Mint application/package update policy?

[andy06]

How does Mint handle updating application to their latest major versions? Are apps updated to their latest versions by default on an on-going basis or are major versions only updates with each Mint release?

I am a long time Ubuntu user myself and looking to migrate about a dozen family/friends over to Linux. However I do not think Ubuntu is quite right (user friendly/functional enough) for them since Staying up to date requires manually configuring PPAs in software sources to receive the latest application packages.

Thanks a lot

[tlu]

Since Mint is Ubuntu with a couple of enhancements/improvements you won't see a difference here.

[andy06]

In that case, is adding and configuring PPAs any easier? Any way to auto detect and add the PPA and signing keys while installing from the software center.

[Aging Technogeek]

The new add-apt-repository command in terminal makes adding ppas as easy as typing one line of text.

If you wanted to add appa for, say, a program called "Redshift", the terminal entry would be

sudo add-apt-repository http://ppa.launchpad.net/jonls/redshift-ppa/ubuntu lucid main

This will add the repo plus all signatures and keys.

Once the system has added the repo, adding Redshift can be done from the terminal

ssudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install redshift

or from Package Manager after refreshing the sources list.

[andy06]

No, unfortunately I don't think that would work

I'm talking about an iPhone/iPadesque crowd. Fiddling with CLI and PPAs would be a total no-no. Appreciate the help though. I just feel that convincing people by telling them its only one line or its the fastest way (just paste sudo apt get "package") is a total non starter because it is very non intuitive. When I tell them 5-7 steps to install something through GUI, they sort of commit it to memory and learn as we go, next time they don't need me to install something else.

However, with CLI and apt-get, they are lost every single time, so that simple one line to be pasted has to repeated each time for a different package. Furthermore, finding the official repos for an app/package is a chore in itself. I was looking for something more automated/seamless.

Hope you understand
Thanks anyway

[piratesmack]

Hate to recommend another distro on the Mint forums, but you might want to try a rolling release like PCLinuxOS.

exploder and some other members of this forum had a lot of nice things to say about it
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=46246

[tlu]

I'm talking about an iPhone/iPadesque crowd.

But how relevant is it for that crowd if they get, say, OpenOffice 3.2.0 or 3.2.1 or 3.3.0? I would rather say that for most people this doesn't make any difference. It's more important for them to have a stable system and to get security patches via the repos.

One important exception I can think of is Firefox. Considering that many people are rushing into Google Chrome because it's faster than Firefox, I hope that the coming FF 4.0 will be available from the official repos since it is probably the most important application for most users. If not, I expect to see lengthy discussions in this and other forums about that topic.

But again, for most other apps I don't consider this as very relevant for the average user.

[andy06]

It will become relevant for the major apps (Browser, Media player, IM app), that makes up about 90% of their use and these apps traditionally develop much faster than an office suite. I'm thinking of installing LTS versions and keeping them on it, so package obsolescence will be an issue without backports. (upgrading to the in between ones just doesn't work seamlessly, at least in my experience of over 100 instances of Ubuntu on various computers).

If you don't mind my asking, is there any mainstream Linux distro that has a philosophy of keeping stable packages in sync with their latest releases? [Already checked out openSUSE, Debian, (K/X/L)Ubuntu and Mint ]

[Biker]

Why is ensuring the latest release of something so critical? If it works, and there's no security issues with the current application, there should be absolutely no need to upgrade to the latest version of something just because it's "newer".

[tlu]

If you don't mind my asking, is there any mainstream Linux distro that has a philosophy of keeping stable packages in sync with their latest releases? [Already checked out openSUSE, Debian, (K/X/L)Ubuntu and Mint ]

Well, you can have a look at the various Rolling Releases that might offer that. But please note that they can have their own problems. Their overall stability can be problematic at times, and if you read, e.g., what the Sidux manual writes about package management you'll see that user-friendliness is not always their top priority. PCLinuxOS, though, is said to apply a rather conservative approach and is therefore rather stable, AFAIK, but I'm not sure if they always have the newest versions for their apps.

Thus, if you want to stick to Mint 9 as a LTS it might be a good compromise to add some selected ppa's like this one.

[andy06]

Why is ensuring the latest release of something so critical? If it works, and there's no security issues with the current application, there should be absolutely no need to upgrade to the latest version of something just because it's "newer".

Because newer releases bring a ton of new features, performance enhancements and basically a lot of other things that people really want. In the span of one LTS release, fast moving apps like Browsers/IM apps can really change the game [think of the feature and performance differences Firefox 3.6 vs Firefox 2.0]. Its practically a completely different program. Similarly think of the performance difference between Chrome 6 now and Chrome 1, Or of Pidgin now and Pidgin two years ago Same thing applies to GNOME-DO, Cairo Dock etc. They all make massive leaps in functionality.

In fact if it comes down to it, its the OS that doesn't matter, apps are all that matters, so in my perfect world (:P), the OS/package management system should not get in the way of application updates and every application should allow its updates.......sort of like.....umm........Windows eek:P but centralised....so more like the smartphone OSes.

Anyway thanks for all the help guys. I downloaded a couple of other distros and played around and it was quite......painful. There is a wide chasm between the usability of Ubuntu/Mint and the rest. I think I'll just use one of these two with one or two PPAs.

[Aging Technogeek]

You could take a look at Peppermint. This distro is not directly associated with Mint, but it was developed by Kendall, the Mint LXDE and Fluxbox developer/maintainer, and uses many of the Mint tools.

Peppermint is a light, fast, user friendly OS with two unique features.

First, Peppermint is a hybrid desktop/cloud OS. It provides the standard desktop tools, in some cases , using internet based apps (like Google docs as the default word processor) and provides access to many web apps like Hulu, LastFM, Cloud Player, Youtube, And others from the menu by a custom application of Mozilla's Prism technology. Prism is an app that can be used to set up desktop launchers for web sites using single use browsers. In other words, each site launched from he desktop has is own dedicated web browser and can be launched without starting Firefox, Google Chrome, or any other general web browser. The Peppermint team has taken this one step farther and put the Prism launchers in the main menu.

Peppermint is also innovative in its approach to updates. It offers the standard Mint Update Manager to update your OS when ever you want. But they are also updating their ISO about once a month (they call it re-spin) to include all updates available from Update Manager (Peppermint only offers updates through level 3) plus available level 4 and 5 updates ((such as kernel updates) that they have tested and found safe. So, once a month, if you so desire , you can download and install the re-spin ISO and have a new, fully updated system.