To upgrade or not to upgrade

Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 23:12 | Posted in computer, linux, ubuntu | 9 Comments
Tags: opsys

Peter seems to have upgraded to Ubuntu 7.04. Apart from minor problems, he sounds satisfied. The download took three hours, apparently due the huge interest to get the latest version which causes congestion at the download servers.

I still have Ubuntu 6.06 running in my box. I did not upgrade to 6.10 because I do not necessarily have to have the very latest version. I also like the idea of having a long term support. When I was still using the other opsys, I had 98 running until it was no longer supported and became obsolete.

While I do not feel an urge to rush ahead of 6.06, I still keep weighing out whether the fresher versions would benefit me enough to motivate the trouble of upgrading. According to the release notes, 7.04 includes “new and easier ways to install multimedia codecs”. That is the part I have had some trouble with so if the improvements are significant, I might consider to upgrade. I obviously need to learn more about this to be able to decide.

However, as I currently only have 256 Mb of memory, i.e. the minimum for installing Ubuntu 7.04, I think there is no point in doing it before I have upgraded the memory. On the other hand, I have been thinking about buying a laptop within a few months. Maybe it would be a good idea to install 7.04 into the laptop and just let my desktop box run under 6.06.

That way I would be able to see the difference and evaluate whether it actually makes sense to upgrade the desktop. It would be quite a procedure because I would first have to upgrade to 6.10 and then further to 7.04. I would not want to do that much work unless there was some clear benefit to be obtained.

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I’m facing exactly the same dilemma. I’m using Dapper, and have a laptop with 256MB ram.. so thinking that I might wait it out until I get more ram.

I, too, have had multimedia problems – hence why I’m also tempted by the claims of the newer versions of the distro. Have a niggling fear though that all the hard work I’ve put in to getting Dapper to work almost seemlessly might go to waste and I’ll end up having the same problems. .. I’ve tried running Edgy from the disk on my laptop, and checked to see if it recognized my modem, sound, etc (things I had problems getting Dapper to recognize) and it, too, doesn’t see them out of the box. So.. a tad scared to make the shift.

I think I’ll just wait until there’s another long term support release.

I’m sure many would groan at that idea and tell me to just take the risk .. maybe I will.. when I have more time to devote to trying to get things to work again!!! 😛

Nice blog 🙂

Comment by wildschwein— Sunday, April 22, 2007 #

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Exactly so. I have managed to make things work mostly satisfactory in 6.06 but it took a lot of hard work. There is still some fine tuning to be done (such as figuring out why the latest flash plug in is not recognized by Firefox although I have on several occasions installed it exactly according to instructions) but in general I have a good working environment.

I think I am going to let the desktop box be as it is because it is something I can rely on at the moment. When I buy the laptop, it would make sense to install the latest version as I would have to start from scratches anyway. Waiting for another long term support release for the desktop sounds like an excellent idea. Thanks. 🙂

Comment by Larko— Sunday, April 22, 2007 #

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I have the same problem with getting flash plugins to work. Let me know when you figure out how to fix it!!!

Comment by wildschwein— Sunday, April 22, 2007 #

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Absolutely! I always share solutions that I find. Posting about them also serves as a reminder to self just in case a particular problem should be repeated.

Comment by Larko— Sunday, April 22, 2007 #

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Haha. Yes, good idea. I have to admit, I’m beginning to use my blog in a similar way (as a memory retrieval system for my ailing mind…)

Comment by wildschwein— Sunday, April 22, 2007 #

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I find answers to most of my computing problems by googling but I usually do not remember where I found them if I need same instructions again. Posting the answers in blog helps me out but also others who may be googling about the same issue.

Comment by Larko— Sunday, April 22, 2007 #

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Pingback by Surströmming - 3-Bein - buntes Magazin— Sunday, April 22, 2007 #

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I’m not very satisfied with this upgrade right now. It was hard work for me to get the 3D capabilities running under Edgy Eft. Now under Feisty Fawn I#m right at the beginning again. None of the drivers will make my brandnew Nvidia-card working in 3D mode.
Why, tell me why didn’t I follow my own old rule: Never change a running system? 😦

Comment by Peter— Sunday, April 22, 2007 #

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Peter, I think you were facing the same dilemma as I am. Maybe you just rushed into it too fast. It is a good idea to sit on one’s hands for a while when they are itching to get something done. 😉

I understand that it is easy for me to say as I can wait out till I buy the laptop. I can then see how things run in it and evaluate if an update would bring me something worth doing the work with my desktop. Otherwise I may end up having a “Surströmming” experience. 🙂

I hope you made notes about how you made it in 6.10. Probably the same (or almost the same) procedure would help you out with 7.04 as well.

Comment by Larko— Sunday, April 22, 2007 #

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