3 questions about new installations & updates

[Liam Proven]

On 23 November 2011 19:26, Udvarias Ur <udvarias1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have been wondering.
>
> 1. I've read on this list that clean installs of Ubuntu 11.10 work better
> the upgrades from 11.04.
>
> If I do such a 'clean' installation of 11.10 will it preserve all the
> software added and the configuration I done? or will it reformat the hard
> disk thereby erasing all that I've done?

You will lose all your software and customisations. If you did not
make a separate /home partition, you will have to trust the
installation program to leave that alone and rewrite the rest, so you
will keep your documents, wallpaper and so on, but not programs or
system configuration.

> 2. Though so far a I have few complaints about Ubuntu, should I decide to
> switch to Debian

The punctuation is ambiguous. I am going to treat this as 2 questions.

So, to answer #1, no, don't switch to Debian. It's less friendly,
rather more old fashioned and does not include useful things that
Ubuntu does. It also does not have a relatively friendly, welcoming
support community like Ubuntu. If you have to ask, you don't want it.

> can I install Debian over Ubuntu such that Debian does not
> reformat the hard disk thereby erasing all that I've done?

No.

> 3. Can I rearrange the partitions on my hard disk so that I can install
> another OS? i.e. create a triple boot system?

Yes, certainly.

> If so, how?

Frankly, I'm afraid, if you have to ask, at this stage it is too
complicated for you.

-- 
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