[LAU] Distro upgrade vs: new install

Normally, I do new installs rather than upgrade. It means for sure I have gotten rid of old stuff. But I was testing upgrades and thought I would share what I found. First off I was using UbuntuStudio. I was looking for things like metas not being included and yes that was so. I also found the generic kernel was getting dragged in as well as the low latency kernel. (actually that was what I set out to test) Anyway, I have an older machine and video card and have had some problems running some applications like Mixxx for example. It was suggested to me that I probably had problems even playing videos smoothly too. As happens I was testing Studio Metas installed on top of kubuntu. And was playing a video and it looked just fine. This was a fresh kubuntu install. when I tried the same thing with the updated (from 12.04 to 13.10) the video was skippy, jittery, not good at all. But on a fresh ubuntustudio install it was fine. Same video, same player, same kernel, same (supposedly) distro. The audio which was going through pulse->jack at 48000 and p64, was fine, not xruns or other artifacts. So, fresh installs are still the best, no change from 1995. Really, Hard drives are cheap. One of the least expensive bits one can buy. Better to put a second drive in the machine, put a new install (or better try three or four to see which works best with your HW/work habits) and copy your old home (or parts of it) over... or just put symbolic links in. Or, shrink a partition and load the new version in a small partition and link to the old home. This may be the only way with a laptop. -- Len Ovens www.OvenWerks.net