Upgrade or fresh install

#1

Hi
Perhaps this is the dumbest post in the month. Since Ubuntu Mate 16.04 I keep the home partition not formatted and install a fresh LTS in the / partition one or two months after launching date. This allows me to keep configured all programs including Compiz and I save with Synaptic the selected programs before moving and then with "selections" on the new LTS I install almost all needed and everything goes fine and quickly.

With 22.04 as I retired last year I started to test it and work with development version before launching date. My crucial doubt is if I start from a beta version, when Jaunty is officially launched doing necessary upgrades and dist-upgrades needed I will have a clean system or not, in other words the same system as if it was installed from the official release available after April 21st.

Thank you

#2

Ubuntu jaunty (Jackalope) was official launched back in April 2009; I suspect you meant jammy which is what Ubuntu 22.04 LTS will be.

If you have the alpha system now, or install the current RC (Release Candidate) for the beta, or a beta itself, and perform apt full-upgrade to upgrade packages, you'll end up with a complete Ubuntu 22.04 LTS system at release time.

It'll be functionally identical to a clean installed system, however if you were to do a byte comparison against a clean or fresh install of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, differences may appear on disk; but they won't be significant, nor impact operation. ie. it's possible tiny but insignificant differences exist in files that were used in earlier alpha or beta stages, but didn't make it to the final product; thus won't be there for clean installs of the final product. Functionally it should be 100% identical though.

Note: I'm referring to Ubuntu-MATE as Ubuntu here; that's just my preference as I see all flavors as a Ubuntu system (it's just many of us prefer alternate desktops!)

3 Likes
#3

This a good question. For those that are testing the beta version will they be able to upgrade to the final release or will they need to do a fresh install?

#4

My error. Guiverc posted at the same time I posted the question. Thanks for the answer guiverc.

#5

Thank you guiverc

In all instances apt purge + autoremove or snap or flatpak there's no way to avoid keeping insignificant (in terms of bytes) residual system files. So this time following your advice I'll try to continuo with my 22.04 until it becomes a final release.

Regards