Upgrades sometimes flawed

[George Borusiewich]

I wrote a rant yesterday about linux upgrades occasionally introducing 
problems which weren't there in an earlier version. Several people 
responded, some sympathetically, some not. One response was to stay with 
the earlier version that worked. If everyone did that, then there would 
be no need for newer (improved?) versions. My sound card, which worked 
in Ubuntu 6.04, 6.10, 7.04, 7.10, stopped working in Ubuntu 8.04. I 
tried to get it working for 6 months, with no luck. It didn't work in 
Ubuntu 8.10 either. I switched to Linux Mint 5, and with luck, got my 
sound card working. Upgraded to Linux Mint 6. My floppy drive stopped 
working and the sound work-around that I used in Mint 5, doesn't work in 
Mint 6. (Linux Mint uses Ubuntu as its base, but is more elegant). I am 
dual-booting with Windows XP,  and both my soundcard and floppy drive 
are still working under XP.  I am not helpless, but I am limited in my 
knowledge of linux. On one (floppy problem) forum, the advice was to "go 
into etc\fstab", and add something (I forget what). I opened "computer," 
opened "filesystem," opened "etc," but couldn't find "fstab." Now what? 
Should I have to waste countless hours correcting problems that didn't 
exist in earlier versions? May I suggest that some of you geeks check 
the forums to see how many other noobies are as exasperated as I am? 
George Borusiewich