SpaceFM?

[Jim Byrnes]

On 01/09/2016 07:14 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
> On 8 January 2016 at 18:35, Jim Byrnes <jf_byrnes at comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> I'm reminded of the old saying "if it's not broke don't fix it". 12.04 has
>> worked extremely well for me, but it and some of it's software is getting
>> pretty old.  I dread moving to a new version because of all the time and
>> effort involved. I put in a new HD and then do a fresh install. Being able
>> to boot back and forth helps, but I have a ton of data and programs to move
>> and setup. I am still finding stuff I forgot.
>
>
> You know, your 4th sentence here contradicts the ones before. I don't
> know if you'd noticed that.

I suppose it does. I was responding to your comment about me leaving 
12.04 a bit late as 16.04 was coming out soon. Just an attempt to 
clarify why I was still on 12.04. I suppose no one is immune to the 
temptation of having something "new and shiny" every once in awhile.

> "If it ain't broke" means "I don't want to get rid of something that I
> know works".
>
> "I put in a new HD..." means "I throw away a working install & start
> completely afresh every time".
>
> If you have a good, working config, then *back it up* and then
> upgrade! Then you don't need to reinstall and rebuilt everything.
>
> This isn't Windows. It doesn't need to be wiped & reloaded every 6mth
> to keep that as-new performance.

I have been reading this list for awhile now and the upgrade in place vs 
a fresh install debate pops up all the time.  It seems that for every 
knowledgeable person that prefers upgrade in place there is one who 
likes to do a fresh install.

I believe that Ubuntu 9.04 was the first version I used after switching 
from OS/2. I then upgraded to 10.04. I recall I had a few problems, 
nothing real bad, but it took me a while to get them all resolved 
because I was so new to linux.

When I went from 10.04 to 12.04 I did just what I did this time. I was 
actually thinking about upgrading this time.  Even though I have regular 
backups I did not fully trust the upgrade process. Admittedly I have no 
basis for not trusting it. So I was thinking about testing my ability to 
recover to where I was before the upgrade. I thought about a fresh 
install of 12.04, adding stuff to it and taking a backup. Then doing 
another fresh install of 12.04 and using my backup to restore it and see 
if it worked.

In the end I decided if I was going to do that much work I might as well 
just do a fresh install of 14.04. That way if something went wrong I had 
my install of 12.04 just sitting there untouched and ready to go.

> Sure, once every 3-4 *years* helps. My big laptop is currently on
> 15.10. It started on 12.04 or thereabouts. It's been upgraded through
> every version since. That's 8 different versions.
>
> It still works completely fine. The *only* issue is that my 16GB root
> partition is now getting a little full. I think for 16.04 I will
> reformat.
>
> But that's once in 4 years.
>
> You don't need to treat it like it's a new version of Windows.
> Successive versions of Ubuntu are much, much more alike than versions
> of commercial OSes. It's safe to update.
>
> And these aren't classic cars, they're computers. You can just save an
> image of your root and home partitions and go back if something is
> wrong!
>

I'm sure you are right, about upgrades being safe, and I value your 
opinion.  I may be just a little paranoid, but the extra effort I go 
through makes me feel more comfortable.

Regards,  Jim