I've been putting off upgrading my Kubuntu (a variant of the Ubuntu OS), for a while since they released the latest version, Edgy Eft. I've heard of people having problems that left them with an unusable system, and I have experienced this myself on an earlier version change. Last night I decided to go for it. I ran a couple of commands and the system proceeded to download about 900 packages. That and the actual installation took around three hours. I had to run the upgrade command twice after it stumbled on a file, but apart from that it was all smooth sailing. The scary part was rebooting to see if the system came back up. And it did!

There's a few obvious changes in the look of the system. Windows and the backdrop have changed. Starting the system seems slightly quicker with new-look screens. Some of the applications show obvious new features. Kopete (multi-protocol messager) is showing MSN avatars and shows the MSN gateway as a separate account. Amarok (audio player) can now play the streams from Last.fm. There's also Firefox V2.

I've had stability issues in the past. It will be intesting to see if this version reduces those, but so far, so good.