linuxgeek: Re: [LINUX_Newbies] Downloading Problem

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Re: [LINUX_Newbies] Downloading Problem

good afternoon
special question:

what does the word stable mean?

One for the stable crowd and one for the adventurous crowd.

What does adventure mean?

regards

sophie

Am 10.04.2014 14:30, schrieb Linux Canuck:
> A new version of Ubuntu comes out on April 17th. It will be LTS or long
> term support. If you install it and do not upgrade it, then support will
> last for five years. If you install it and upgrade it in six months then
> you will have to do so every six months. Ubuntu has two upgrade paths.
> One for the stable crowd and one for the adventurous crowd. There is an
> important change to note. Support for six month releases used to be for
> 18 months. That is no longer the case. It is only for 9 months now which
> means you no longer have the option to NOT upgrade in six months because
> you will have to re-install after 9 months if you let the support run out.
>
> Linux Mint will come out about a month later and will be based on
> Ubuntu, as always. There are two differences. One is that Mint does not
> feature Unity as a desktop choice. Instead it has two of its own, Mate
> (Mah-tay) and Cinnamon. The second difference is that Mint cannot be
> upgraded the same way that Ubuntu can. It has no upgrade tool. You have
> to manually change the repository sources by editing a file as root and
> then you will have to type some commands to do the same thing. Ubuntu
> does this from the GUI and it has a better chance of success, depending
> on how carefully you edit and type. There is good news in this, though.
> Linux Mint will also be LTS, so you won't have to upgrade for five
> years, unless you want to do it every six months.
>
> There are advantages to both upgrade cycles. Five years gives you
> stability and you do not have to worry about things not working for five
> years. Six month cycles give you the latest and greatest versions of the
> applications and kernel with drivers.
>
> I have followed an aggressive upgrade path since 2000, both in RPM
> distributions and Debian ones. I have NEVER had a computer "brick". Nor
> have I heard of that happening to anyone else. What can happen is that
> you may have a system crash and become unstable and have to backup and
> re-install. That is no big deal once you have done it a few times. I
> live on the edge, computer-wise, and therefore I have done just about
> everything else to my system.
>
> About 10 years ago, I got smart. I started my own home partition with
> Linux being spread across three partitions, / (root), /home and swap.
> Since that time, I have never had to backup. Instead I just re-install
> and reformat the root partition. I re-use the home and swap partitions.
> The trick is to do a manual or custom installation and then check and
> double check that you have chosen NOT to format /home, but to format the
> root partition. I use the same user name and my settings and data stay
> intact.
>
> Re-installation never scares me. Many experienced users actually prefer
> to do this than to upgrade. It gives you a fresh start. It is not a lot
> of work either once you learn a few tricks. You can back up your sources
> and your package list and post-installation open the package list and
> the package manager will re-install everything that was on it before.
> You can even use your computer while all this is being done. The only
> down time is the actual installation which takes half an hour or so.
> Longer if you choose to update before you re-boot. I do not. I do a
> basic installation then update after it re-boots. That way my computer
> is down for a shorter period of time.
>
> There is a lot to digest here. Think about it and what your goals are,
> then make a plan to implement things slowly. Make sure you get a handle
> on one thing before you change it up too much and cannot figure what the
> problem is. Most problems have an easy solution and the worst,
> re-installation, is not so scary as it may sound.
>
> Roy
> On Thursday, April 10, 2014 12:46:41 AM, Gene C. Falck <gfalck@merr.com>
> wrote:
> Hi, Roy,
>
> You wrote:
>
> > If you are on the six month cycle you MUST upgrade every six months or
> > you run into trouble. Support used to be for 18 months but that has
> > been shortened to 9 months. If your support runs out then you must do
> > a re-installation and cannot get any upgrades and security patches.
>
> Hmm. I ran into a mention of a distro bricking a
> computer when it went out of support; that sounds
> like big trouble. I gather Mint, which is what I'm
> trying to set up, is about to have newer version
> come out. I suppose, then that when the new one
> comes out I'll have about three months to upgrade. (?)
>
> --
>
> Regards,
>
> Gene Falck
> gfalck@merr.com
>