[ubuntu-za] Is it worth it?

[Jonathan Hitchcock]

Hi David,

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 8:52 AM, David Nel <david.uberdiablo at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just got a Ubuntu 9.10 disc from ShipIt and was wondering if I'm able to
> just upgrade my current 8.10 installation without too much hassle.

The discs from ShipIt are not for upgrading your systems - they are
for installing from scratch.  They contain squashed live ready-made
base systems which give you a fresh installation almost instantly,
with a few minor bits of configuration.

In addition, you can't (or rather, shouldn't) skip versions when
upgrading.  To get from 8.10 to 9.10, you should first upgrade to
9.04, and from there to 9.10. Each new version knows exactly what
needs to happen to the previous version to get itself up and running.
It would be a lot harder to make generic instructions that would work
when coming from *any* previous version, so the sensible thing to do
is to leapfrog up versions, making each change as they come.

Upgrading your system to the next version is essentially a matter of
upgrading each package installed on the system to the level at which
the next distribution version has them.  This is why the ShipIt discs
can't upgrade them:  they don't contain all the packages which you
have installed (and there's no way they could - they can't tell what
you've installed).

My recommendation is that you take a copy of your /etc, and keep your
/home, and install 9.10 fresh, but using your old /home (thus keeping
all your files and settings).  In addition, before you upgrade, you
can take a list of the packages you have installed and install them on
the new system once you've upgraded.  To do this, run:
   dpkg --get-selections > ~/installed-files-8.10

Once you've upgraded, run:
   dpkg --set-selections < ~/installed-files-8.10

And then run "aptitude install" to make the changes happen.