Ubuntu Edgy: To Upgrade or Not To Upgrade

**Fedoration** · 10-31-2006, 02:21 AM

Hello,

It's been a while since I posted, but I've been happily using my ubuntu dapper system. Now that edgy's been released, I've considered upgrading to it, but I read the post on slashdot and was thoroughly discouraged. I had to apply a few tweaks to my system to make it work the way I wanted. Is upgrading safe, as it would be easier than backing up and reinstalling if it is safe to upgrade. Do you think that they will iron out all the problems that have materialised since the stable of ubuntu edgy has been released?

**je_fro** · 10-31-2006, 02:32 AM

As a rule, I never upgrade....I always reinstall. My /home is on its own partition and I make backups of all my configs (/etc), so I don't have anything to lose...
Something always seems to go wrong with upgrades for some reason.

**Fedoration** · 10-31-2006, 03:05 AM

I have /home on a separate partition and I also have a separate partition for goodies like .iso's that take up a lot of space. If I backed up /etc, could I just overwrite the new /etc with the old /etc or would that be a bad idea. If that worked, it would save me fiddling with my wireless setup again.

**je_fro** · 10-31-2006, 06:02 AM

overwriting /etc is a _really_ bad idea...just use the configs as a reference for editing your new configs...

**chomski** · 10-31-2006, 07:45 AM

I upgraded from hoary to dapper, fought with the minor glitches for a week and then reinstalled.
I upgraded to edgy in beta four weeks ago and regretted it.

Best way forward is clean reinstall, /etc configs as reference only.
I wouldn´t upgrade windows machines between OS/s (at work) let alone Ubuntu.

**JayMan8081** · 10-31-2006, 09:14 AM

If you wanted to be really cautious you could install Dapper into a Virtual Machine under VMWare Player and do the upgrade to Edgy in the VM to see what happens. There is a free configuration tool at http://www.easyvmx.com to create the config file needed for vmplayer.

**ph34r** · 10-31-2006, 10:07 AM

did a apt-get dist-upgrade yesterday here on my work system - nothing bad, had to play with grub and find the right kernel to replace the one I had been using. I'd say do it...

**Calipso** · 10-31-2006, 11:46 AM

apt-get dist-upgrade didnt work out for me.
I cant remember the exact errors but I think it had something to do with X.
Anyway, this gives me the excuse to try out FC6.

**mrBen** · 11-01-2006, 05:38 AM

I did an upgrade using the graphical package manager, and everything worked fine from the get-go.

In fact, virtually everyone I've talked to has had a painless upgrade. I'm not entirely sure what the /. article was talking about, although I've heard rumours that Kubuntu was more badly hit than the main Ubuntu.

I'm not sure whether the graphical upgrader just performs a dist-upgrade or whether there are other steps that it does to make it smoother.

**ladoga** · 11-01-2006, 05:10 PM

Originally Posted by mrBen

I did an upgrade using the graphical package manager, and everything worked fine from the get-go.

In fact, virtually everyone I've talked to has had a painless upgrade. I'm not entirely sure what the /. article was talking about, although I've heard rumours that Kubuntu was more badly hit than the main Ubuntu.

I'm not sure whether the graphical upgrader just performs a dist-upgrade or whether there are other steps that it does to make it smoother.

My impression is that Synaptic runs the usual apt-get commands at background, if that is the graphical upgrader you refer to. Synaptic was the GUI tool for managing packages back when I used ubuntu.

My guess is that problems mainly arise with more customized ubuntu installs. About a year back when i tried to upgrade my ubuntu server (no GNOME etc.) upgrade made total mess of my system. I found it much easier to install debian than to fix ubuntu which got littered with useless packages (mainly gnome stuff) and broken configurations.

Anyway I think it's good idea to back up important config files and /home before doing upgrade. If the result isn't satisfying then one can always do new install without losing anything important.

**techwise** · 11-02-2006, 12:30 PM

there is more to the graphical updater than just running apt commands. Ubuntu creates an upgrade tool (script) that runs too when you click the "upgrade" [to the new version] button in the "Update Manager" tool (a different tool than Snaptic). However, best I can tell, Ubuntu has not offered the option to upgrade this way through the "Update Manager" tool like before. This leads me to believe that the upgrade path has not been smoothed out.

If you really want the new version now, I'd do the reinstall at this point. Or just wait to see if they offer their usual tool to get it done smoothly.

mike

**panther3e** · 11-02-2006, 05:59 PM

I upgraded from dapper to edgy and it went good for the most part. The only thing i had to do was reinstall X and the ubuntu splash image. Other than that its running faster than dapper and im happy with it.

**Parcival** · 11-02-2006, 07:21 PM

My Ubuntu server upgraded nicely with the help of this howto.

**Fedoration** · 11-03-2006, 06:55 AM

Would the ubuntu update manager work for kubuntu seeing as kubuntu works off kde rather than gnome? I would have thought that the ubuntu update manager would install and upgrade gnome stuff rather than kde. I do recall a kubuntu developer saying that the update manager could be used on kubuntu though, on slashdot. Any opinions?

**Parcival** · 11-03-2006, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by Fedoration

I do recall a kubuntu developer saying that the update manager could be used on kubuntu though, on slashdot.

I think that should work, yes. After all these package managers look at the installed packages and replace them with new ones regardless to what desktop they belong.

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