Mint 17 - End of support coming soon

Socket of Davis

Socket of Davis

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I'd like to hear what other users are planning to do when this happens.

I've been on Mint 17 Cinnamon for years and I just can't fault it , so it's a pity to have to ditch it .
There's plenty of RAM and processor power here so that's not an issue , but I do like some of the lighter
systems ( MX-18 , Solus , Mageia ) and I have a stack of VMs in regular use .

But I want a fully featured OS with plenty of easy to install apps , and smooth , regular and reliable updates
so I'm staying with Mint as a daily drive .

I've already been testing Mint 19 Cinnamon since it came out and I haven't really taken to it
but I suppose I'll have to go there soon .

I've been looking at ways to easily get all my favorite apps onto it , and Aptik seems like the obvious choice
but I wonder if taking the Aptik backup from 17.3 and using it with Mint 19 might cause an almighty bork ?

Everything is backed up if the worst happens , but it would be a lot of extra grunt work

Has anybody tried anything similar ?
 


You know I'm gonna call you something like Socko, with a userid like that, because I'm too lazy to type @Socket of Davis ;)

So Socko, totally empathasise on the impending EOL.

I cut my Linux Mint teeth with 17.0 'Qiana' MATE, having started with Ubuntu Unity, and I was just gobsmacked at how versatile and complete it was.

Although I have an article here on Aptik

https://www.linux.org/threads/aptik-have-settings-will-travel.4529/

... I have not used it across upgrades, and so cannot speculate on the "bork risk", especially with an "upgrade of 2 levels".

Tony George maker of Aptik, Timeshift and others, has a blog somewhere, and perhaps a Q&A, but I have to find the address. You could ask there, or I have an alternative suggestion.

If you have LM 17 and 19 running side by side, take a Timeshift on-demand full snapshot of Linux Mint 19, then port the 17 Aptik settings snapshot to it, to restore.

You'd first have to have Aptik installed on LM19, latest version is 18.8. Be aware that a fresh install of Aptik now involves Aptik itself for command line, and Aptik-GTK for the GUI frontend.

Cheers

Wizard
 
wizardfromoz said:
You know I'm gonna call you something like Socko, with a userid like that, because I'm too lazy to type @Socket of Davis ;)
Click to expand...

Yeah , I know what you mean , I'm beginning to regret it myself now .... :eek:
It was a spur-of-the-moment thing because I was in haste to join up and say hello
I use a different userid for every forum and I keep a list as I think of them
It could have been Urban Spaceman , Brother Perdurabo , or Little Frank ( that's him in the avatar )
None of them make for easy typing though .... Oh well

Re. your suggestions
When I first took mint 18 for a spin , I tried the Timeshift method from a 17.3 snapshot and it made shocking mess ,
and I'm usually fairly good at straightening out such things ..... Grub repairs etc.
Not with that one though .
I probably didn't follow the precise method you describe .

As I type , I'm waiting on that system to finish running aptik --restore-all , from a 17.3 back-up ,
onto a fresh install of 19.1 , and given what you wrote above , I'm not very optimistic
.... I'll report back later .
I made a few clones so I can " drive them like a rental " .... Ha !
 
G'day Socko, I will leave the cross-upgrade lifting to you....bork may be too kind a word !!

How about LM 18.3...supported till April 2021

The words you used to describe your experience with Mint 17 reminds me of my experience with 18.3 (+ or - a few little episodes which may or may not have been my own doing)

Keep us all in the loop. I, for one, will be most interested to see how you get on
 
Hi Condobloke

I also ran with 18.x for a while when it was released and I never really took to that version either ,
nothing at all wrong with it , apart from some touch-pad and screen brightness problems , most likely
driver issues , which I daresay could have been fixed .
I just couldn't see anything that I wanted among the new features .
And like yourself , I also managed to break it .... Ha !

It's probably just me being picky , or at least wanting to find a very positive reason to migrate from a well-loved ,
tried-and-trusted OS .
" Call me old-fashioned " as Dame Edna likes to say :)

I'm starting to think that this idea of " trans-system upgrades " might be a fool's errand , and that in the long run
it may be easier and quicker to just grind through a fresh install of every single desired app from the old OS .

There are easy ways to get a list of installed stuff and save it as a text file ( eg. " installed-packages " )
and then weed out the unwanted stuff , before getting stuck into all the installs :-

Code: 
sudo dpkg --get-selections > installed-packages.txt

And I've started thinking that it's the best way to go ; it's big on tedium , but low on aggravation and grief .
But I'm still keen to hear if anyone has found a work-around :)
 
Hi Socko, and welcome to Linux.org! Sorry I'm late to the party but I've been tied up at school.

I probably shouldn't say this, I don't want it to sound like a brag, and worse yet I don't want to put the Gris Gris on my own backside! (Gris Gris is cajun for "jinx.") I have been using the standard "update" feature provided by Mint Cinnamon since version 17.0. Knock on wood, but I've had no problems updating this way, I'm currently using 19.1, and all the software I was using from 17.0 ported right over. Of course there were some software updates along the way. I have done this with 5 different computers. Three desktops and two different brands of laptops. The desktops are custom built and not OEM. Mint 18.3 is still my favorite due to being more customizable than 19.0 or 19.1, but I prefer to stay on the newest release.
YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary)
 
Bayou Bengal said:
Hi Socko, and welcome to Linux.org! Sorry I'm late to the party but I've been tied up at school.

I probably shouldn't say this, I don't want it to sound like a brag, and worse yet I don't want to put the Gris Gris on my own backside! (Gris Gris is cajun for "jinx.") I have been using the standard "update" feature provided by Mint Cinnamon since version 17.0. Knock on wood, but I've had no problems updating this way, I'm currently using 19.1, and all the software I was using from 17.0 ported right over. Of course there were some software updates along the way. I have done this with 5 different computers. Three desktops and two different brands of laptops. The desktops are custom built and not OEM. Mint 18.3 is still my favorite due to being more customizable than 19.0 or 19.1, but I prefer to stay on the newest release.
YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary)
Click to expand...

@Bayou Bengal

Thank you for that reply .
It sounds like a good option might be to do an in-place upgrade of my much cherished 17.3 to 18.3 and update it , and then do the same to get me to 19.1 .... with all fave apps , present and correct ?

I was taking time out from writing back to this thread when I noticed your post ( I'll get it done soon )

BTW - just the very word Cajun brings back fond memories of my days as "Tech and Tool-case for hire "
... I've been missing Po' Boys and Beef Debris , and so many other things besides , since the day I left Louisiana .
I loved the oysters too , but that was in the time before the BP catastrophe and I daresay that Katrina stirred all that mess up even more .
I probably wouldn't eat those oysters now , it's all very sad .

But thanks for bringing back great memories !
 
Last edited:
Socket of Davis said:
@Bayou Bengal

Thank you for that reply .
It sounds like a good option might be to do an in-place upgrade of my much cherished 17.3 to 18.3 and update it , and then do the same to get me to 19.1 .... with all fave apps , present and correct ?

I was taking time out from writing back to this thread when I noticed your post ( I'll get it done soon )

BTW - just the very word Cajun brings back fond memories of my days as "Tech and Tool-case for hire "
... I've been missing Po' Boys and Beef Debris , and so many other things besides , since the day I left Louisiana .
I loved the oysters too , but that was in the time before the BP catastrophe and I daresay that Katrina stirred all that mess up even more .
I probably wouldn't eat those oysters now , it's all very sad .

But thanks for bringing back great memories !
Click to expand...

Yes, that is what I'd do. Just the normal upgrades from the update manager. Although I had to use the terminal to go from 17.3 to 18.0. The instructions are on the mint website. I'm glad you have some fond memories of Louisiana! Hard to beat the food or the culture. I've been here most of my life now, and will never leave. Storms are just an interlude.
 
Bayou Bengal said:
Yes, that is what I'd do. Just the normal upgrades from the update manager. Although I had to use the terminal to go from 17.3 to 18.0. The instructions are on the mint website. I'm glad you have some fond memories of Louisiana! Hard to beat the food or the culture. I've been here most of my life now, and will never leave. Storms are just an interlude.
Click to expand...

I had a go with grinding through that process of in-place upgrades :-
17.3 => 18 => 18.3 => 19

I get as far as 18.3 with everything working nicely , but things get messy with 19
Not least that Update Manager does not work .

I've tracked down some errors but it might be better if I start a new thread ?
 
G'day Socko :)

IMO, you can outline that information here.

To my mind, your Thread Title logically extends to what steps need to be taken to upgrade your soon to be defunct version, and hiccups you have encountered with the progressive steps.

These problems can be experienced by many users and Members using the 17 series, some of whom may have answers, and some of whom will benefit from the answers you find.

Choice is yours ... as I expect you are coming to find here, we take a pretty low key on Staff intervention :D, just my 2 cents worth.

Cheers

Wiz
 
wizardfromoz said:
G'day Socko :)

IMO, you can outline that information here.

To my mind, your Thread Title logically extends to what steps need to be taken to upgrade your soon to be defunct version, and hiccups you have encountered with the progressive steps.

These problems can be experienced by many users and Members using the 17 series, some of whom may have answers, and some of whom will benefit from the answers you find.

Choice is yours ... as I expect you are coming to find here, we take a pretty low key on Staff intervention :D, just my 2 cents worth.

Cheers

Wiz
Click to expand...
Thanks Wiz

I have just written up my issues a few minutes ago, and what I have tried so far to solve them
I can post it here , or start a new thread .
Whatever suits forum policy best , for neatness and continuity is fine with me .

Which option do you prefer ?
The original thread title isn't exactly where my current problem arises

Edit : Oops , it's clear which you think is better .
My apologies .... it's been a tiring day , marred by an excess of " Brain flatulence " :rolleyes:
 
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In-place upgrade problem - Mint 18.3 to 19

As I mentioned earlier , I've happily used Mint 17.3 for years , but end-of-life is approaching so I upgraded to 18.3
with no problems .
I did the same for 18.3 to 19 , which gives a more-or-less working OS but update manager does not work at all .

apt update works ok , but apt upgrade throws these errors :-

Unsafe symlinks encountered in/var/log/journal/32db5e215dcd44949e8b5bdc5659d7b5/system.journal
refusing.

dpkg: error processing package systemd (--configure):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned

error exit status 1

Errors were encountered while processing:
systemd

E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

So far I have tried booting in recovery mode and using the dpkg repair function , with no success .
Then I used Timeshift to revert to 18.3 ( which worked fine ) and went through the upgrade process again
with the same result .

I guess I could just stick with 18.3 , which still has plenty of life left in it , but I never liked it much when
I tried it on first release .
I felt the same about 19 when I tried it out as a fresh install on a spare HDD last year , but if I have to go through
all of this , I might as well aim at the latest Mint release for longest possible support .

Has anyone else had this problem , and could anybody suggest a solution ?
Many thanks in advance
 
Question : Did you follow this step ?

To know which display manager you are currently using, open a terminal and type:

cat /etc/X11/default-display-manager


If the result is "/usr/sbin/lightdm", you can skip this step.


If the result is "/usr/sbin/mdm", you need to switch display managers by installing lightdm and removing mdm. Open a terminal and type:


apt install lightdm lightdm-settings slick-greeter


When asked to choose a display manager between MDM and LightDM, choose LightDM.


Open a terminal and type:


apt remove --purge mdm mint-mdm-themes*


sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm


sudo reboot
 
or...second thought.....If you just happen to install it again....try switching your mirrors in Software Sources to the default ones. Then launch your Update Manager.

Just a hunch.
 
@Condobloke

Hi there
thank you for the suggestions .... I'll reply to both of your posts here .

Lightdm -
Yes , I did that carefully in both of my attempts to go from 18.3 to 19
All appeared to work well ( no error messages anyway) .
Yes , I switched mirrors to ones that are fast , reliable and relatively local ( geographically )

The Mint 19 OS is sort of working OK , apart from a few glitches :-

1] clicking the "Update Manager " icon in the start menu does nothing ,
and trying to do it in a terminal gives those errors that I posted
2] None of the installed VMs in Virtualbox will run
3] there are no scroll bars in terminal windows .

That's what I've noticed so far , anyway ....

I'm pretty stumped for now , but I still have two other options :-
Stick at Mint18.3 while it is still supported , or
Do a clean install of Mint19 , with all that grind of installing my desired apps , one at a time .

Not really appealing . It's the very thing I was trying to avoid when I made this mess for myself - :)

Many thanks to all for reading and for offering suggestions .
 

...my approach...would be to run 18.3 to the death. I have found it be the most stable OS I have ever used....and I have abused the hell out of it at times !
 
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