I’ve had plenty of bad experiences upgrading the Ubuntu machine mentioned in the title of this post to the latest version. 9.10 to 10.04 screwed up my ability to boot (I think it had something to do with upgrading GRUB). 9.04 to 9.10 messed some graphics component up (all I could see was purple). I don’t recall any specifics of previous upgrades, but I know plenty went awry. Having said that, I was less than optimistic about upgrading to the latest release (Meerkat). I had just spent a number of hours over the past couple weeks customizing the system just to my liking and was really hoping I wouldn’t have to re-do this, yet again.
I prepped by downloading the Alternative Installer cd, which contains all files needed for upgrading in an ISO, since usually the Canonical servers are pretty useless on release day. However, I attempted to upgrade using this method and my system hung at some point having to do with configuring software repositories. I was not happy. I rebooted (and thankfully) the system came back on normally. I then tried to update the system via the internet. I was alerted that a previous upgrade attempt had been incomplete so it needed to do something to correct this. After that, I attempted to upgrade again, and (a number of hours later) the system was running Ubuntu 10.10. I was happy to see that my wifi WAS working, which I’ve had issues with in the past. Read more about that here.
The bottom line is, if you’re looking to upgrade an E1505 to Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat, go for it (but I recommend using the internet upgrade method rather than the alternative installer cd).