> ? That's good to hear. I do the same with my Macs. However, I'm > finding more and more that I *have* to upgrade because I want to > install some new piece of software that only supports the current and > last current version of the OS. I generally get around this by using > other software, but I have encountered times when this was not > possible. That's what forced me up to Mac OS X five years ago.
One important thing about Debian is that an upgrade is NOT the same as a "new install". Some distros require the you do a fresh install when you upgrade, but Debian don't. (Not sure about Ubuntu.) Normally on a Debian system you once in a while do "aptitude update" followed by "aptitude upgrade". The all installed applications automatically become upgraded with security fixes etc. When a new release of Debian is issued you will more or less get a fully automatic upgrade. That is part of the strict rules for Debian packages: The package SHALL handle upgrades in a "good" way. If a package doesn't, it's not allowed into stable. Some people consider that a drawback of Debian, that "policy violations" are considered release critical, but I think it's a strength because I know that upgrades will work smoothly as long as I use "true" Debian packages (i.e. from the Debian main archive). /Peter
