Its that time again, where more and more folks are trying out the development version of Kubuntu, 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot . This has its thrills, but it will also have its spills 
so a few suggestions and warnings are warranted.
It goes without saying that backing up your important data is vital, as is having a known good livecd hanging around for rescue purposes.
In the early (pre)Alpha stages, and even into the Betas, there is a rapid and constant flow of changes that at some point will break your install, at least temporarily. This is pretty much guaranteed to happen, especially the earlier you try it out
Usually these clear out quickly with the next batches of updates, but it can be a day or more in many cases.
Often it is a new bug in a new system library or app, but just as often it is simply that all the needed packages haven't been fully uploaded to the repos and mirrors just yet.
Binary drivers are a MAJOR area for having a non-functioning desktop - these often haven't been built against the latest kernel version, or are not yet compatible with the fresh Xorg builds.
Again, this can take time to resolve, depending on how fast the creators (ati and nvidia for example) can fix things. I recommend NOT using any proprietary drivers until the Beta stage for most people, and even then there may be problems, so be prepared and forewarned.
so a few suggestions and warnings are warranted.
It goes without saying that backing up your important data is vital, as is having a known good livecd hanging around for rescue purposes.
In the early (pre)Alpha stages, and even into the Betas, there is a rapid and constant flow of changes that at some point will break your install, at least temporarily. This is pretty much guaranteed to happen, especially the earlier you try it out
Usually these clear out quickly with the next batches of updates, but it can be a day or more in many cases.
Often it is a new bug in a new system library or app, but just as often it is simply that all the needed packages haven't been fully uploaded to the repos and mirrors just yet.
Binary drivers are a MAJOR area for having a non-functioning desktop - these often haven't been built against the latest kernel version, or are not yet compatible with the fresh Xorg builds.
Again, this can take time to resolve, depending on how fast the creators (ati and nvidia for example) can fix things. I recommend NOT using any proprietary drivers until the Beta stage for most people, and even then there may be problems, so be prepared and forewarned.
- Updating and upgrading
- I recommend using the command line for updating and upgrading, especially in the alpha stage, and pretty much up to the rc stage. Using apt-get is the preferred method, as sometimes aptitude tries too hard to resolve dependencies, which can lead to mixed and mis-matched libraries and systems.
- Good links for possible issues to check out regularly are here and here These do not always have Kubuntu-specific information, but do talk about the underlying system changes that could cause problems for any Ubuntu-based system.
So with that in hand, happy testing and pleasant breakages !!!!
Please do post any issues you have had, especially if you have resolved them, just please remember that something broken NOW on does not mean it will be that way later on, or that something is going to remain in a certain state in the final release.....
So with these things in mind, please try to keep the complaints about broken bits in perspective here
. - I recommend using the command line for updating and upgrading, especially in the alpha stage, and pretty much up to the rc stage. Using apt-get is the preferred method, as sometimes aptitude tries too hard to resolve dependencies, which can lead to mixed and mis-matched libraries and systems.