My 1st October update: what to expect?

[Andrew Farris]

On Wed, 2009-09-23 at 22:25 -0500, Doug Saylor wrote:
> So how does this work? I'm assuming the October update is no automatic?
>  More details for a 1st timer please? Thanks!

If by 'october 1st update' you mean the update to ubuntu 9.10... I dint
think it's actually going to be on the 1st... probably a few weeks into
October.

But either way, yo're right: it's not 'automatic' per-se.  By 'Not
Automatic' I mean that the update wont happen w/o your express
permission. Anyway...basically what will happen when 9.10 comes out, is
there will probably be a few updates to 9.04 (update manager will notify
you). then once all your packages are up-to-date, an extra bar will
appear on Update Manager telling you that "A new Release is available"
and I think it lists the name/version number.  If you want to upgrade to
the release (which if you're running 9.04, you probably will) click the
"upgrade now" button, and update manager will download an update tool,
and handle the upgrade automatically (i.e. little/no user interaction,
at least until the very end). 

At the very end, you might be required to give some input depending on
if you've got customized packages/config files, but nothing terrible.
The default options are usually the best. The only exception to this
though, in my experience, is if it asks you about replacing your grub
menu.lst. I've found that (in my case at least), choosing the 'install
package maintainer's version' is usually the best option, as your kernel
boot options get properly updated that way... and despite the sound of
it, you don't actually loose any customized menu options.

Overall, I've rarely had any problems with upgrades, and the
difficulties I have had were very minor and easy to resolve. I'd
actually recommend waiting a week or two (I usually wait about a month
or so) to actually do the upgrade though, just because theres a ton of
people that try to upgrade on the first day, and so the servers can get
pretty bogged down. That and any obvious errors/issues that made it
through the beta phase have a chance to get fixed/patched before you
upgrade.

The only other thing to note is if the upgrade fails for some reason,
immediately seek help on the forums, or here to resolve the issue before
you try rebooting. Make sure to be descriptive as to exactly what failed
so you can get help ASAP. Otherwise, if you reboot first, you could be
left with a partially broken system, which can be hard to fix for
someone who isn't familiar with linux (never impossible, and usually
easy, but still more complicated than normal sometimes).

hope that helps! 
-- 
Andrew
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