First I did a test install, clean, on an external sata drive. Seemed to go well enough. So today while the football game was on I upgraded my 11.04 main to 11.10. I normally do clean installs, but decided to try an upgrade. Something I haven't done in several years.
I think that purely considering the time it took, I probably should have just done a clean install. Upgrade started at 2pm local time and rebooted to new install desktop at about 5:20pm. So almost 3 and a half hours to upgrade.
I then added the kubuntu ppa and updated. Another.... oh maybe half hour or so. Then I still had to fuss with a couple of my desktop widgets, probably due to some resolution changes during install or something. Play with getting rid of the Mail Dispatcher Agent notification thing (10 minutes or so of screwing around logging out and back in, etc). Normally I would just save a copy of my entire home directory on the eSata external and then wipe / and /home and reinstall clean. Then I reinstall apps, start them once, and then pull over whatever files I need from my backed up home directory. (like the firefox configurations and thunderbird, etc).
By contrast, the clean install I did on the external sata drive for testing was ready for business as usual in about an hour, maybe hour and a half tops. That does NOT count the time to download the desktop CD and make the bootable USB stick.
I still haven't gone through all of my apps and tested everything, but mail and browsing work, digikam is installed and working. All-in-all I think when the 12.04 LTS comes out, I'll go back to doing clean installs. Not because it takes so much less time, but because I can break up the time it DOES take (download the ISO and make a bootable USB stick, back up home directory, install new Kubuntu, set up whatever apps I need most really quick, fuss with less important stuff when I get around to it).
This was a really smooth upgrade I think.... as upgrades go. But I think I prefer my previous method of installing clean.
Just my 2 cents. Personal preference and observations of the procedure.
**edit**
Just noticed my network thingie in the try now actually shows my wired connection and let's me CONFIGURE it! Woo-hoo!
I think that purely considering the time it took, I probably should have just done a clean install. Upgrade started at 2pm local time and rebooted to new install desktop at about 5:20pm. So almost 3 and a half hours to upgrade.
I then added the kubuntu ppa and updated. Another.... oh maybe half hour or so. Then I still had to fuss with a couple of my desktop widgets, probably due to some resolution changes during install or something. Play with getting rid of the Mail Dispatcher Agent notification thing (10 minutes or so of screwing around logging out and back in, etc). Normally I would just save a copy of my entire home directory on the eSata external and then wipe / and /home and reinstall clean. Then I reinstall apps, start them once, and then pull over whatever files I need from my backed up home directory. (like the firefox configurations and thunderbird, etc).
By contrast, the clean install I did on the external sata drive for testing was ready for business as usual in about an hour, maybe hour and a half tops. That does NOT count the time to download the desktop CD and make the bootable USB stick.
I still haven't gone through all of my apps and tested everything, but mail and browsing work, digikam is installed and working. All-in-all I think when the 12.04 LTS comes out, I'll go back to doing clean installs. Not because it takes so much less time, but because I can break up the time it DOES take (download the ISO and make a bootable USB stick, back up home directory, install new Kubuntu, set up whatever apps I need most really quick, fuss with less important stuff when I get around to it).
This was a really smooth upgrade I think.... as upgrades go. But I think I prefer my previous method of installing clean.
Just my 2 cents. Personal preference and observations of the procedure.
**edit**
Just noticed my network thingie in the try now actually shows my wired connection and let's me CONFIGURE it! Woo-hoo!
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