On 30 October 2013 10:18, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
This explains the rationale and how-to for Mint updates http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2
It says "Each release receives bug fixes and security updates for about 18 months (or 3 years in the case of "Long Term Support" releases such as Linux Mint 5 or Linux Mint 9)".
At the time of LM5/8 this was true of Ubuntu but more recently they dropped to 9 months (ie you only have three months in which to upgrade to the next release). I assume that LM follows Ubuntu in this regard and this tutorial is out of date?
but then links to this
Actually: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/62
which shows you how to do an in-place update. Does that change your mind? :-)
Not really, because it's beyond the capability (or interest!) of my "users".
BTW, I've never tried to update mint, so I don't know what works!
When I first installed Mint I assumed (as an Ubuntu derivative) that it had an upgrade procedure. When I discovered it didn't I followed the apt update process. As far as I can remember it worked fine (I subsequently bought new hardware and installed Kubuntu - the main reason I avoided Mint was the lack of upgrade process).
Reading the reasons "against" an upgrade as described by Mint, I agree that Ubuntu skips the backup step and shouldn't, but aside from that the argument isn't really made to me. They should tweak the upgrade process to force a backup.
The ideal upgrade process for me would be: - Download and trial new version as LiveCD - In-place upgrade using the LiveCD as apt repository (presumably having rebooted back into the installed version first, although it could be automated by the CD). - Backup steps incorporated as part of the in-place upgrade.
In other words somewhere between Ubuntu and Mint...