Mint 9 experiment

[gingertom5005]

I have one or two old PCs which still work well and today used one to answer a question which has been at the back of my mind.

I often build PCs for people and have recently experienced an issue with a motherboard bundle which allowed me to install Mint 13 but not Mint 17. In general I try to install the latest version of Mint with LTS so my concern was that if I pass a PC on to someone with Mint 13 will the system eventually lose support? I don't know if my experiment would be valid for later versions of Mint but what I discovered was that - after I had installed Mint 9 and deticked the medibuntu repository something like 514 updates were installed no problem.

Admittedly the system isn't Mint 13 or 17 but it's still highly functional although Firefox is only version 20 and it runs OpenOffice instead of LibreOffice - and LibreOffice 4 onwards has some amazing capabilities. What this SEEMS to be saying to me is that LTS versions of Mint still get some support after the LTS cut off date. Admittedly that may be a disadvantage with some functions but bodes well for people with LTS releases installed. I would imagine it may be possible to upgrade Firefox or I could just install Chromium and likewise with LibreOffice.

I shall probably try a few other versions on the PC as it is available.

[DrHu]

I think you are correct: later versions of this distribution will likely drop older support
--for example scanners or modems (hardly anyone uses modems these days}

• Although I am still interested in BBS (Bulletin Board System), now internet driven, rather than dial-up(modem driven) and still available..
  --I like BBS as a real chat process
  • Maybe twitter or Facebook surmises for now, but it isn't the same as a text mode look at files
    --the forte of BBS
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system
  • As the use of the Internet became more widespread in the mid to late 1990s, traditional BBSes rapidly faded in popularity. Today, Internet forums occupy much of the same social and technological space as BBSes did, and the term BBS is often used to refer to any online forum or message board.

And the MAG I really liked was Boardwatch; very good information
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boardwatch
--just like DrDobbs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dobb%27s_Journal

[Neil Edmond]

But, as you have found, updates to Mint 9 (or any other unsupported OS), if available at all, will only bring in update to the point when support ended. It is not really up-to-date.

[Pierre]

but even that does depend on whether you want anything to be updated,
- and that's usually only Firefox.

otherwise, there is often, nothing that needs to be 'updated'.
some of my laptops - still run Mint 9 LTS & nothing gets updated. ..
- FF is currently sitting on version 29 & hasn't been < manually > updated.
( that's higher than what comes with Mint 9 )

one reason to actually INSTALL a unsupported Mint version,
would be for some piece of hardware, that is not supported in the later versions.
- because it is tricky to install that support in a later version.

[nomko]

But, as you have found, updates to Mint 9 (or any other unsupported OS), if available at all, will only bring in update to the point when support ended. It is not really up-to-date.

The repository for Mint 9 is closed. So important updates like system updates or security updates, are no longer available for Mint 9. The only thing which can be updated are some third-party applications who provides packages themselve like Firefox or Shutter (screenshot app).

As long you don't do any high risk activities like online banking, you can use Mint 9 (but more as a sort of experiment).