Linux mint 4.0 full upgrade problem

[pablar]

I installed linux mint 4.0 and was very happy with it. For the first time everything worked. Until I used adept and did a full upgrade. Now nothing is working correctly. I should never have trusted it.

firefox 3.0 will not let me use the add ons anymore. Wine and wine doors quit working. I think I fixed the video problems that were going on though. I reinstalled envy and now I can use compiz again. I have it disabled though so I can fix this problem. I am thinking about reinstalling the 4.0 I was using prior and just not doing a full upgrade though. I will have to back up everything though and that will take time. I hope there is a workaround though before I do that. I reinstalled firefox 2.X and it never showed up though and so I am stuck with 3.0. Did this happen to anyone else? I have an 8600 gts vidcard an msi 500 sli mobo. 3 gb of crucial ddr2 800mhz ram. AMD athlon 6000+ proc. I think the full version upgrade is the cause here. It could be possible the ubuntu updated and caused this.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Chris

[MagnusB]

You probably have upgraded to Ubuntu 8.04, and now got a happy mix of Mint and Ubuntu. I personally never do dist-upgrades, as they are buggy, and even more so when you "cross distro" upgrade. It could be hard to fix without a fresh install, I am afraid..

[Acid_1]

I am very sure Ubuntu update did that. Also, thank you for saving me the time of not doing that. (I was really going to do that to see what happens). Anyhow, backup and restore. That's about the best advice I can give you. I think you borked, eh Fred?

[ed@Mint]

You should always use mintUpdate to update your system.
Use Adept or synaptic only to install softwares.

I'm afraid your only solution is to reinstall your system...

[pablar]

Ok, so far I have successfully uninstalled firefox 3.0 and reinstalled 2.X. (I wish the update would have left 3.0 out) That is working again. Also, I got my printer working again by simply setting it back up. Mint update just started working again and the weird green dot upgrade thing went away (LOL) I still cant get wine doors working. Halflife 2 and steam are still working under wine (I presume) I show 2 copies of envyNG in my tasty menu but dont want to mess with it cause my graphics card seems to be working. KB3 started working again on it's own. I rebooted after did anything just to be safe. I still can't launch the mint software portal from the tasty menu. It pops up the search box but when I search or when I click on "go to the software portal" button, nothing happens. Kooka is now working again with my epson cx4600. My microsoft intellimouse no longer lets me use the forward and back buttons for web navigation. I am running 22inch widescreen monitor at 1080X1024 at 70 refresh rate. That is acceptable but I miss the higher refresh rate I had before the update. I am gonna re-enable my effects under compfiz and see what happens.

[pablar]

Ok, the effects are working now. I think I am gonna be ok.

Thanks for all your advice folks, Us noobs need it! I have learned a valuable lesson here on how to muck linux up when needed LOL. I will keep ya posted if anything else happens.

So to summarize:

1. I uninstalled somethings and reinstalled them and that seemed to get mint with the new ubuntu livable for now till I can re-install my old mint again. (Idon't want to lose halflife 2 save games right now till I beat it)
2. Linux mint is the best operating system I have ever used. ( Have used all of the top 15 linux distros and some not even listed on distrowatch.com). I have spent at least a month on them and they don't come close. I dont even use winblows anymore.

Any advice on reading material for:
Using linux mint and/or learning to write programs for it?

Thanks people!

[ed@Mint]

Any advice on reading material for:
Using linux mint and/or learning to write programs for it?

You can start with the Linux Mint user guide : http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/linuxmint.com/4.0/LinuxMint-4.0-User-Guide_v1.pdf

About the writing programs subject, well... if you have zero knowledge in programming, that is a long way to go...
However, if you're interested into that, i suggest you start learning the Python programming language here : http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide

[pablar]

Thank you, I do have zero knowledge but if we are to be free of microsoft, there is work to do. I am willing to do it. So if I learn to program in python, that should give me a leg up. I can do that. I am sick of depending on ms anything to achieve computer success. I am not anti ms. Bill Gates has mad e a lot of folks lives better but, their os' just keep getting worse and more expensive to learn about and make better. It is time for a change (Many years ago it was time) . I want to help. I want to be part of the solution. By the way, I am all for profit and the American way but when you block people from helping that is where I begin to have problems. Recently, A friend of mine and roomate re-installed xp ans was greeted with a message that the maximum amount of installs had occurred and he would need to buy another copy if he wanted to go beyond the 30 day period to activate xp. That is wrong on many levels. I am p.O.'ed about that! I like that I can write programs for linux and not be hindered by b.s liscence issues. I can help people if I just work for it. That is better than money any day for me. I believe in mint and will help in anyway that I can. I now have 10 other people that I am helping learn mint through me and they are excited about that. 7 of them are not gamers and there is not any reason for them to have ms anything on their pc. I have been teaching them open office and many other programs to help them get out of the trap. Mint is solid. the best distro I have used hands down. I want all games to run in linux eventually. Mint is a great start to my goal. We can make this happen. It is true, I have been an it guy for a while but have 0 experience programming. That will change this year.

Thanks, I will stay in touch and let you know how it goes.

[Acid_1]

Good Luck Python is a very is yet incredibly fun language to program in. However, it is primarily a scripting language.

[ed@Mint]

However, it is primarily a scripting language.

Indeed, but i think python's interest lies into this...
You can start by making small scripts that really give you the feeling of 'programming something', and you can write full applications also.
A good example is Exaile music player which is coded in python.
It has object-oriented paradigm built-in so that you can later switch to C++ or Java without much hassle.