Just two more days to go until the full release, but today I'm going to re-work my laptop into a more correct partitioning scheme to support this and other future upgrades.

When I initially configured this laptop, I took a hasty "use it all" approach, and just made one big partition for my data. Normally, I divide off a fair (say 40GB) partition for the root of the data and use the rest for the /home partition. When I add software, it all goes into /home. At least the downloaded files do.

If the system is configured with a separate /home partition, it makes upgrades so much easer. Done this way, when upgrading the other partition(s) can get completely wiped with a fresh install of the new OS or environment. The applications in the /home partition will remain, or at least the installers, making the re-addition of favorite software easy. For the most part, unless some requirements have changed, software installed in /home will continue to work after an upgrade! And, of course, any data files in the /home are neatly safe from the potential requirement of formatting the partition during upgrade.

With this, since I've got a nearly all-day-long break, I'm going to install the Ubuntu 9.10 Beta, moving my /home to a separate partition, and copy my data back from the other system. I'll get everything reconfigured and be off and running in no time, I'm sure! Then on Thursday (or Friday if bandwidth or other time restricts) I'll get the release and do the same, 'cept with the partitions already done.