Linux Mint 11?

[steveking]

Ok so I couldn't install to Linux Mint 13 by disc so I had to resort to installing Linux Mint 11. Now it won;t let me update or dist-upgrade at all. I think the repo's may be out of date as its an old release. Any ideas on what I should do?

[HughT]

Hi steveking, Mint11 Katya is still supported til Oct 2012, so that can't be the reason for your troubles. I'd assume that if you installed from an old disk, then you'd simply get lots of up-dates to get to the current status. What symptoms do you have?
regards.

[steveking]

I managed to get it to update and do package upgrades, but it won't seem to dist-upgrade at all? It says:

0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Any way I can force the dist upgrade? Or is it looking to the wrong mirrors?

[remoulder]

You really expect to do a dist upgrade from mint 11 to mint 13!

[steveking]

tbh I was hoping to do it in stages first to Mint 12 then to Mint 13 as it didnt seem to want to upgrade via a new disc i burned. this was the only disc i knew that would definately work.

Does anyone have an idea how I can fix this problem?

[HughT]

I'm not sure that the dist-upgrade is the route to take. What was the reason that you couldn't install Mint 13 from a disk? That would be the way to go, if you can figure out the original problem,

[zerozero]

i really have to post here (sorry, not offering a solution for the *bigger* problem you are having steveking, but to clarify a myth)

- dist-upgrade will never automatically take us from one release to another, we always need to, first, alter the sources.list and point them to the new release and then perform the dist-upgrade (<< this can be done manually or semi-automatically as in for example in ubuntu http://askubuntu.com/questions/110477/h ... 0-to-12-04 where you "call" the dist-upgrade command that changes the sources.list for you and then does all the rest)
the success rate for this "in-place upgrade" is low not exactly a new bug but still actual and also this poll in a ubuntu-fan site with more than 50% issues in the last upgrade and i guess that's why Clem doesn't advise it.

man apt:

upgrade
Used to install the newest versions of all packages currently installed on the system from the sources enumerated in /etc/apt/sources.list(5). Packages currently installed with new versions available are retrieved and upgraded; under no circumstances are currently installed packages removed, nor are packages that are not already installed retrieved and installed. New versions of currently installed packages that cannot be upgraded without changing the install status of another package will be left at their current version. An update must be performed first so that apt-get knows that new versions of packages are available.

dist-upgrade
In addition to performing the function of upgrade, this option also intelligently handles changing dependencies with new versions of packages; apt-get has a "smart" conflict resolution system, and it will attempt to upgrade the most important packages at the expense of less important ones, if necessary.
The /etc/apt/sources.list(5) file contains a list of locations from
which to retrieve desired package files. See also apt_preferences(5) for a mechanism for over-riding the general settings for individual packages.

[steveking]

all is well and good in my minty world now. I attempted to alter the sources before the dist-upgrade but it didn't work. What happened was the Mint 11 was gnome and I tried to update and gnome clashed with MATE so i had no graphical interface. I managed to get my disc drive to recognise a Mint 13 disc so it is all ok now

Thanks for helping in my tme of need though