Dear All I run 11.4 32bit and have not been offered an upgrade to the new version 12.
Any clues as to why that could be?
Not that I am in a rush as support for 11.4 is ongoing until October.
Is this an opportunity to clean install with a 64 bit system and what are the pros and cons of 64 bit systems.
Thank you in advance.
Try this …
Open a terminal and run:
sudo apt-get update
then
sudo apt-get upgrade
When finished, close the terminal.
Open update manager … click the “Check” button … when it’s finished checking for updates, did the “Upgrade to 12.04” message appear ?
if not … close Update Manager.
Hit Alt+F2 … in the dialog box enter:
update-manager -d
and hit enter … does the “Upgrade” message appear now ?
but IMHO … Upgrades can be a PITA, I pretty much always do fresh installs … so if you also want the 64bit version, as you say probably a good opportunity … burning a 12.04 LiveCD will also allow you to test for hardware compatibility before installing/upgrading … not to mention it’s always a good idea to have the LiveCD handy 
FYI -
64bit Pro’s -
64bit just allows the OS to access more than 4GB of memory (in reality 3.7GB ish)… some say it’s slightly quicker even on systems with less than 4GB (but I doubt this), though it IS quicker than 32bit with PAE (a 32bit kernel that CAN access mre than 4GB) as PAE does carry an overhead.
64bit Con’s -
Other than the fact that your CPU must be 64bit capable … none … it used to be that some applications were harder to find 64bit versions of, so reuired workarounds to get the 32bit version to work, but this is rarely (if at all) the case now.
I’m offered an upgrade to 11.10 but not 12.4 strange.
Sorry, I misunderstood you … I thought you meant there was NO upgrade option …
Apparently the only DIRECT upgrade paths to 12.04 are:-
10.04 LTS → 12.04 LTS
and
11.10 → 12.04 LTS
See the 12.04 “Upgrade” release notes
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PreciseUpgrades
and
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes
and
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OneiricUpgrades
So I’m afraid your only “Upgrade” path is 11.04 → 11.10 → 12.04
(consider yourself lucky you’re not on 10.10, as you’d have to go 10.10 → 11.04 → 11.10 → 12.04 
)
As I said before … I’d go with a fresh install of 12.04
Thanks for the information. I think I will burn a Live CD of 12.4 and see if there are any issues or is a USB stick better.
I may wait until October to let them get rid of any big bugs as it took some time to get my system the way I wonted it.
A LiveUSB with persistence will allow for a smoother test drive, as you’ll be able to save changes … such as your wireless setup.
But be aware … not all PC’s can boot from a USB stick … if it’s less than a 3 years old, chances are it can, older PC’s may or may not.
Install the usb-creator-gtk package:
sudo apt-get install usb-creator-gtk
You’ll then find “Startup Disk Creator” in the menu’s
Point it at the 12.04 ISO image
Point it at the USB stick
Give it the largest persistence file you can with the “Store in reserved extra space” slider
Click “Make Startup Disk”
It will ask for your password … then it will make the LiveUSB
I produced a 64bit Live USB and booted OK played around for about an hour, did not see any improvement in speed over my 32bit system.
Still do not like this new desktop it is so like vista I have 26 item on my dock and I am not certain they would all fit on the new side bar…
I think I will upgrade to 11.10 and see how that goes first and then leave it for a few months so the bugs get ironed out.
The “side bar” (Unity Launcher) scrolls so they will fit
Don’t expect a LiveUSB to be as quick as a hard drive installation … so if 12.04 on a LiveUSB is as quick as what you currently have on your hard drive, it will be MUCH quicker when installed to the hard drive.
You can choose different desktop … gnome-sesson-fallback will give you a desktop “similar” to the old Gnome 2.x desktop (Gnome Classic) as used in 10.04 etc. … as wll Cinnamon.
You can also have the Gnome shell (Gnome 3).
You don’t have to stick with Unity … in fact you can switch between them if you wish
At some point you’ll have to upgrade to 12.04 (or leave Ubuntu) … but when is up to you
Hi upgraded to 11.10 seems to be OK found out on the forum how to install the classic desktop.
As I said I will give it a couple of months before considering 12.4LTS do like the LTS will mean can then wait for the next LTS upgrade.
Yup, 12.04 LTS (both Server AND Desktop editions) will be supported for a full 5 years
If I’m honest, I would recommend you wait a few months before switching. There seems to be so many problems atm, and I’ve noticed a lot of problems as well.
This release was supposed to be about stability, I can tell you there is stability just not much of it.
I keep getting crashes, apport reports and it’s all very frustrating at times.
I think it’s because there’s a lot of things that have been broken that shouldn’t have been broken and we’re all just waiting for patches.
For instance, openSSL. There are 5 security vulnerabilities found and some bugs too.
I recommend you wait.