Updating LM19.3 -> 20.3 (my experience)

[freshminted]

Well, I just updated my least important computer from LM19.3 to LM20.3. Thought I'd share how it went.

The computer I used is quite old, it's the home theatre PC. I only use it for skype/zoom on the big screen or when I need to watch something the raspberry pi (running libreelec) can't play and vlc can. So I could risk it going wrong; I could just wipe the drive and load LM20.3 as a clean install onto it and not lose much. I have two important production computers that also have to be upgraded, so I wanted to get some experience with this method.

I used the instructions here: https://linuxmint-user-guide.readthedoc ... nt-20.html

It went alright, here's my list of pros & cons:

Pros: my desktop, /home files, firefox settings etc were left intact, everything was more or less where it had been when I started. Even things running under wine still worked.

Cons: It was quite slow (took over three hours to just install LM20, then maybe another hour to get to LM20.3 and fix things). It might have been quicker to do a backup of /home and then do a clean install.

Some of LM20's ugly icons are now in use (eg the Update manager is the black and white shield thing with an orange dot to get your attention, instead of LM19's green tick). Most icons are still LM19, which I prefer.

It removed all but one my 4.15 kernels, leaving only the last and installed the latest 5.4 kernel and booted from that instead. The machine will boot from 5.4, but then the network card (Gigabyte r8168) doesn't work and I've never found a workaround for that. So I had to reboot using the 4.15 kernel. Which is "unsupported" in LM20.

A few things were removed as part of the purging process before the actual update and it took some time to re-download and install them. Keep a list of what you have to get rid if you want them back afterwards.

You have to occasionally type in your password and/or choose yes/no, so you can't just leave it to do its thing completely unattended, you should be nearby and check what's happening occasionally.

[mikeflan]

Thanks for posting all that. I could have used it last October, but I kinda like a fresh install anyway.

Cons: It was quite slow (took over three hours to just install LM20, then maybe another hour to get to LM20.3 and fix things). It might have been quicker to do a backup of /home and then do a clean install.

Yeah, a fresh install is pretty fast. Installing my software takes at least an hour - not much more.

Doing a fresh install helps keep the install notes up-to-date.

[freshminted]

Okay, I've just done another of my computers (moving from 19.3 to 20.3).

For some reason, this one was a lot quicker, only took 1h30m or so. Major stumbling block was the downgrade/remove Software Sources step got stuck removing ttf-mscorefonts. I just could not get the "Do you want to remove this" OK? to click or recognise pressing Enter to say OK and move on. Eventually stopped the process and removed the ms fonts in terminal with sudo apt purge ttf-mscorefonts-installer and then started the update process again.

After that, everything went well. When it was complete (up to LM20.3) I reinstalled the ttf fonts using the Software Manager.

[freshminted]

Did the last 19.3 -> 20.3 update of my computers over the weekend. After the previous two, thought this one would be easy, but immediately ran into problems with irreconcilable packages. Quickly gave up and went for a clean install instead.

Did one last 19.3 Timeshift backup in case something went wrong and copied all my home folder somewhere safe. Took about 20 mins to do the 20.3 install, but re-installing all the applications and getting the look I wanted took two days. And I ditched quite a few programs I hadn't used for ages.

Hope 20.3 -> LM21/22/whatever in two years is less intense.