[tresta]

I really don't understand why the upgrade seems to be so hit and miss between people. My current laptop has been on the same ubuntu install since (at least) 10.04. I've even upgraded to beta versions a couple of times and the only problem I've ever had was when I upgraded to the 12.10 beta and it ran out of disk space in the middle of the install. But that was recoverable.

Of course, this comment might be a trap. There's only one way to find out...

[strictfp]

Me too, upgraded from 7.04 to 12.04 without major problems.

[tomrod]

For me, I put on nonstandard software that gets removed. Sometimes software sources aren't preserved--especially if I have messed with GUI configurations.

[takluyver]

Likewise, upgrades have always worked for me. I think I took one computer through about 5 consecutive versions without reinstalling it. Maybe it depends on hardware...

[ekianjo]

I had problems updating from 9.04 to 9.10 -> I remember it messed up my system so bad I had to reinstall it from scratch. After that, i moved to Mint for a while, and then tried Ubuntu again for 11.10 then did the update to 12.04 without any issue. I will try upgrading to 12.10 within the system again this time.

[trhtrsh]

It's because the more customizations a user has done, the more likely they are have to have made a change that is incompatible with the upgrade process. It's the same for any OS. The only mitigation is to allow less customization of the files that get upgraded during an upgrade.