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I've been using a program called Lutris, which is a driver for several different game platforms including Windows, and allows me to play on Linux. I had previously been using it to play World or Warcraft but it just recently stopped working as some of my Nvidia drivers are out of date, causing me to be unable to run that specific game.

I've dug (shallow) down to the root and figured that I simply need to upgrade my software because the drivers I'm trying to install aren't compatible with this version of Ubuntu (16.04). However my computer is very old and very slow, and 16.04 was originally installed on it because this version of Ubuntu is compatible with practically everything anyway. Is 18.04 held to the same standard, and would it be smart to upgrade my computer?

I also haven't quite figured out how I'm going to mass backup all my files, so there's that, too.

K7AAY
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    Backing up would be good. Do you have free space on the hard drive, to maybe install a newer version to try out first? A decent external hard drive would be a good investment to move your data to. Ubuntu changed desktop to gnome instead of unity, but you can add unity if you want. Most upgrades work, but would not trust if you have lots of data/files you need without a backup – crip659 Jun 26 '19 at 23:10
  • Backup tools are an entirely separate subject (the management likes one issue per question here), so instead of providing depth, let me just point you to https://askubuntu.com/questions/2596/comparison-of-backup-tools . After reading that, please post any questions you have about backup in a separate post. – K7AAY Jun 26 '19 at 23:11
  • And, please do sudo lshw | grep product | head -n1 and sudo dmidecode -s bios-release-date && sudo dmidecode -s baseboard-product-name && sudo dmidecode -s baseboard-manufacturer then click [edit] to add the highly useful results into your question so we can see what hardware you have. Please do not click Add Comment as new comments shove old comments off screen. We need your findings about your system to provide a good answer. – K7AAY Jun 26 '19 at 23:13
  • You can upgrade the kernel and stay on 16.04 at the same time. You don't have to upgrade to 18.04 if the sole reason is a newer kernel. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Jul 09 '19 at 21:47

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Lubuntu is a faster variant of Ubuntu, as is Xubuntu, when compared to the performance of the current Ubuntu, which now uses the somewhat pokey GNOME desktop environment. With older hardware, that can make a significant difference.

K7AAY
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It depends on the drivers you are talking about that are incompatible with 16.04. It could be you only need to update your kernel:

It also depends on which version you are talking about? The conventional new install will use "Gnome" which is largely written in Javascript. An upgrade from 16.04 will result in "Unity" which is largely written in C#.

Javascript is slower than C#. This is probably why you read so many speed complaints about 18.04.

The kernel however has always been and will probably always be written in C which is extremely fast for the CPU to execute but slow for humans to code in. Within reason you can use any older or newer kernel version you want with any Ubuntu version. YMMV.

WinEunuuchs2Unix
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