The Ocelot has Landed!

[K.S. Bhaskar]

I don't use a Mac (somehow, the idea of paying someone to enslave me
always seemed plain wrong).  I kicked the Windows habit in 1999 and
use Linux almost exclusively, and mostly Ubuntu (occasionally Debian,
and even less frequently RHEL and Fedora) for the last several years.

Since at least the 9.x releases, I have always had Ubuntu upgrades so
smoothly.  Once upon a time I did fresh installs instead of upgrades.
Now, I only do them when I have to - for example, when I have to set
up a new computer, or in order to avoid multiple steps (e.g., going
from 9.10 to 11.04).  Even for setting up new computers, these days,
as often as not, I use a live USB to create file systems, and then
rsync from an existing computer, edit /etc/fstab and
/boot/grub/grub.cfg for the new filesystem UUIDs, change ssh keys &
the hostname and I am done.

Since I am a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy, I configure my Linux
systems to have two root partitions and a separate (encrypted) /home.
If the machine has two disks, the two partitions are on separate
drives and /home is a mirrored software RAID.  Each root mounts the
other as /spare, and each partition's grub.cfg has entries to boot the
other.  So, they are completely symmetric except that at any given
moment, the bootloader boots one as the main root partition.

Before an upgrade, I always sync the partitions and boot from the
alternate partition.  After verifying it, I upgrade it, and after
upgrading make it the main root partition.  Yes, I have always had
upgrades go smoothly, but I like that extra safety margin. I may
change my thinking once btrfs becomes fully stable and once root
partitions on btrfs are supported.  Then I may use its snapshot
feature instead of having an alternate root.

Do Ubuntu upgrades go wrong?  Yes, they do, but not because of the
Linux core.  It's usually the desktop - KDE3 replaced by KDE4, or
Gnome 2 replaced by Unity or Gnome 3 (with the Gnome 3 shell or Unity
- 11.10 has made me switch back to KDE).

-- Bhaskar

On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 1:04 AM, R. Potter <rpotter at zoncko.com> wrote:
> Not a troll and I said consistently not always.  I use Mac at work, PC &
> Linux & Mac at home. I am not trolling the mail lists. Although a Mac
> upgrade can wreak havoc, I have done and know of many, many successful
> upgrades. Does not mean it won't go south, but I have never seen a good
> Windows upgrade and have never had or heard of a good Ubuntu upgrade - just
> saying.
>
> -Rob
>
> On 10/15/2011 03:54 AM, Jordon Bedwell wrote:
>>
>> On 10/14/2011 11:59 PM, R. Potter wrote:
>>>
>>> I think the only OS that has ever seemed to upgrade without issues
>>> consistently is OS X. I have had nothing but troubles with Linux and
>>> unless you are high, you should never try Windows.  I long for the day
>>> that Ubuntu is able to flawlessly upgrade in a consistent manner.
>>
>> Is this a troll? Because it's entirely wrong, read the news sometime.
>>
>>
>
>
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-- 
Windows does to computers what smoking does to humans