upgrading ububtu

[Bob Nielsen]

On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 08:41:42PM +0100, Agustin.Lobo wrote:
> 
> Hi!
> 
> A colleague has encouraged me to use ubuntu. I'm now using Mandrake 10.
> What I hate most in linux distros is that when it comes to
> upgrade you normally have to perform a clean installation
> from scratch again. Is this also the case for ubuntu?
> I mean, if the current version is 4.10, what will I have to
> do to upgrade to the next one (i.e., 4.11)?

As other replie have said, "apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade" or
synaptic.  However, sometimes additional steps are required (check the
release documentation first).  I recall that for one Debian version
upgrade it was necessary to install new versions of apt and libc6 before
doing the upgrade.

> 
> Also, I have 2 AMD Athlon 1600+ processors, would this be a problem for
> ubuntu?

Ubuntu has linux-image-<version>-k7-smp packages which would be 
appropriate for your system.

> 
> And finally, do I have to compile the kernel? or, would it be any better
> if I do so? In case I had to, is there a good how-to for this task?

In the past I would have recommended it, but the current Ubuntu (and
Debian) modular kernels have just about any modules you might use (and
Ubuntu has linux-restricted modules packages to add proprietary drivers
for Nvidia and ATI video cards, as well as some wireless cards).  You
can also compile and add additional modules without recompiling the
entire kernel.

Bob Nielsen
Bainbridge Island, WA