My 20.04 LTS is rock solid. Should I go to 22.04 LTS just for the bells & whistles?

[ozark_hillbilly]

I have 20.04 LTS installed and it is rock solid. I read about the new features of 22.04 LTS on ITSFOSS and it sounded ok
but I am wondering if waiting a bit for further refinement/bug removal of 22.04 is warranted?
Some feedback comments on the ITSFOSS site were not exactly flattering.
I know there is an ability to revert to previous versions but I would rather not face that sort of thing just to avoid
"hitches" that may result.
The other question is in regard to upgrading. I have a seperate /HOME partition on my Linux install.
Would that make it easier if I did decide to upgrade and and then revert if need be?

[oldfred]

I might wait until 24.04 LTS then.

I tried separate /home, but have multiple installs. I do not necessarily want same settings in them as another install may be for testing.
So I keep /home inside / (root) and have a separate data partition which I can mount in all my installs. I keep at least one older install, current install & like to try next version before it comes out. And my have another copy of current just to experiment with. Since / does not have to be large, It does not take a lot of space. But I do not have any snaps which require large / partitions, now than before. I also prefer Kubuntu, but flavor is a user preference.

You still need good backups, no matter what you do.

[ian-weisser]

Some feedback comments on the ITSFOSS site were not exactly flattering.

Be skeptical: People complain when the sun is shining. People complain when the sun isn't shining.
I honestly saw somebody complain yesterday about their train being exactly on time.

A lot of people falsely assume that their problems are universal.
Advice: Find a way to test before committing. Do proper backups to mitigate your risk.

You know, the usual stuff.

[ozark_hillbilly]

Thanks Fred.

[ozark_hillbilly]

Find a way to test before committing.
You know, the usual stuff.

So if I make the requsite backup of my data what is the best
path to test a new release, if there is an optimal way to go about it?

[oldfred]

If you just want to test a live installer works well.
If you have room on drive, you can create a new / (root) and dual boot.
But if you use /home in new install, you may update some apps that then will not be compatible with old install. I ran into this with Firefox. I used to share it in my data partition, but new install updated it and old install would not load it. Now I just back it up and copy into new install.

I also like having full installs on external drives. Used to use larger flash drive, but they are slow especially for writes. Happened to want larger SSD in Desktop, put older SSD into USB to M.2 adapter and now have fast external drive with full install & copy of almost all my data on desktop. Booted it on desktop, laptop and very old 2006 laptop. Made old laptop usable again, but only for browsing & email, too little RAM for much else.

[guiverc]

I'll add my reactions, but I'll provide no answers.

I have various boxes; they run on different hardware, and I've found what hardware you're using really makes a difference (esp. graphics & kernel). The best bet is to try the system and see what experience you get.

As most of my hardware is old; I do find the older kernel stacks given me better performance, ie. you mention you're using 20.04, but not which kernel stack you're using. If you're using the HWE stack on 20.04; that's the GA stack on 22.04 - thus you have a fair idea what to expect if you elect to use that stack.

I still have a 20.04 system myself, but its a laptop I only occasionally use, thus I don't see that it matters. If I did upgrade it to 22.04, in that case I don't believe I'd benefit; which is why its running the older release.

My primary box I'm using now is on the development release, though dual boot is the LTS, and my LTS is 22.04. On this box I'm far happier on 22.04 with the newer software, than I was with 20.04.

You'll know what software you use; in my case 22.04 & newer software was beneficial. The biggest difference I noted with 22.04 related to graphics hardware & the newer HWE kernel stacks from 22.10/23.04/23.10 (5.19/6.2/6.5) where I noted some old hardware in QA performed better using older stacks; which is available on 22.04 (ie. GA or 5.15; again check what are you using on 20.04??). On those boxes; I'd just ensure I used the GA kernel & all is good.

(I have ~25 boxes here & use many in QA; thus my last paragraph.. don't forget you can try before install; with 22.04 media available that uses the 5.15, 5.19, 6.2, & 6.5 kernels; so at worst it'll be a number of downloads & writes to media to try GA (5.15) & current 6.5 (HWE); if bandwidth matters to you, just use zsync to download differences between them.... Are you aware how to get the different ISOs? as 22.04.3 will be easiest to find, which has 6.2 HWE kernel for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Desktop.. but others are there if you look)

As for separate /home, Ubuntu Desktop installs can non-destructively install even if you're using a single partition (ie. /home is just a directory), but personally I still feel safer having a separate /home (in that it gives me more options, though this box uses a single partition; half the benefit of separate /home is many non-Ubuntu's can non-destructively re-install if single partition, but I can't see myself leaving Ubuntu on this box).

https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/try-ubu...re-you-install (which applies to Ubuntu flavors too; ie. a live test is what I'd do on your actual hardware)

FYI: If you have problems, you do know you can non-destructively re-install a Ubuntu Desktop system... I've written about it here on another site, and I use it myself somewhat often (31 August, 2023 on this actual install!). Most my installs are for flavors rather than Ubuntu Desktop, but the method works the same on all desktop ISOs.

[Quarkrad]

An option you might want to consider is to install qemu and create a virtual machine - then install 22.04 on that virtual machine and see what it is like. This site details what to do http://www.tecmint.com/install-qemu-...tual-machines/ but there are many others. Also, there are many people on this forum that can help you if you decide to go down this route. Easy to do and once you finish you can rid yourself of the virtual machine if you wish.

[grahammechanical]

Another alternative is Ubuntu Pro

https://ubuntu.com/pro

I have a "rock solid" Ubuntu 20.04. I registered with Ubuntu Pro to get another 5 years support. I have a laptop with Ubuntu 20.04 pre-installed. It has supplier keyboard drivers that I was not sure would work when I upgrade 20.04 to 22.04. So, I choose Ubuntu Pro to get an extra 5 years security updates.

The linked page is aimed at commercial users who have to pay for the features of Ubuntu Pro, But scroll down and you will see this message under Pricing>Personal:

Anyone can use Ubuntu Pro for free on up to 5 machines,

I intend to skip 22.04 LTS and transition to 24.04 LTS. I am already running the development version of 24.04 and setting it up the way I like it. The important thing is to have your data in a separate partition or drive.

Oh, by the way, I have since found out how to install the supplier's keyboard drivers from the supplier's repository. So, I have a full functioning keyboard on both 20.04 LTS and 24.04 (LTS soon to be)

Regards

[John Nagle]

Having used both, I have to say that 22.04 LTS is much worse than 20.04 LTS.

Every once in a while, Canonical rams in the anal probe and breaks something in the middle of the night. This is called "updating".

- This morning, Firefox wouldn't launch. No error message, just a spinning icon. A reboot fixed this. I could probably figure out why if I was willing to put in a few hours.

- Randomly, about once a month or two, the graphics system silently drops from the NVidia 3070 to software emulation. The first time I use a 3D program, it either aborts or runs really slow. A reboot will fix this.

- The newer systemd has a thing to kill processes it thinks are using too much memory. This is now enabled on desktop. About once a week, it kills a Rust compile, even though memory is nowhere near full. No error message, although there's stuff in the system log. This is on a 32GB machine, which shows as less than half of memory in use.

20.04 LTS was much more stable. I miss it.

I left Windows to get away from "updating" breakage. Now, the rot has reached Linux.