Milkduds

Upgrading Ubuntu

April 10th, 2005

It was announced a few days ago that Ubuntu released the latest version (5.04) of their Linux distribution, codenamed Hoary Hedgehog. I was currently using the previous version (4.10 and named Warty Warthog) and figured I would have to download the ISO and do some type of upgrade or reinstall altogether. But to my suprise, as I was reading the release notes, I saw that I could just upgrade while I was running Ubuntu.

All I had to do was change my apt repositories to point to hoary instead of warty, then perform a couple other simple steps. I thought this was surely too easy to be true, but decided to try it anyway. AND IT WORKED!!! All I had to do was answer a few questions during the upgrade and they all had to do with upgrading software that had configuration files. This was actually really nice because it would let you use the new config file, your old one, see the difference between the two, or skip the package upgrade. In all, I think the total time to upgrade took about 30 minutes.

Now I think Ubuntu is pretty much sealed as my distribution of choice for a desktop operating system. It is very easy to use, has all the software you could ever want, and is very easy to upgrade. If you haven’t tried Ubuntu, and you are either new to linux or an old pro, please try it now. You won’t be sorry.

Entry Filed under: Technology