Upgrading Ubuntu

[Bill Cairns]

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May I suggest that there is a huge gulf between those who know how to
upgrade from one version to another and those who don't?

I belong to those that don't. 

The following posting is the first time that I have seen it suggested
that "replace dapper by edgy in your sources.list and apt-get
dist-upgrade." is NOT the correct way to go. Of course, this is the way
that I tried to upgrade to Dapper a few months ago and when I lost my
system completely and had to re-install from scratch. (OK so now I go
back and read some more official documentation and it tells me to 'gksu
"update-manager -c" '. But this is not what I found in other, equally
official looking, Ubuntu documentation).

There is no doubt that we ignorami are being given contradictory
advice.

I would plead for a straightforward and simple upgrade path -
preferably one that does not require editing anything or even using the
cli. (I am quite capable of using the cli, but why can't I just go to
synaptic and say "upgrade"?)

The first time I upgraded - from 5.04 to 5.10 - all I did was insert
the free release disk and it did all the work for me. Somewhere we seem
to have lost some functionality.

Bill


>>> Daniel Robitaille <robitaille at fastmail.fm> 29/10/2006 19:43 >>>
On Sun, 29 Oct 2006, Matthew East wrote:
> > The negative stories and blogs about Edgy are
> > starting to pile up:
> 
> As with the last release cycle, people *expect* "apt-get
dist-upgrade"
> to work, and are losing their systems when they try. The negative
> implications of not supporting upgrades via apt-get are starting to
hit
> Ubuntu really hard in terms of reputation.

It's true that in places like #ubuntu #ubuntu+1 on IRC, more often than
not a
question like "how do I upgrade to Edgy" was often replied by a
"replace
dapper by edgy in your sources.list and apt-get dist-upgrade.".  At
least
that's my experience the few times I was there recently.

While I hate blinking red icons, maybe update-notifier needs to put
one
in the panel once it knows there is a new release of Ubuntu available,
and the user will get that blinking icon until it clicks on it once,
see
a little couple of sentences text about how to properly upgrade when
they want, and point to existing resources like the upgrade notes, and
the blinking icon will be gone forever from then on.

Upgrade notes on help.ubuntu.com for each releases are great, but
existing users don't seem to know (or remember of) their existence
every
6 months at upgrade time.

Daniel




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