Arvk:
Have not yet tried the UNO, but feel that will work as well.
There is no "ATmega328P (Old Bootloader)" option for the Uno (because the Unos only come with one bootloader type), so that same technique can't be used to fix a problem uploading to an Uno. If you still have problems uploading to your Uno, post the error here and we'll try to help you out.
Arvk:
I see taht the AVR board come up with an option to select a version. Is that important or should I just go with the default ?
Unless you are having a problem with it, always use the newest version of Arduino AVR Boards. If you see an "Update" button in Boards Manager when you click on "Arduino AVR Boards", that means there is a newer version available. If there is no "Update" button, you already have the newest version.
Arvk:
Also does the version of avrdude get upgraded
Each version of Arduino AVR Boards will install the version of avrdude it requires. So sometimes when you update Arduino AVR Boards, it will also update avrdude. But not always, because sometimes a new version of Arduino AVR Boards still uses the same version of avrdude as the previous Arduino AVR Boards version. The Arduino IDE takes care of everything for you automatically, so you don't need to worry about whether you have the right version of avrdude installed. Just keep you Arduino AVR Boards updated and you're set.
Arvk:
is that quite independent of the IDE ?
In the case of Arduino AVR Boards, not quite. The reason is that the Arduino IDE comes with a bundled copy of Arduino AVR Boards. This is done because the AVR boards are the most popular with beginners and Arduino wants beginners to be able to start using their board immediately after installing the IDE, without having to go through another step of installing Arduino AVR Boards. But Boards Manager allows you to use any version of Arduino AVR Boards (and thus any version of avrdude) with any version of the Arduino IDE. When you update Arduino AVR Boards via Boards Manager, it is installed to a different location than the copy of Arduino AVR Boards bundled with the Arduino IDE, and that copy is used from then on.
So if you never updated Arduino AVR Boards via Boards Manager and you update the Arduino IDE, you also updated Arduino AVR Boards along with the IDE. But if you have ever updated Arduino AVR Boards via Boards Manager, updating the Arduino IDE will have no effect on the version of Arduino AVR Boards you are using.
A bit confusing, I know. Fortunately, you probably don't need to know all these details.