steve wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 charlie derr wrote: | |> |> I went the Ubuntu route a couple of years ago. It's fun until you do a |> routine update and everything breaks. ? Ive used it on this laptop for almost 3 years, and never had a problem with anything breaking. you use some off the wall repositories or something?
The above quote wasn't mine, so sorry, can't answer that one.
I> | He actually has a second machine (laptop) with ubuntu on it (an attempt | to switch distros in the past). Since I'm not nearly as proficient with | untangling ubuntu problems as I am with understanding debian, I don't | think that it really makes sense (in the past there were other | ubuntu-lovers around that he could also lean on but that's no longer the | case). The laptop has dapper on it, and from what little I've read, | the upgrade path for ubuntu mostly means wipe;reinstall -- if the | desktop machine goes to testing without much of a hitch, then I guess | we'll then be faced with the decision of what to upgrade the laptop to. wipe and reinstall? the only reason anyone might want to do that is if the disk is corrupted. when the upgrades work flawlessly in ubuntu, why would anyone want to re install?
I thought that at one point (in the past, when I was paying a little more attention) that a certain ubuntu release might be better installed as a clean reinstall (rather than trying to upgrade from a previous release). Hearing that (or thinking I heard that), I simply extrapolated the more conservative answer that I'd probably always be safer reinstalling. But maybe that was a one time thing (or maybe it was only true just prior to a final release?) or maybe it was never true and I'm making this up (because I'm incapable of remembering any more details).
But if folks think that I've got a shot at going from Dapper to a current ubuntu release on his laptop, I'll definitely give that a shot -- nice to know that's an option. As for the rest of it, I gave him the instructions I'd initially pasted and as far as I know he's either upgrading his debian stable desktop to testing or breaking it badly. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's the former.
~c
- -- Steve Reilly http://reillyblog.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHlhuU1L48K811Km0RAkXMAJwPpIm92Up7Ql6uaWLaYgBJB9T16gCghl/M VGyVtdxqAngJsTuTzPAUzw4= =Ug8Y -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----