clean install: you make a backup, nuke the computer, install a fresh upgraded copy of the distro you want from a live usb, copy your data again to the computer.

upgrade: you wait ‘till the distro’ developers release an upgrade you can directly install from your soon to be old distro, you use a command like sudo do-release-upgrade

and why do you upgrade like that?

  • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
    16·
    6 months ago

    I follow the official upgrade method. Can’t be bothered to mess around with anything more complicated than that. Besides, the devs probably understand the system better than I do, so there has to be a reason why that is the preferred way.

  • KISSmyOSFeddit@lemmy.world
    3·
    6 months ago

    Depends on the distro. On Debian I upgrade cause I know it works well. On Ubuntu I always had issues after an upgrade so I do a clean install don’t use Ubuntu anymore.

  • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
    2·
    6 months ago

    rpm-ostree upgrade

    is enough on uBlue, as system release upgrades are automatically staged and just like normal updates.

    rpm-ostree rebase may be needed on Fedora Atomic

    Use a well versioned package manager guys.

  • axb@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    6 months ago

    I almost always prefer clean installation when possible, while making sure to backup important content from highly accessed folders like Desktop, Downloads and Documents (on Windows), for example.

  • tsonfeir@lemmy.world
    1·
    6 months ago

    I always clean install. I have my stuff backed up properly. I’ll go through and make a checklist of frequently used software so I can start off on the right foot. I like that new fresh smell of free space.

  • yala@discuss.online
    1·
    6 months ago

    I always upgrade as I can’t deal with a clean install every so often. This warrants using a distro that does handle this well, though*. Which, thankfully, isn’t a big deal as most distros support this anyways.

  • JoeCoT@fedia.io
    0·
    6 months ago

    It depends on how many versions I am away from the latest, and how much I’ve messed with the distro.

    Usually I stay on an Ubuntu LTS and upgrade from LTS to LTS when that upgrade path is ready. I upgraded from 20.04 to 22.04 this way.

    But this time I wanted Pipewire in 24.04, and didn’t want to wait for a 22.04 to 24.04 upgrade to be ready. I’m using a bluetooth headset and Pulseaudio is pretty terrible at switching headset profiles. Between not wanting to upgrade an upgraded install, and having messed with Pulseaudio quite a bit trying to get it working, I went ahead and clean installed 24.04 and moved some configs over.