Upgrade or Clean Install?

[argedion]

Just curious to see how many prefer to update vs doing a clean install. I'm a Linux user and for the most part I just do a clean install. This steams back from my Windows Days when I would update and have issue some major some annoyances.

I generally prefer the clean install as it helps me to rid my system of stuff I don't use or no longer need. Being on Linux though I don't have to worry about my /home folder partition So I can clean install the system only and still have a majority of my settings the way they were.

I also found that a clean install is just much faster to me.

 

[Crashdamage]

Like you I've always just done clean installs and had /home on a separate partition. However, I think updates have improved a lot. I updated Fedora 22 to 23 and it went perfectly and only took a few minutes. Just opened a terminal and:
$ sudo dnf update
...and it did the deed.
Probably is OK to do updates as long as you don't skip around, like trying to go from Fedora 18 to 23. Stay with doing updates in sequential order. And maybe it would be good practice to still do a fresh install every few updates, just to be sure everything is cleaned up and straight.

 

[lunatic59]

I guess i'm a fence sitter with Linux. For major upgrades I'll do a clean install. For point versions, I'll usually just accept the in-place upgrade. Seems to be working for me so far.

 

[svim]

I prefer to do a clean install when there's a version upgrade, but not always. I run Slackware and it just isn't a distro that focuses on version upgrades following any kind of schedule, they just get released whenever they're ready -- 14.1 is the latest stable version and it's over two years old now.

 

[Deleted User]

I clean installed Ubuntu 14.04 when I upgraded from 11.xx. Still retained the old O/S on a separate partition in case I needed to revert. Of course /home has it's own partition.

 

[girolez]

I usually do an upgrade ( ubuntu LTS to LTS) because it saves reinstalling printer drivers, dropbox, etc etc. But I am always prepared, backup wise, for it to fail and then the need to do a clean install. It almost always works.

 

[AMOCO]

I vote for clean install instead of upgrade.

 

[Dngrsone]

I generally go with clean install. With Linux, usually have enough empty drive to create a couple new partitions and install the new one next to the old, and therefore have a known-working OS (or two, Win is still lurking in the background for those monthly visits).

Back in the bad old days of Win XP, I'd be nuking and doing fresh installs every eight months or so. It got to the point where I was building custom installation CDs for each machine in the house.