With the big 8.10 release of Ubuntu just around the corner, many of you will probably be upgrading or doing fresh installs on release day. Here are few things you can do to get ready for the release of Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (or any other Linux distribution), and make sure you accomplish your goal as productively as possible.

• Schedule it out. Map out and schedule your upgrade time. I always provide myself an entire evening (6pm - 10pm) or about 4 hours to do a full fresh install plus my usual customizations.




• Make an “install” list. Take stock of tasks you’ll need be completing in the near future, and make sure to install those apps first. Are you going to need to be accessing your corporate mail? Install evolution-exchange first thing, not Super Tux! :).




• Automate your installs. As long as you’re making a list of apps to load after a fresh install, why not just make a quick script with this command in it: apt-get install app1 app2 app3 etc...? Just run that script as administrator after the install, and you’ll get all your favorite apps automatically.




• Backup everything! Always backup everything before a distribution upgrade or a fresh install…even if you have your home directory on another partition. You never know what could happen, or what error you yourself might make during the installation. So have a good backup and restore strategy for all your important files and multimedia.

How do you prepare for a major upgrade or fresh install of a Linux distribution? Share your tips in the comments.