13.10 to 14.04

[Mazate]

If I was to upgrade to the 14.04 beta 2, what is the likelihood of having any major issues?

[SteveRiley]

A release upgrade to a beta is most certainly a YMMV exercise. That said, many of our members have had success. Given that the release is a few days from now, you'll need to weigh the tradeoff of instant gratification plus potential failure vs. waiting for the release. Also, upgrading to beta 2 means yet another release upgrade when Trusty ships.

[kubicle]

Also, upgrading to beta 2 means yet another release upgrade when Trusty ships.

The repos don't change between betas and the release (all come from the same trusty repos). While there are likely to be some upgraded packages in the repos when released, it isn't really "another release upgrade".

[SteveRiley]

Does a devel or beta release automatically roll into a shipping release at the end of the cycle? If so, I didn't know that. Nice.

[kubicle]

Does a devel or beta release automatically roll into a shipping release at the end of the cycle?

Yes, if you keep it doing the normal upgrades on a devel release, it will roll into the release.
On that note, the "base-files" package just upgraded in preparation for the release:
$lsb_release -d
Description: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
(previously)
Description: Ubuntu Trusty Tahr (development branch)

[Mazate]

Sooo.. does that mean that I'm not likely to encounter any major issues?

[kubicle]

Sooo.. does that mean that I'm not likely to encounter any major issues?

If by major issues you mean unrecoverable issues, then I'd say you're not likely to run into them, but the possibility cannot be ruled out (of course the possibility cannot be ruled out even after the release).

If you want to maximize your chance of a successful upgrade, my general recommendation for upgrading is to wait for few weeks *after* the release.
This is because the real stress test for upgrades comes when thousands of people (with different hardware/package sets/configurations) start upgrading to a released version, which can surface issues that cannot be found during much more limited pre-release upgrade tests. Waiting a few weeks will usually give enough time for such issues to be fixed.

This of course totally depends on your comfort level in fixing possible issues.

[kubicle]

problem some have with Okular is still in the process of being fixed.

Okular was fixed yesterday with the kde 4.13 (final) upgrade.