you could but 10.04 onto a usb stick and boot from that and see if it works
before upgrading,
but if it works why upgrade?

What version are you running now? I am running 10.10 on my netbook (eeePC)
without problems and I have run every version for the past 2 years without a
hitch.

I spend way too much time browsing the forums, and it appears that people who
upgrade have far more problems than people who do a clean install.

I've used Ubuntu for almost three years, several versions, and I've never done
an upgrade.

There is little that can go wrong in a clean installation, but much
room for error in an upgrade --- and that goes for any OS. Many distros such
as Fedora do not even encourage it.

With a clean installation the root partition is reformatted, so you are
starting with a clean slate. So unless your burn or download is bad then you
have few problems in comparison. When you do not reformat, as in an upgrade,
there are traces that inevitably get left behind and these can come back to
bite you. Also there are changes from one version to another that make it
necessary to convert various parts. For example moving from grub legacy to
grub2 or when xorg.conf was done away with or Plymouth replaced usplash.
These are all room for problems that would not be there if you did a fresh
installation in the first place.

My system is so customised that an upgrade usually fails anyway. However,
many years ago, I set my partitioning up so that I had a separate home
partition and I still have my original home folder, even after I went from
ext2 to ext3 and then ext4. I have not lost one piece of data after all this
time. In fact I have to manually go back and delete hidden folders for apps
and settings that I no longer use or need. I have even switched distros
several times without a hitch.

If I could pass one one bit of advice it would be that every user should do
themselves a favour and take the time to set up a separate home partition.
It has saved me countless headaches. The second piece of advice would be to
always do a fresh installation. Most people who have been around the block a
few times do clean installations and they know how to bail themselves out of
problems that come through upgrading. It is just good practice.

I have to agree on the separate /home folder. When I set up my system
I wished to have a good stand alone partition program and was suggested
I try GParted, that was a good suggestion, worked great. It would have been
nice to have a good idea of how much space to allow for the Root file
system
for upgrades and future replacement distributions and ended up with a WAG
(Wild A**ed Guess), so I may end up at some later date having to redo again,
but I don't think I will have a problem.
I am still dual booted but I think I have found a usable replacement for
the
one remaining Windows application I am still using, I still need to load my
information manually and get used to using it. Then I will convert this to
single boot Ubuntu. I still have an issue with using the internal sound card
and have head phones, internal speakers work fine. I can use a USB sound
card and have it work alright so it isn't a deal breaker.
So learn how to partition and create separate /root and /home partitions,
makes life a lot easier, but also remember the first two rules in
Unix/Linux/Windows
system administration.
1.)Back the system up regularly.
2.)Never forget rule one.

see:
www.debianadmin.com/find-your-debian-or-ubuntu-linux-version-you-are-runn\
ing.html

You need to open up a terminal and type a command or better yet, copy
(highlight and ctrl-c) and paste (use the terminal menu or shift-ctrl-v).