Upgrade to 11.04

[Lucio M Nicolosi]

On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 12:24 AM, Douglas S. Saylor <absdoug at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 2011-05-15 at 05:59 +0530, Kaushal Shriyan wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> What would be the suggested method to upgrade to 11.04 from 10.10. I
>> suppose there are 2 methods, one is through Update Manager and the
>> other is a Clean Install using CD/USB
>> Any pros and cons of the above two methods?
>
>   I'm no expert, but I can't think of ANY worthy reason for
> updating/upgrading. I had an upgrade fail once, forced to do a clean
> install & I started thinking ...why WOULD I do an upgrade? The clean
> install from a USB took 15-minutes from the partition screen to 1st
> boot. Took WAY longer to upgrade & in the end failure. Maybe BECAUSE I'm
> no expert I can't imagine NOT doing a clean install.
>   With Micro$oft Windows computers I fix for friends, a clean install
> is a panacea. Again, maybe because I'm not expert ...but if you have all
> your files backed-up, why NOT clean install? Perhaps I will learn the
> benefits of updating/upgrading!
>

Given there's available space in your HDs:

Create a test partition(s) , perform a clean install with its own
/home or a backup of current /home and check if everything works as
expected.

If positive you can:

- Scrap the test partition.
- Backup your system
- Upgrade. (as recommended by developers)
If your install gets borked you can clean install the previous OS
release and retrieve your files from the backup.
Eventually you won't even need the whole backup, providing you're
smart enough to have different partitions for /home and every personal
stuff, partitions that you will *never* format.

or

- Scrap the test partition
- Create a new partition for root.
- Do a clean install preserving your personal data partitions.
- Reinstall every single useful stuff you had on the previous release.
As Jordon said, it takes some time, but in the process you get rid of
all that stuff you once tried and then forgot.
If your install gets borked you just boot the previous OS release from
the Grub screen.
If your Grub gets borked you can always call Goh Lip.

or if you're dealing with Natty:

- Enjoy your test partition for a couple of months, until you get used
to all Unity's keyb shortcuts.
- Drop by this list periodically.
- Wait until the amount of help calls and open bugs reaches a
reasonable minimum
- Wait until the upgrade anxious guys debug the release for you.
- Then, eventually, if you really need it, upgrade, do a clean
install, whatever you prefer, Natty r2 will probably be wonderful.

-- 
Lucio M. Nicolosi, Eng.
Open Source Implementation
System and Applications
GNU/Linux