Fresh install?

[Derek Broughton]

Bruce Marshall wrote:

> On Wednesday 15 October 2008, Paul Lemmons wrote:
>> Am I the only one with such a positive experience with the upgrade
>> process? Do more of you upgrade or rebuild? Why the constant advice to
>> backup your system, remember all of the apps you installed and then
>> trash it to install clean and restore apps and files with a prayer that
>> you did not miss anything?
> 
> I always do fresh installs.
> 
> 1) It cleans things up...
> 2) You learn a lot.
> 3) You get to find out what is new and don't miss some of the new options.

That shouldn't happen if you use the adept updater.  It forces all the new
stuff on you, anyway.

> 4) If the upgrade goes bad, you are left with nothing. 

How?  It's _never_ happened to me, and I've botched a lot of upgrades in the
last decade.

> 5) If you have a minor bug in the upgraded system, you will never know
> whether it is a bug in the new release or some incompatibility in the
> upgrade. 

otoh, if you have a minor bug in a freshly installed system, you will never
know if it's a bug in the new release, or some incorrectly set up
application.

> 6) You learn a lot 

See Rule # 2...

> 7) You get to go over your notes.  (you *do* have notes don't you?)

Yeah, but they're always so obsolete by the time I need them, that I might
as well not have them.

> 8) You can get rid of things you never use or that didn't work out.

You _can_ do that without fresh installs.  

> 9) If you have the space, you can install the new and still keep the old,
> thus having both to cross-check things/bugs.

You could do that in either case.

> 10) You learn a lot.

See Rule # 2...
-- 
derek