On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 01:05:30PM +0530, Rony wrote:
I have used Ubuntu's many versions, from 5.10 onwards and they do whats expected of them. I hardly update them and if so, just after the installation, when the system is still fresh and not customized. Another way is to keep the net running so the latest packages get installed during the main installation itself. After that the door is closed for further updates. I never upgrade a distro. I prefer to clean install a newer version if necessary. Always wait a few months after release before trying the latest distro, so that latest packages have bug fixes. If you are a alpha/beta/unstable tester then expect problems and give bug feedback. If one is not sure of hardware compatibility, search the net for opinions/reports for the same, before installation.
While making new installs may be your preference, Debian is designed for avoiding this, since all you need to do to jump from one stable version to another is an apt-get dist-upgrade. And if you do remain faithfully with stable, before an update to a new stable, a mere glance at potential issues before doing the apt-get dist-upgrade should suffice. Doing a reinstall sort of defeats this purpose, IMHO. Also, it is possible to dist-upgrade using CDs as well, provided you have all the CDs necessary for the dist-upgrade of all packages on your machine.
Kumar