Oh trust me, I tar the /etc directory, sync important local directories
with unison, and keep everything else on a dedicated filer, but I still
don't like having to spend a night reinstalling and tweaking to get it
back to where I had it.  I don't mind fixing problems when they arise
after installs, as I see them as adventures in learning more about
systems, but they're no less annoying when they arise.

I guess I'm lame in assuming or expecting that if they're going to offer
an upgrade function, that it work.  Microsoft has punished people for 25
years thinking such heretical thoughts even trying to use their
*upgrades* between os's, but it's nice to dream that one day it might
just be reality with some os.  Ubuntu has been about as close as I've
found, though FreeBSD used to be really good about dist-upgrades too
when it was my choice in server os.

-mb


On Tue, 2009-08-18 at 13:14 -0700, Bob Elzer wrote:
> The best way to upgrade an OS is to do a fresh install.  Nobody can catch
> everything, these distro's have so much stuff included, there is bound to be
> some complications.
> 
> If you are going to do the upgrade route, then I recommend Mondo Rescue. It
> can make a bare metal backup of your machine and if and when you find any
> problems that are deal breakers you can roll back.
> 
> Another thing I always consider when I build a system, is where I put my
> data. I put all the data I want to keep on a separate disk (I.E. I create a
> link from /usr/local/ to /mydisk/local/ )
> 
> After a fresh install, it's easy to recreate the links
> 
> There are still files I make copies of (I.E. /etc stuff and other things), I
> then have a list of files that need to be looked at in the new system.
> 
> Doing these things makes a fresh install easier.
>  
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> [mailto:plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Michael
> Butash
> Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 12:42 AM
> To: Main PLUG discussion list
> Subject: Re: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic" Alpha4 and the Intel video drivers...
> 
> I just upgraded from ibex to jaunty and to Karmic on my laptop, and I've
> been having some major issues with it.  No intel (thank goodness) to deal
> with, so can't attest to it.  Suspend functions for me are now broken, gnome
> power manager is buggy at best, and my screen saver refuses to work.  For a
> laptop these are killing me...  VMware barely works with some hackery, and
> some of the alsa devices get figured out backward now.  Even going from ibex
> to jaunty, network manager simply refused to adequately control the wireless
> hardware which was entirely a deal breaker, forcing me to roll the dice on
> karmic.  This all from a perfectly working install in hardy or ibex.
> Otherwise, I am mostly pleased with the overall performance of it,
> definitely improved from Ibex.
> 
> I'm assuming you did a clean install that everything works ok for you?
> Those typically work well for me too, but upgrades for me have been entirely
> crapshoots, which is really disappointing as otherwise I'm quite fond of
> ubuntu.  I'm curious what success others have had here with upgrades, as the
> ubuntu forms tend to indicate it's a perpetual kludge of a process with
> destruction and mayhem as a result.  I've always had major cleanup and
> fixage after a dist-upgrade.
> 
> I long ago gave up on Fedora/RedHat when pretty much
> installing/upgrading/compiling any software just led to dependency hell.
> This has gotten somewhat better since yellowdog cloned apt with yum for
> RH-ish distros, but I'm still not ready to bother trying fedora again quite
> yet.  If ubuntu keeps annoying me, perhaps I might.
> 
> -mb
> 
> 
> On Mon, 2009-08-17 at 23:39 -0700, Ryan Rix wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 9:48 PM, Jim March<1.jim.march@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Folks,
> > >
> > > I have a laptop with the mediocre Intel 965/X3100 chipset.  In 
> > > Ubuntu Jaunty it ran like a turd until major tweaks were applied, 
> > > and the results weren't 100% stable.  Jaunty came out right as the 
> > > Intel video support was in flux and Jaunty basically caught about 
> > > half of what was needed between the kernel, xorg, Intel driver, Mesa and
> Compiz.
> > >
> > > Karmic has the whole package.  I've been running it for five days 
> > > now, ever since alpha4 came out, and it's more solid (and FASTER) 
> > > than I ever got out of Jaunty.  I did a full re-install with the 
> > > alternate installer (as I use whole disk encryption) and I went with 
> > > Ext4 - it's working great.
> > >
> > > On a lark I loaded the 64bit Adobe Flash "alpha" and it's rock solid 
> > > too - best flash Linux experience I've ever had, period, end of 
> > > discussion.
> > >
> > > I think Karmic is going to be a really sweet Ubuntu flavor when it 
> > > ships and the improvements in Intel video support are so amazingly 
> > > vast I'd say anybody with at least moderate technical chops able to 
> > > cope with minor pre-release glitches should switch NOW.  I'm told 
> > > the fixes also apply perfectly to the Intel 4500 chipset found on 
> > > the newest el cheapo laptops.
> > >
> > > WARNING: this applies to all Intel video drivers except the GMA500 
> > > chipset.  That thing is a major turd and will remain so until the 
> > > Ubuntu distro post-Karmic at a minimum.  The most common GMA500 
> > > machine is the Dell "mini 10" I think it's called, and for some 
> > > reason that thing is an excellent Hackintosh candidate.  While I'm 
> > > not normally a proponent of running Apple OSX on non-Apple hardware 
> > > (as Apple is actively trying to stomp your install with updates!), 
> > > the difference in support for the GMA500 between Linux generally and 
> > > OSX is severe enough I'd consider it, at least until Intel helps get 
> > > the driver situation under control.  (The issue is, Intel recently 
> > > bought the GMA500 tech from another company that was very 
> > > Linux-hostile...Intel is getting it sorted out but it's just not 
> > > done yet.  That company did do some OSX drivers for Apple...)
> > 
> > Fedora never had these problems :)
> > *ducks*
> > 
> 
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