Upgrade from Julia to Maya

[harney]

Hi all

I am home at the moment while running some updates on my parents laptop realised that it is painfully out of date. This was not really a problem while they were Internet free but they now have Internet access so I need to make sure they are secure.

So, is there a pain free way to upgrade from Julia to Maya (LTE) keeping the same interface?

All help appreciated, and Merry Christmas to everyone.



*Edit* - Just to add for more info the laptop is a Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook S7020

[xenopeek]

Assuming they have GNOME 2 desktop now, you will probably want to replace that with Linux Mint 13 MATE. GNOME 2 desktop was discontinued by the GNOME project, but the MATE project has stepped in and has continued the GNOME 2 desktop under the new name MATE. Because of some technical details having to do with GNOME 3, MATE programs and libraries had to be renamed from what they were under GNOME 2, but other than that it should be very familiar. You can download it here: http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=103

[harney]

Thanks Vincent.

Would it be possible to change some of the repositories and just run an apt-get dist-upgrade on the system rather than a complete install from scratch?

I assume this would keep thinks like bookmarks and data etc? I will be backing up first anyway, but if the data is still in place then all the better.

[xenopeek]

Not recommended; GNOME 2 packages are not available in Maya so this this will most likely cause you to have a system with broken packages where dependency conflicts can't be resolved. That's not going to be fun. Recommend you do a clean install. But, if you want, you can of course install Maya alongside Julia and thus be sure you don't delete anything from Julia before you have it on Maya.