[SOLVED] mint10 after april 2012?

[jupiter66]

Hello,

Mint 10 will expire soon and I think it's bad. May I suggest this: let it available for downloads (all desktops if possible, gnome 32 at minimum) and support it as least until the next LTS is well implemented.

From my point of view, Mint 10 is still the best version (fully functional gnome 2 with "cube" and good power management) and on some hardware it is the only acceptable one. For example, on a C-50 laptop (acer ao722 in my case), it's impossible (at least not easy, I tried) to have good wi-fi + Catalyst driver + suspend/wake working (essential things for a laptop).

I suppose I can live with a expired version for a given time, but it would be nice to have it supported. Maybe others are in a similar situation?

Thank you

[tdockery97]

While support may officially stop for Mint 10 at that time, it could be that a few months will pass before the repositories are actually closed. While new security patches and/or newer versions of packages may no longer be loaded into the repositories, what is already there should still be available to you for a while.

[AlbertP]

You're basically saying that we should support our old releases longer because AMD don't manage to release a proper Catalyst for newer releases. This is AMD's problem, not Mint's problem.

About the ASPM (power management) problem, that'll be fixed in Mint 13. With the Linux 3.2.5 kernel or later it's already working fine again.

Mint can't easily extend the support. Mint 10 is based on Ubuntu 10.10 which will be unsupported from April 2012 on as well. Ubuntu is maintaining over 90% of our packages which we suddenly would have to do ourselves when Ubuntu's support ends.

And Mint 9 LTS will be supported till 2013. You can use that release for one more year.

[jupiter66]

I understand that Mint can't easily extend the official support for Mint 10 and that efforts must go on Mint 13. Maybe I asked too much. However, the ISOs could be available for other people for which this version is better (it's not for me, I will have the ISOs here). And the repositories could be opened longer. Maybe 6 months or a year, I don't know. This would need a simple warning on the mint 10 web download page to inform the user of the repositories closing date. This is only a suggestion; I know this is not the standard way to do, but the situation since Mint 11-12 may require this since big changes are under the hood.

Also, the Catalyst example was only one of the arguments. I agree this is not a Mint's problem but I'm not sure it's AMD's problem. I tried Fedora 16 updated (kernel 3.2) and have the same issue. Anyway, I have four computers in the house on Mint 10 and only one has AMD graphics. I still consider that Mint10 is the best for the three others. If I remember well the release notes of mint11, it is not advised to activate the compiz cube (due to a bad compiz version inherited from ubuntu choices). In the forums we see many complaints about reduced battery life. Maybe we have now good workarounds for this, but the fact is that Mint10 runs well on these aspects right of the box. Of course, I hope Mint13 LTS will be the promised land, but it will not be there soon...

[AlbertP]

Whether the effects are on does not really matter - the default Compiz 0.9.4 of Mint 11 causes a lot of trouble indeed. But 0.9.5 is available in the updates and works just fine on my computer. Sometimes it's also fixed by changing the window decorator in CompizConfig to compiz-decorator or unity-window-decorator (the default setting of 0.9.4, gtk-window-decorator, is wrong).
There is also a PPA to downgrade to the old Compiz. Then it also works just as good as on Mint 10.

[xenopeek]

The .iso file will probably stay around. If you look at any of the mirror sites, you'll see back to version 5.0 the .iso file is there. The problem AlbertP is referring to is the primary cause that this will not work in the longer run. Remember that the .iso file was released back in November 2010; once the Ubuntu repository doesn't carry updates for Ubuntu 10.10 anymore, installing a new Linux Mint 10 will mean you are stuck to the software versions as included on the .iso file--17 months old at current count

If you want to be able to reinstall Linux Mint 10 with all of its current updates, consider Remastersys or CloneZilla to make a backup of your current installation.

[AlbertP]

ISO files stay online as long as the responsible hosting companies keep them online. Mint does not delete ISOs of old Mint editions and also the torrents often stay available (but don't expect much seeders).

[jupiter66]

So the problem is the access to the repos X weeks/months from now. Basically 6 repos are needed:

1) deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ julia main upstream import
2) deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick main restricted universe multiverse
3) deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-updates main restricted universe multiverse
4) deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-security main restricted universe multiverse
5) deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ maverick partner
6) deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ maverick free non-free

I think it will be possible to replace 2) 3) and 4) with something like:

deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-security main restricted universe multiverse

Am I right?

If yes, can we get this kind of workaround for 1) 5) and 6) (I don't know if it's needed, I'm a basic user)? Will it work if I do this after a fresh install after maverick is expired?

I'm sorry for the old ISOs download. I was sure they were not available from the download page, but I see now that they are.

[xenopeek]

Yes, the Ubuntu .iso files will move to http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/ once Ubuntu 10.10 reaches end of life (schedule here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases). End of life does mean the repositories will be removed (as you can see here, only repositories for not-end of life releases are there http://packages.ubuntu.com/).

However, with the repository's total size being estimated at about 100 GiB total size, you could mirror the repository now (before April) yourself. Just for yourself, or if you want also for others (get ready for a letter from your ISP in that case ). You can use apt-mirror for this. It is not uncommon to use. If you have multiple computers in your home or place of work, having just one computer keep up-to-date with the repositories means saving Internet bandwidth. The other computers connect to this mirror over the local network for updates and installing new software.

[AlbertP]

If you remove repositories that don't work anymore from your sources.list, you won't be able to install software from them, but existing software that is already installed on your system continues to work.

Nr. 1, the Linux Mint repository, is still open for old releases going back to Mint 6 (obsoleted two years ago). Perhaps the Julia repo will also stay open for another two years.

[jupiter66]

As I see, repos #1, 5 and 6 ((see my previous post) don't expire so quickly so we can imagine they will run a year from now for maverick. So, one will have to edit his sources.list like I suggested in my previous post for repos #2,3,4. In this way, upgrades (up to expired date) and new software installs are possible. It may be an acceptable compromise, we will see...

I don't see the purpose of mirroring a repository since they will be available (and it is not a trivial task).

[AlbertP]

I was in fact only talking about the lisa re which doesn't disappear that quickly.
I just took a look on the webpage of Medibuntu (#6) and they don't provide packages for obsoleted releases there. They were even faster in removing old releases than Ubuntu itself according to the changelog.
But if you use a Mint edition with codecs (or clicked the install codecs option in the menu) you shouldn't need to have Medibuntu in your sources.list anymore.