I am currently in that level of hell reserved for people who upgrade their GNU/Linux system too quickly. I have for some time now been happily using KDE 4 with the plasma desktop enjoying the cute little animations and eye candy, and learning to use the task-bar and widgets. Then my bliss was interrupted by a simple mistake. I decided to upgrade.

Every six months, a new edition of Ubuntu is released and the Update Manager that pops every now and then offers you the choice of upgrading your current version to a newer one. Every six months, Ubuntu users worldwide face a tough choice. Should they keep running their current version or should they upgrade?

1) Never use apt-get or aptitude: Apt(itude) is great (it's got supercow powers), but for upgrading use update-manager instead (see the how-to below). Update-manager still uses apt in the background, but additionally fixes common errors, removes old artwork, etc.