Upgrading to 9.04? Should I or shouldn't I?

[Charlie Kravetz]

On Sat, 2 May 2009 16:05:15 -0500
Lynn Ziegler <yadaoser at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have had Ubuntu on one of my machines since 7.1. (Previous to that
> I had used various Red Hat releases and, before that, Slackware back
> to the time when I installed from floppies.) At some point the update
> manager offered me the opportunity to upgrade and I did - to 8.04
> (which I have been very happy with). However, I had been reading a
> lot of good things about 9.04 and thought I might upgrade. However, I
> had not been offered the chance to upgrade to it automatically so I
> went to the Ubuntu web site which said that automatic upgrades were
> only from 8.10 (which I have been avoiding since it is not a
> long-term supported version).
> 
> Not to be deterred, I downloaded the 9.04 installation disk and when
> I tried it, it stopped at some point with a blank screen after I have
> clicked either the cd live execution button or the install button. I
> presume it is because of my video card (an nvidia card supported by
> the usual drivers – a GeForce 6150SE nForce 430). When I tried the
> disk on another machine the live cd worked fine.
> 
> However, I am unsure whether I want to upgrade or not. On further
> reading I discovered that my 8.04 is a LTS and supported through 2011
> while 9.04 is only supported through 2010.
> 
> My question is: when another LTS release comes out, will I be able to
> upgrade directly from 8.04? If so, I will probably wait until that
> happens. If not, I will have to figure out how to make the
> installation work.
> 
> Lynn Ziegler

While Ubuntu 9.04 will be supported until October 2010, 8.04 will be
supported until April, 2011. 

Just as an upgrade from 6.06 LTS was offered and worked for many users,
8.04 should be directly upgradable to the next LTS, which will probably
be 10.04. 

At this point, you can see that with a new LTS version released at two
year intervals, if 6.06 was upgraded now, at the end of its support
life for home users, there is only two years left on 8.04. On servers,
with five years of support, it remains to be seen how the upgrades
shall work, since by the time 6.06 Server edition reaches EOL in two
years, there will be two LTS versions available.

good luck,

-- 
Charlie Kravetz 
Linux Registered User Number 425914          [http://counter.li.org/]
Never let anyone steal your DREAM.           [http://keepingdreams.com]