Today I did an upgrade of a server from 9.10 to 10.04. We were on a server version before upgrading to 9.10 but we could not directly upgrade to 10.04 (working upgrade paths are very specific; see a list here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes )

The most surprising part was the python script at the end.

  /usr/bin/python /tmp/unique-folder/lucid --mode=server --frontend=DistUpgradeViewText

The command line itself is not specifically strange. However, the behavior at the end of the script is a bit strange, mainly because I hadn't see it before. Last time the upgrade was smooth and pretty quick. This one, they added a script that goes through all the files (it seems) on your hard drive and check them to know whether they are obsolete. This is a very slow process (I guess the code is written in python...)

That last process doesn't really give any output except a number that counts from 1 to 100. List a sliderbar showing the current progress.

The main problem I ran into is that the process decided to show me some of the syslog being registered: all the refused packets, which means hundreds of lines appearing in my console as the script was counting. Very difficult to see what's happening and where we're at! Actually, that started before I was done with all the installation queries (you know: shall we destroy your configuration script? because we feel like out default settings are better than you last 5 years work.)

Anyway, frankly, all the websites still work without having to change anything, that's really not all that bad!