[sf-lug] seeking update advice

[Ken Shaffer]

Hi Jim,
My laptop is set up with two 25G partitions for OS
installs, a swap, and a "big" data partition.  I
alternate between the OS partitions, keeping
the previous version as a fallback, until I am
ready to install the next version.  Then I wipe
the old OS directory and do a fresh install.
I don't really go back and forth between the two a lot.
If I hate the new installation, I just wait until the
next one comes out and keep using the old one.

Definitely don't think a shared home is a good idea.  Too
much desktop stuff gets written there, and who knows what
the mix will produce.  Just select some directories with
your files to share.

I'm trying something new this time -- making links from my
home back to the previous installation for things like
the Documents directory.  Only doing this because my "big"
data partition is still too small for it to be the permanent
location for all of this stuff. Otherwise, I'd just have links
from every home directory back to the data partition, and
eliminate all cross-talk.   I seem to be moving away from lots
of little partitions, to bigger ones with link or mounted directories
as needed -- seems to waste less space, and I'm never stuck with
having the space, but spread out all over, making it useless.

Definitely recommend against trying to "mix" the different OS's
directories -- been there, done that, and never going
to do it again!  Red Hat had the little trick of using
relative paths on some of their stuff, (../../whatever)
and the backtrace on the links broke if you moved their
directories around.  I couldn't convince them the
absolute paths were preferable.

I've never had download problems, but I've heard that torrents
put additional checking in place, so maybe you should try them
if you haven't.  Checksums work, but only to tell you to try
the whole thing again -- very unsatisfactory for big downloads
if you do get occasional glitches.

I agree about using 12.04, that's what I migrated to from my
10.04.  With the kernel slip-streaming into 12.04, that's
no longer a reason to go to the latest release.  Be sure
and get the 12.04.2, since that has the 3.5 kernel as well
as all the other package  updates.

I try new distros in kvm virtual machines -- it's so simple:
1)sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm
  Install the software
2)qemu-img create precise.img -f qcow2 6G
  Create a sparse 6G virtual image (takes only seconds)
3)kvm -m 750 -cdrom /usr/local/vm/natty/precise-desktop-i386.iso -boot d
precise.img
  Install your favorite iso to the sparse image (does the standard install,
I've
  always used an iso, but a cdrom works too I am told).
4)kvm -m990 myvm.img
  Run it
And of course, you can add other gui management software if you
want, but I don't bother.
Good Luck,
Ken
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