[ubuntu-uk] Upgrading to 8.04

[Andrew Oakley]

Stephen O'Neill wrote:
> I have been very tempted to do a fresh install too - tracker never
> seemed to work for me and I'm convinced that I'm not getting 100%
> shinyness having upgraded from Feisty to Gutsy and now Hardy through the
> various hacks/workarounds that I've done along the way.
> 
> What do others think? - am I being needlessly paranoid, will I do the
> 'fresh install' and end up being disappointed given that everything
> currently seems to 'work'? Maybe 'if it ain't broke don't fix it'?

The secret is, prior to upgrading, slim down your install to official 
packages only.

What I did, when upgrading from Gutsy to Hardy, which seemed to work 
VERY successfully, was to use Synaptic Package Manager - Origin button 
to identify any packages which are not on the official Ubuntu 
repositories, and where possible REMOVE THEM. Then do the upgrade. Then, 
once the upgrade is complete and working okay, reinstall any unofficial 
packages.

Most upgrade horror stories appear to be related to packages not in the 
official Ubuntu repos.

For example, I removed AWN (Avant Window Navigator) prior to the 
upgrade, as this was from a non-official source.

The deborphan command is also useful, it identifies packages which do 
not have any other packages dependent on them. By default it just lists 
unused libraries, but it can be used to identify all top-level packages 
on your system.

-- 
Andrew Oakley