[Advise] Natty upgrades

NoOp glgxg at sbcglobal.net
Fri Apr 29 02:40:43 UTC 2011


I've been watching:

<http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?s=199e2b141d171a69114e1b40ca9ced06&f=331>
and refresh the page every few minutes...

and the borken posts are rolling every few minutes (as expected).

My advise concerning upgrading to Natty for less exerienced users on
this list is same as always:

1. Wait at least a month before you upgrade.
2. Check & read the release notes.[1]
3. If you want to play with it try with a liveCD & if that seems to work
install into it's own partition. Better yet use a test machine if you
have one.
4. If you want to see how the upgrade will go, install 10.10 on a test
machine & upgrade that one first. This will avoid the test install
borking your existing grub et al & this can be pain if you don't know
your way around troubleshooting grub2 issues.
5. Watch:
<http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?s=199e2b141d171a69114e1b40ca9ced06&f=331>
[Threads in Forum : General Help]
Refresh the page every few minutes & watch the 11.04 questions grow...

I've been running Natty 11.04 on 64bit laptop partition and 32bit test
machine since Alpha. However I won't attempt any upgrades from 10.10 on
*any* production/standard use machines for at least 1 month. Why? Simple
(IMO); Natty, like previous Ubuntu 6 month cycle releases simply aren't
ready when released. I'll not bother to try to explain why I think that,
but the archives of this list will pretty much back my opinion. That
opinion is without comment on the Unity interface/DE fiasco.

Bottom line (and especially for new Ubuntu users) I do not recommend
upgrading to Natty when provided the (IMO really, really, really, stupid
update-manager upgrade to Natty popup window[2]) that all 10.10 users
will receive. Just *don't* do it.
  Wait for awhile, let the bugs settle in/get resolved, and *then*
upgrade. Unless you know what you are doing, how to get out of borked
upgrades/grub errors/troubleshoot video issues, et al, just save
yourselves some aggrevation and let things settle down before attempting
an upgrade. On the other hand, if you are keen to install/upgrade to the
latest *and* are willing (notice the *and*) file bug reports, help
troubleshoot issues, then have at it. If not wait.

[1]
Ironic that you have to specifically *search* for the release notes on
ubuntu.com. That's just plain stupid.
No release notes here:
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download
Nor here:
http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
Nor here:
http://www.ubuntu.com/support
[It appears that Ubuntu have decided to 'Unity' the 11.04 pages just
like the Unity DE. All will be wonderfull, just download, install & be
happy...]
Only here:
http://www.ubuntu.com/search/google-appliance/natty%20release%20notes
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NattyNarwhal/ReleaseNotes
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes
and even then you need to find in that page:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NattyUpgrades

[2]
<http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/natty/main/dist-upgrader-all/current/ReleaseAnnouncement.html?lang=en_US>





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