Linux Mint Forums

I used Clem's procudure for 2 upgrades now, to completely re-install and use the Backup/Restore utility to handle my home directory and all my apps.

I started with a dual-boot Windows 7 / Mint 14 laptop, and upgraded this way to Mint 15. It worked perfectly.

When 17 came out, then I went thru the process again (was still on 15 as a dual-boot with Windows). Everything appeared to work with the install of 17, but GRUB got messed up and my laptop would not boot at all. Since I really didn't need/use my Windows 7 system anymore, I just reinstalled 17 and told it to take the entire drive. That worked fine, and I don't regret killing Windows either. But be aware with dual-boot there is always some risk that you can mess up your ability to boot both systems, and fixing that can be a PAIN (been there, in other scenarios).

In both cases, the Backup/Restore utility worked well, and all the apps I had installed (like kMyMoney, NetBeans etc) were restored with my settings and data. I did not have to reinstall these apps, which was awesome. I believe that I DID have to re-setup my VPN connections in Networking, can't remember if it saved my actual router/printer connections, but those are easy.

I have to say that Mint 17 feels a lot more stable than Mint 15 on my laptop; my SD card reader started working, USB drives consistently appear on the desktop (in 15 it was hit and miss whether the icon would appear). I am happy with 17.

Will the recent release of Ubuntu 14.04.1 (25/07/14) result in any update of Mint 17 in the near future? I have still to get that round tuit thing for Mint 17.

I doubt a respin will be done before Linux Mint 17.1, which is is probably to be expected fourth quarter of this year. I've noted a somewhat longer answer here: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 58#p897333

As noted there a few comments down, there may be specific hardware that needs a newer kernel than is available on the Linux Mint 17 ISO. With just a small team of ISO maintainers for Linux Mint (Clem and Fred), choices have to be made on what they work on. I think that will be on Linux Mint 17.1 and not a respin just before it.

xenopeek wrote:I doubt a respin will be done before Linux Mint 17.1, which is is probably to be expected fourth quarter of this year. I've noted a somewhat longer answer here: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 58#p897333

Thanks for that xenopeek. It's time I made the effort then.

I just installed Mint17 on a Biostar NM70I-1037U MB with a SSD. By far the smoothest install that I have ever had. I tried Cinnamon and so far, it works very well. Very happy!

I upgraded my "spare" laptop from LM16 to LM17, without problems. This was a practice run for my main production laptop which was still on Maya (LM13) LTS. Updates, yes - new features, no.
Today I jumped in the deep end. LM13 to LM17 is a big, long jump. Basically, if this stuffed up, I was in deep doo-doo as my production environment would go down. Fortunately when setting the laptop up I split /home into its own partition - as recommended many times on these and other forums.
Well, 2 hours of nailbiting later, I went and re-installed my applications, then applied 284 updates to Qiana 64 Cinnamon (some 289MB), rebooted; and ... success.
Thunderbird initally coughed and would not connect, then worked; everything else started back up exactly where I had left it before the upgrade. A huge relief to have this chasmic leap behind me.
Next task is upgrading my kids' machines from LM16 ... later in the week.

I've noticed that the new Firefox wouldn't come up in updates, so I've ended on this topic.
I'm downloading Firefox 31 ESR (slowly) as an interim.

I have tried the Backup Tool ("Outil de sauvegarde"), software selection first. It's fine, I can do that stuff with the command line but it's good to have that. If you're looking for the file sort by date or look for the one named "software_selection_...."


Later, I'll try to create a Mozilla account - that's pretty new - to save my bookmarks and tabs there and not have to care much if I don't save the ~/.mozilla directory. I think they're well meaning, right? but I'm taking my time. I wonder if I should associate it with a throwaway e-mail address.

Oh, I'm trying the backup of my home directory now.
Very nice that you can exclude directories : I've excluded .cache and .mozilla (and .kde, but it's there just because I installed one KDE app)
tar.bz2 compression is nice but very slow. I'm cancelling it. Ooh, seems frozen. I've killed it!

I'm doing it again in raw .tar (no compression), I still find it a bit slow but it's much quicker.
I feel a tar file is better for me : it will cause less fragmentation on the destination volume (over 17000 files most of them small -> one big file)

Oh, bad news again!
It hanged on ".steam/steam.pipe". That is a special file, zero byte, I don't know what it does. (in ls -l output, start with prw-------)
So I'm excluding all the .steam directories.
Seems to be fine now. [btw I discovered I have quite some useless data in my home.. and there's a .local/share directory in it, with a Steam directory over 900 megabytes. What is it doing there?]

End of my minutes long experiment : it's done!
it said there was an error with a file : ".config/deadbeef/socket". It's an empty special file again (srwxr-xr-x), but unlike the steam one it didn't crash the backup tool .

those "empty files" are most likely symlinks. I noticed they didn't copy over to FAT32 backup drive either.

Excuse the paranoira, I take this as being a strictly "Mint" situation, as in LMDE is not affected?

p5ych00n5 wrote:Excuse the paranoira, I take this as being a strictly "Mint" situation, as in LMDE is not affected?

LDME is a rolling release and not affected.

Hello
I've been using LM14 for about a couple of years, never new that the versions had an "expiration date"! Thanks for the information, that explains my recent problems trying to install new software and updates.
I have somewhat limited computer skills. so when I installed LM14 with a dual-OS with Windows 7 and everything worked perfectly right away, I was really amazed.
As you suggested, I want to upgrade to LM17 but I have questions that hopefully you can steer me the right way. I downloaded LM17 to a bootable DVD and it works fine. But before installing it to the HD, do I need to erase the Linux partition and start completely from scratch or is the Linux program on the DVD smart enough to see the partition and use it accordingly, seeing that it is an upgrade? Will the boot choices at the start: Windows 7 or Linux Mint 14, etc get modified automatically?
If I need to undo the partition, any recommendations on easiest way to do that?
thanks in advance!!

CG

sorry, please ignore my previous post. googled and found the answer on linux.com
thnx anyway

thx for the answer.

I have a very straightforward system for upgrading my Linux Mint system. I use dropbox for my files and also have two external drives for file backups - plus I ftp my website files to my phone and tablet often. As well as that, I have four hard drives in my system, with only one sata plugged in at a time; two Windows 7 drives (one for production and one for testing) and two Linux drives for the same purpose. They are identical model and sized drives.

See here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bjw959xz2xbg0 ... 123101.jpg

I regularly use clonezilla to image my drives, so its really easy to restore Linux or Windows, if there is a problem.

At present, I have installed Linux Mint 17 on my test linux drive to see how it goes and have left Linux Mint 13 LTS on my other linux drive, fully updated, in case I need to revert back to it.

So far, Linux Mint 17 has been great. I only just installed it a week ago, as I like to wait for a month or two, before moving to the next LTS release. I don't use the in between releases, just LTS.

Linux mint 13 has been incredibly stable on my stock Core i3 desktop (with just on-chip graphics) and so far, mint 17 has been great too.

Maybe my setup might help someone.

Thanks. I was looking for an excuse to upgrade my gaming PC

Unfortunately, something you changed between 16 and 17 means that it wont work right on my dad's computer. Everything glitches out. Menus go crazy, windows turn white, etc... so we're sticking with 16 for now. I'll give 18 a try when it comes out.

bomyne wrote:Unfortunately, something you changed between 16 and 17 means that it wont work right on my dad's computer. Everything glitches out. Menus go crazy, windows turn white, etc... so we're sticking with 16 for now. I'll give 18 a try when it comes out.

You could at least try Mint 13 and still have support. Better than using 16.

ClutchDisc wrote:

bomyne wrote:Unfortunately, something you changed between 16 and 17 means that it wont work right on my dad's computer. Everything glitches out. Menus go crazy, windows turn white, etc... so we're sticking with 16 for now. I'll give 18 a try when it comes out.

You could at least try Mint 13 and still have support. Better than using 16.

16 works perfectly though.

bomyne wrote:16 works perfectly though.

And it is an absolutely stable release. As stable as can be. No more bugfixes. No more updates. No more anythings.
It may be wise to read xenopeek's initial post carefully again, in particular the section titled 'What does "end of support" mean for me?'

Note:
Moved mandoman's post and all replies to it into a dedicated support ttread titled Various problems on a fresh Linux Mint 17.
Announcements are no support threads. Creating a new thread does not cause more work than hijacking an announcement.