinstall it.

Also, I've gotten into the habit of creating a large /home partition, and installing most tools there. So, when I do an upgrade I back up /home and do a fresh install, then replace the contents of /home with my backup. The impact of any "lost" files under /usr is minimal.

Anyway, the point here is that 'upgrade' seems to be working fine now. Don't be afraid of it, but do make a backup. (Trust but verify.)

Next: Ultralight notebook: Apple, Asus, or Toshiba?