MintUpdate-Debian - is it now safe to use?

[bootmakr]

Update Manager now tells me the system is up to date,
although still UpdatePackage 2 is used and UP3 is available.

Actually, I'll defer to zerozero for the answers to most of your questions, but I believe that the reason that your MUD shows that UP2 and UP3 are still available is because you used the CLI to update, and the MUD doesn't know this because it only keeps track of what IT does, rather than what has been done by other means ..... just my thoughts on this particular matter (My thoughts about this and 5 cents will buy you a stick of penny bubble gum in some small stores)

[zerozero]

What I've done so far:

0) Fresh install of LMDE (Sept2011)
1) sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
2) sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite /var/cache/apt/archives/gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad_0.10.22-3_i386.deb
3) sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
4) sudo apt-get install linux-headers-3.0.0-1-686-pae

Update Manager now tells me the system is up to date,
although the UP-Info states that UpdatePackage 2 is still used and UP3 is available.

What UP is under the hood now?

i followed your steps 0 to 4 in a fresh install and was having the same result:
- system up to date;
- UP2 in use and UP3 available;


but somehow the pae kernel is/was not installed (maybe because of the gstreamer error), only after (in synaptic) i marked these pkgs to install

Start-Date: 2011-12-31 02:22:21
Commandline: /usr/sbin/synaptic
Install: linux-image-686:i386 (3.0.0+39), linux-image-2.6-686-pae:i386 (3.0.0+39), linux-image-3.0.0-1-686-pae:i386 (3.0.0-1, automatic), linux-image-686-pae:i386 (3.0.0+39)
End-Date: 2011-12-31 02:23:26

reboot and ran MU 2 or 3 times it recognised UP3

[msbln]

This is what I could find in synaptic:

linux-image-486
linux-image-2.6.39-2-486
linux-image-3.0.0-1-486
linux-image-2.6-486

So, I was missing the PAE kernels too.
I installed the following:

linux-image-3.0.0-1-686-pae
linux-image-2.6-686-pae
linux-image-686-pae

Rebooted 3x and started MU each time,
but it still is not recognizing the update-state as UP3.

I have a second system with LMDE running where the update-state can not be detected at all ("n/a").
It is originating from the very first LMDE release and had a correct automatic pae kernel update.

Maybe the UP-detection is not working properly,
which I don't mind as long it has no implications.

[zerozero]

msbin,
it sure has no implications at all, the important part is that your system is properly updated (you should, when run dist-upgrade, see one pkg held back but that's normal)

[msbln]

That's good. And thanks for all the assistance.
System is working fine

[appye]

Is there a way to make mintupdate (optionally?) prompt for a reboot once upgrades are finished? Perhaps you can borrow some code from debian's update manager which does just that? It seems weird to me that it just drops away after a successful upgrade without any kind of message or notification, especially after something as major as going from up3-up4. I don't know how similar the programs are...

I recently upgraded to up4 ... I noticed that after upgrading itself, mintupdate said I was already using up4, even though it had over a thousand upgrades available, is there some cheating going on here? Is it really checking the update pack version?

I also noticed that when I did choose to reboot, all the fonts on the reboot prompt were replaced by empty squares, basically what is seen occasionally on a web page when a system does not have the fonts installed. I rebooted anyway, but it begs the question, What other quirkyness would be seen by the inexperienced user who chose to continue using their system after so many upgrades had been performed without a reboot?

Rather than imitating debian's update-manager, perhaps a simple notification about how reboots are a good practice after running any update? Technical users who know better can shine that on, but at least the standard end-user won't have a wonky system if they fail to reboot after their system runs through the upgrade process.

Now granted, I install a barebones cli-only debian system from the stable repos. I then upgrade to the /latest repositories. Then I install the rest of my system. This is how I have been building systems for my friends and family since the update packs came out. I like the idea of rolling testing with a bit more "testing" ... In fact, the only packages I run from packages.linuxmint.com are mintupdate-debian and mintinstall. I realize my system is not a standard LMDE box, so perhaps I am missing some "minty-ness" that would make mintinstall act differently?


My sources list:

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import
deb-src http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import

deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest testing main contrib non-free
deb-src http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest testing main contrib non-free

deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security testing/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security testing/updates main contrib non-free

deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia testing main non-free
deb-src http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia testing main non-free

[kaji331]

When I clicked some packages to lock the version, no upgrading in synaptic, MintUpdate still showed the newer version of these packages to me.

When I changed my repo to Debain testing, cli/synaptic will told me some newer packages would remove some packages that I need. But MintUpdate told me nothing. If I followed MintUpdate, my system will be broken.

[zerozero]

When I changed my repo to Debain testing, cli/synaptic will told me some newer packages would remove some packages that I need.

without knowing exactly what packages are those is hard to access if you really need them, could be normal removals, replaces or a real breakage who knows?
what we know for sure is a couple things:
1- the change to testing nowadays is more than just changing a few words in the sources.list, if you don't look as well at the preferences file your system will be broken;
2- big upgrades (like this one would be) are not to be done with MU

[Anthrogue]

I also noticed that when I did choose to reboot, all the fonts on the reboot prompt were replaced by empty squares, basically what is seen occasionally on a web page when a system does not have the fonts installed. I rebooted anyway, but it begs the question, What other quirkyness would be seen by the inexperienced user who chose to continue using their system after so many upgrades had been performed without a reboot?

I got this before reboot... the unreadable squares. The wifi was down, so I didn't know if some of the error (or the list of some odd things that weren't updated) was generated by a lost wifi connexion or something else. I reboot the system and have no graphical UI.

I'm totally lost. No I can imagine spending hours trying to refamiliarize myself with Linux speak in order to fix a problem I assumed I could avoid by using a rolling distro. I jumped through hoops initially with LMDE and got everything right. I assumed the concept was well thought out and robust enough to hit the upgrade button. How stupid. I guess I should have done hours of research beforehand to see if it was "safe" to use what presents itself as safe.

Lol, the upgrade button should have a pop up that says "Don't push me unless you know so much about phreakin Linux that just having to read this warning means that you're too stupid to be running a Linux OS in the first place"

[ashtonford]

When I changed my repo to Debain testing, cli/synaptic will told me some newer packages would remove some packages that I need.

without knowing exactly what packages are those is hard to access if you really need them, could be normal removals, replaces or a real breakage who knows?
what we know for sure is a couple things:
1- the change to testing nowadays is more than just changing a few words in the sources.list, if you don't look as well at the preferences file your system will be broken;
2- big upgrades (like this one would be) are not to be done with MU

Just installed mint debian yesterday its really decent but have a question what is the update pack information? it mentions updating gnome, is this something I want to do or is it best to leave as is?

[zerozero]

hi,
the update-pack info is a notice of warnings/information about several issues that the users can face in that particular UP and workarounds to avoid them; in this last one (UP4) the biggest problem (for many) was the upgrade to gnome3.2, so Clem left some notes about it and how to solve that (installing cinnamon, mate).

if nothing of that affects you, cool, leave it as-is and enjoy lmde.

[ashtonford]

thanks for the reply! really enjoying debian mint. The people over at the debian forums are really down on mint debian . It worked out of the box the wireless etc on my sony lap top.

[Motion]

No problem here, everything is ok.

Motion

[dmhm]

With the new Update-Packs we got as well a new Update Tool in LMDE (MintUpdate-Debian);
As the name tries to show, it's finally a proper port of the Mint update tool to the debian-based systems;

- are you using it?
- what is your experience with it?

share the good, the bad and ugly about MU-debian

See my post in "Update/Upgrade Issues".