Five days ago, I upgraded Athena (our main desktop PC here) from 5.10 (Breezy Badger) to 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake); it was pretty easy, and even all my additional installations and hacks like chikka, skype, various multimedia capabilities, and many more; all works like a charm.

To be honest in my 9 years of using Linux, this is the first time I upgrade from one version to the next. My old practice was to save only all the /home data and maybe some configurations and then make fresh full installation. This time with Athena, due to many manual and modified installations I made, I decided to try the upgrade path – well, its all seamless, even smoother than in any Windows upgrade.

Yesterday, Apollo - my notebook, with the official release of 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake); I decided to try the fresh installation. I already experienced the upgrade and it was all joy, and much more in the fresh installation? I couldn’t stop myself but to try it!

I downloaded the Desktop ISO file using torrent – it took me less than two hours to finish the download.

Burned the ISO file to CD using Athena’s built-in function of it: Right click on Image (ISO) file -> Write to Disc... -> Write

I booted Apollo with the CD installer and it was a different boot splash screen greeted to me compare to past releases. The desktop version is now a LiveCD; it lets you to use Ubuntu without installing it to your hard disk. All the hardwares are all properly detected and configured.

I used the LiveCD for a while configured my wireless, browse the Internet; listen to some sound, even try chat :) and then finally its about time to try the installation.

There was an Install icon in the desktop; I double click it, and a series of simple and familiar forms you need to fill. In about a couple of minutes upon finished filling up all those system information; installation starts to kick-in.

No boring moments of waiting unlike before. Now, while installation was running in LiveCD I was also browsing the Internet. And most of all, it didn’t take that much time, maybe after 10 minutes, the notification for reboot pop-up. I was thinking, oh well, they maybe just finished copying the images and compressed files to the hard disk, and the next steps after the reboot will be the long flashy messages “uncompressing xxx... installing xxx”.

I went to the kitchen to drink some water, and then when I came back, I was really surprised, really a big surprise that I’m seeing now a login screen, whoa!

Well, I still thought, maybe once I logged-in, installation will still continue there; but no, that’s it! That’s all folks! This time I already got a working wireless network; my configuration I did in the LiveCD was already saved and what I’m using now. Very cool! Everything really works! Everything easy!

How I wish all the OS installations are like this. Or even application installations.

Anyone reading this and never tried Ubuntu yet, please do yourself a favor; at least try the LiveCD environment. And if you like it, and in any case you need some help or advice how to install it or dual boot your machine with Windows, I will be very happy to assist you.

And to other already Linux or Ubuntu users, give a try and test Dapper Drake, it will be a treat to yourself, as you experience the easiness and coolness of Linux in here. Give yourself a break for at least to your Desktop PC, this time you have nothing to configure, nothing to hacks, everything just works! Install it to your friend's PC or let them explore the LiveCD, introduce them to Linux - I felt this is our responsibilities in Open Source Community to evangelize and to tell all people near to us that open source software like Linux and distribution like Ubuntu is now better and easier to use compare to commercial software like Windows.