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I'm a web developer for a small non-IT firm.

When 9.10 came out, I was using it with no adverse effects from about a month before release (iirc, first beta), initially as an upgrade but as a clean install later to ensure my system would be consistent with most other 9.10 systems.

The last alpha of 10.04 came out last week, with another 2 weeks before beta.

I'm quite eager to do it today, but obviously the usual "not for production systems" notice is still in place.

  1. When should I upgrade?
  2. Do I need to worry about software installed from source? (./configure, make, make install etc)
  3. Is the attraction of a non-brown theme really this tempting for you?
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  • Who cares about Default-Themes? It doesn't take a minute to change them.
    – Bobby
    Mar 4, 2010 at 12:28

3 Answers 3

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Personally, I usually wait until Alpha2-Alpha3 and get "bored" of my stable system and upgrade... But given the amount of serious overhaul going on in the boot process still, I would try and persuade you to hold off, perhaps until beta.

A good way to get a good health-check on the current version is to hop into irc://freenode.net/#ubuntu+1 and see what people are complaining about. Same goes for the Lucid development forums on UbuntuForums. If you've got concerns about a specific bit if essential kit (graphics, wifi chipset) ask.

And if you do take the plunge, back up. I know it's said everywhere but it's parroted so much for a reason. Data loss hurts in a way no physical affliction can.

If you're not experience with running an unstable system (and they can take some taming), do as matpol says and hold off until a month after release. You'll have plenty of community support from people with similar hardware (something that is vital if you're having weird issues).


Do you have to worry about things you've built: of course. System dependencies change, old things will be cleaned up and self-built things don't have their dependencies stored in the package manager so you might have issues. If you're organised, you'll have all your source in a single place so you know what you need to build if things don't work.


Is it worth it just for the theme? No. You'll appreciate it a lot more when it doesn't nuke you're system in a couple of months time.

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Personally I like to wait a couple of weeks after the full release and find out if anybody running it on my laptop model has had any problems.

I think if you can deal with the potential issues and it will have no knock on effects then upgrade when you want.

Non brown not tempting enough and if you don't like brown you can change it if you want!

Not sure about point 2!

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Wait until release, especially if that's your only system or work system, and even then wait a few days.

I've had 8.04's ATi drivers crap out and I lost X for 3 days because I ran the Alpha. 9.04 locked up a lot until a patch a week later fixed it. 9.10 locked up a lot until a patch a week later fixed it.

These aren't an issue on a test system or a backup system. But if it's your main machine, it's really frustrating.

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