Upgrading From Ubuntu 8.04 To Ubuntu 8.10 – Part 3

Note: My upgrade didn’t work but my new 8.10 Ubuntu is freshly installed. Here are the immediate things I noticed from my initial use of the OS:

Above: When I customize my appearance settings to “Subpixel smoothing (LCDs)”, “Slight” is now automatically selected and this is cool. Saves me a few clicks.

Above: You can now create a bootable USB stick of Ubuntu natively within the OS. (System, Administration, Create a USB startup disk). All OSes should have this feature, period.

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The Ubuntu 8.10 default wallpaper is the I’ve seen since “Dawn of Ubuntu”.

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The Partition Manager (GParted) is now much more graphical in the best possible way. The previous one was functional but a bit difficult to understand what it was doing. This one, however, shows everything in a clear concise manner. Very much appreciated.

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Above: Deskbar now operates much better. For those that use Launchy in Windows (which I do all the time) or Spotlight in OS X, Deskbar is now up to par with the others. Works very nicely and is buttoned up compared to what was in the 8.04 Ubuntu release.

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Above: At the top right (in the default desktop), the icon is redesigned in a way that totally makes sense. Gone is the green “running man”. A red universal power button now shows that on click is a simplified drop-down menu. You absolutely cannot mistake this for anything else (whereas with the “running man” you could). This is a good design choice.

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Several pop-up dialogs in the panel tray have been re-worded. For example, a wireless network is now labeled as a “hidden network”. For wireless routers that don’t broadcast their names, this makes sense to call it hidden.

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Above: Panels can now be “permanently” locked. Right click any panel and look for the “Allow panel to be moved” option. This is good to have so panels aren’t accidentally moved.

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I am still learning the ins and outs of the Ubuntu 8.10 OS but so far I can say yes, it’s easier to use compared to 8.04. There are lots of nice little touches here and there that make this a more enjoyable computing experience.

Note that I didn’t say enjoyable Linux experience – just computing.

Version 8.10 is good step forward in having a Linux based OS where you simply don’t have to care what the engine running it is.

Put another way: You could put someone in front of Ubuntu and that someone could use this OS without having to know nor care that it’s Linux.

As far as a desktop computing OS goes, that’s the ultimate goal. You should not have to ever think about the engine. You should be able to just turn it on and just do what you do with a computer, because said honestly you can cackle on all you want about Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux, but at the end of the day people will use whatever it takes to get the job done.

Ubuntu 8.10 definitely gets the job done.

If you tried 8.04 and were a bit turned off by the rough edges, many of those edges have been smoothed out with 8.10.

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http://www.geezergeek.net Floyd Bufkin
I always wait a week or so after a new release before doing the upgrade. Most of the bugs will be worked out by then. And the servers won’t be so busy. Always backup your home folder before starting. Remember that Hardy is the LTS release and is very stable, and will be maintained until the next LTS release, so you are using your computer in a production environment you may want to consider this. But it’s always fun to have the latest and greatest.
marc
I dunno, Rich, why my results were so much different from yours. I used the same method you used to upgrade from 7.10 to 8.04 with no prob. I used a slightly different method to go from 8.04 to 8.10.
Both times I opened the terminal window beforehand, and did a
sudo apt-get update
to find any available updates. Then I let them install. The older version you’re upgrading from must be absolutely up-to-date before proceeding with the upgrade to the new version. Doing that is really the only way to be absolutely sure it is. I don’t fully trust the Update Manager.
For the 8.10 upgrade I used the Ubuntu Geek method of Alt+F2 to open the “Run Application” GUI and typed in
update-manager -d
From there the upgrade procedure was pretty much like yours, except it all went without a hitch.