If you didn't already know, Ubuntu has released it's next version of it's OS 6.10 Edgy Eft. If you are currently running 6.06 Dapper Drake and you like to run the latest software, you might want to upgrade. One reason not to upgrade is if you need long term support. The new version is not guaranteed to be supported past the release of the next version, where 6.06 has "Long Term Support". Most home users shouldn't really worry about that though.

Here is a link to the upgrade instructions, but the basic idea is that you open a console and enter the following command

gksu "update-manager -c"

You'll be informed of the upgrade options. Select your option and then sit and wait. It needed to download ~570 MB of packages to perform my upgrade on a pretty much untouched 6.06 install.

There is an alternate route to upgrading from the command line if you're on a server or you're a command line user like myself. The oddity about it is that you have to perform the upgrade step twice. The second time performs the switch from the old "init" program to Ubuntu's new "upstart". Look at Meeting 20's news items for a link talking about upstart. So to get the process started, you need to make sure you have a couple of key packages installed before the upgrade

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-minimal ubuntu-standard ubuntu-desktop

If it tells you they are already installed, that's fine. Next, you need to edit your sources.list file for apt.