Ubuntu 12.10 “Quantal Quetzal” has released, with a lot of new exciting features. So you’re running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS now, and you’re interested in the shinny features of 12.10, then you may want to upgrade now (or you can do a fresh install (12.10), in another partition/drive)
Upgrading to Ubuntu 12.10, from 12.04 LTS is very easy, but you must always have a backup of all your important data (to another hard disk or online such as Dropbox, Ubuntu One or Amazon S3).
First of all, Back up all your important data
Then, start Update Manager. Update the settings, so that it can notify you about the new version (by default it’s set for LTS only).
Now, restart the update manager and click on check to reload the package information. Now you should see the upgrade notification “New Ubuntu release 12.10 is available” at top.
Now, read the release notes and click on upgrade to start the upgrade process.
It may take time depending on your internet connection, once the process is complete, restart your computer and enjoy the cool features in latest Ubuntu release (12.10).
NOTE : If you prefer a solid and stable distribution over the new one with latest cool stuffs, then better stick with LTS version, specially in production environment or any situation where stability/compatibility is critically important. e.g in server environment. But for most of the desktop users, that might not be an issue, or you could run LTS as primary OS (for work) and the latest one as secondary OS in other partition/drive.