Easiest Upgrade Path Ever December 1, 2005
Posted by Carthik in snippets, ubuntu.trackback
Have you used software, or OSes that make you go, “Dumb developers, what were they thinking?”
Well, turns out that one of the reasons I love Ubuntu is that every once in a while I encounter some tidbit in the mailing lists that makes me go, “Wow! These guys have common sense, and make things so much more intuitive and simple.”
For example, consider upgrading from Hoary to Breezy. You have a Breezy CD with you. Traditionally one would think that there would be some editing of the sources.list to use the cd-rom as a repository, followed by the upgrading itself, but here’s the surprise, with Ubuntu, you don’t have to run in circles: All you have to do is to just pop in the Breezy cd when your Hoary computer is running. The Update Manager will detect that the cd you popped in corresponds to a newer version of Ubuntu and then ask you if you want to upgrade to Breezy!!
Some of the things with Ubuntu are so simple that you don’t think of them straight up – Being a linux OS you don’t expect things to be so simple, yet they are. I have to constantly remind myself that the Ubuntu developers are folks with loads of common sense, and they want to build a system that’s as simple as possible (and no simpler).
Ubuntu Blog 
You’re joking….. right?
I mean, surely it can’t be THAT easy…
…
Really?
Mhh. It’s great to see such lovely features. Makes for a nice first user experience, especially for those who have come to use Ubuntu and then want to upgrade to their systems. A lot of Windows users in particular would expect that with every new version one would have to do a clean install, and something like this can really make a difference.
Nice!
Could have sworn this post would be about apt-get dist upgrade when I saw the header, but this CD upgrade is very, VERY nice.
I wholeheartedly agree, although I am no longer an Ubuntu user. I love Ubuntu–I had tried GNU/Linux before, but Ubuntu was what made me completely switch. It’s the small touches that differentiate a great distro from a good one. Ubuntu is a great starter distro for the computer-literate that really shows off what FLOSS can do. However, after tasting COMPLETE control (I’m running Gentoo now) that I saw merely a glimpse of in Ubuntu, I can’t go back to Ubuntu, let alone Windows.
I’ll always have a place in my heart for the distro that saved me from the Dark Side.
I was completely stunned when I saw this. A Linux newbie’s saving grace.
The only problem I had was when it tried to upgrade GnuCash. libofx2 is currently broken and doesn’t install. GnuCash depends on this and you have to remove both to let the upgrade finish.
Gave me a fright when the upgrade stopped in mid-flight with dependency hell!
Once I followed the instructions I found it worked perfectly but I don’t as yet have GnuCash! A bug has been filed so fingers crossed that it’ll be sorted out.
Yeah, that works, but it’s not flawless. I did it on my centrino-based Averatec laptop, and ran into some odd problems: missing icons in the menus, OpenOffice didn’t make the upgrade cleanly, so even though it was on the hard drive, I kept getting 1.1, etc.
I ended up wiping and installing from scratch, which as no big deal, but still mildly frustrating.
On the other hand, once I decided I had to wipe and re-install, I took that opportunity to try a few new distros on that machine, and saw once again how nicely Ubuntu installs and runs on it. I have good suspend working and good CPU frequency scaling, two things that I found impossible to configure properly using any other distro (my fault, I know, but at some point you just want a working machine). So I remain a confirmed Slacker on the desktop, but a confirmed Ubuntu user on the laptop. Ain’t choice grand?
Anyway, YMMV, as always.
Nice blog.
joe f.
This is amazing. Kudos to the Ubuntu folks!
Okay, but does anyone have any suggestions for what to do when you’re running Hoary, pop in the Breezy CD and it doesn’t automatically recognise that it’s upgrade time? It just mounts the cd and opens it in file browser like any other cd.
There doesn’t seem to be any documentation to help with this situation, because hey, it just works automatically, right? Until it doesn’t…
Any help would be greatly appreciated because I love Ubuntu and have no intention of returning to the Dark Side.
When the upgrade manager does not recognize the breezy cd, manually open upgrade manager, open preferences and use the add cd button. This makes the upgrade manager recognize that cd. Now upgrade using upgrade manager or apt-get dist-upgrade which should upgrade. (I was not brave enough to try upgrading.)
OK, so what to do when the Breezy install CD is not automatically recognized, AND the upgrade manager does not recognize the CD as an upgrade CD when explicitly asked? The CD boots fine, and appears to have the same contents as the ISO image, and yet none of these miraculous features work at all for me.
Mike,
Looks like you burned the iso image on the cd as a file. The cd has to be created using the iso image. The iso image is one file, so you will have to use a cd burning tool that can work with iso images, and will create the cd using the image.
I have a problem similar to Mike. The iso CD was not recognised so I used the synaptic package manager directly.
All appeared well OK until re-boot were hoary is still installed. No GUI is available also as the X components have an error ….”not executable”
Not what I call an easy upgrade.
Do you think it will be the same easy process with Dapper ?
Not bad, i will upgrade my kubuntu hardy to interpred ibex as soon
its relased on oct 30, a will post here how it works!.
good shorterm vehicles insurance on line www unitedteachersassociates com u s…
Sikkim retreated drovers?yellower….
Could have sworn this post would be about apt-get dist upgrade when I saw the header, but this CD upgrade is very, VERY nice.
Once I followed the instructions I found it worked perfectly but I don’t as yet have GnuCash! A bug has been filed so fingers crossed that it’ll be sorted out.