On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 07:33:30 +0200, Aur?lien Naldi <<a href="mailto:aurelien.naldi@gmail.com">aurelien.naldi@gmail.com</a>> wrote: > If you want to keep installed packages, you can upgrade instead of > installing from scratch (if you don't skip a version or if you go from > LTS to LTS, otherwise it may be painful). I'd like to just raise a paw here: the only reason I got to see the new (and very slick!) installer is because my upgrade went pear-shaped. As far as I can figure, one of the packages that was being upgraded was asking a question about replacing a conf file (or something similar) so the upgrade dialog just hung until I killed it and all the apt/dpkg processes I could find and started again manually. I'm assuming this created some bad juju on my machine because after the upgrade, I would get hard hangs after a few idle hours on the machine. A clean install doesn't exhibit the problem. Unfortunately, this kind of thing has happened to me in the past (the upgrade dialog stalling and when I manage to force things to start again in a console, I see that the first package to be upgraded is asking a question about overwriting a modified conf file). This is just the first time (9.04->9.10->10.04->10.10) where the end result was unusable. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd like to log a bug report -- I honestly don't know what package to choose as the victim though. I would also add a "me too" to the OP. I keep my /home on another partition for all the same common reasons and it would be neat if that were offered as an easier option for newer users -- which would make re-installs when they break the system due to learning slightly less painful, for example. -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The competent programmer is fully aware of the limited size of his own skull. He therefore approaches his task with full humility, and avoids clever tricks like the plague. - Djikstra.