Fresh Install or Update...?

This is a question everyone has made to him/herself while working in Ubuntu. But what should you do when upgrading from one Ubuntu version to another...?

In my personal case I always format everything and make a freash and clean install to avoid conflicts and unwanted data-loss. Anyways this is something everyone should decide personally, but I'll give you some tips and hints on what you should consider before deciding.

First, updating from one version to another of Ubuntu could be dangerous for older computers which might crash on the process. Maybe some package is removed and replaced with something else it shouldn't be, or maybe some configurations are replaced, making some hardware useless until you find what was changed exactly.

Second, making a fresh install requires you to delete all of your data and formatting your HDD, which means you must make a backup of all of your important data and configurations! But this way you can be sure that everything should work nicely and smoothly, obviously after making the necessary fixes and changes like on any Linux Distribution install.

Third, updating takes a whole lot of time because everything should be downloaded and then installed by the Update Manager...which could be done even easier by downloading the .iso for the Ubuntu site and letting the LiveCD work its magic on the installation.

These are at last 3 facts that should be considered by any Ubunturero. In my case (like I mentioned above) I rather make a fresh install and forget about hunting for missing stuff inside the Fylesystem (which can be frustrating and time-consuming). But that's up to you guys! Hope this was helpful!