[SOLVED] Unintended upgrade from 18.1 to 19

[garrr]

I installed Mint 18.1 earlier this year. Everything was fine. Today I decide to apply the latest updates to the 18.1 installation.

I executed:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

This process ran for a while.
To my surprise when it was all done I was on Mint version 19.

How is this possible?

Mint documentation describes how you update from 18 to 19 and nowhere did I see the the process I executed would do that.

What happened here?

Is this valid Mint 19 now?

[jimallyn]

It ain't supposed to work that way. From 18.1 you have to first go to 18.2, then 18.3, then to 19.0. I am not sure what you did, but my guess would be you are now running some kind of FrankenMint.

[sleeper12]

Are you sure you have Mint 19 now, what does System Monitor say you have? Any chance you had Timeshift set up before you made these changes? If so, go back to when you had 18.1 working.

[catweazel]

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sudo apt-get upgrade

That would have done it. Your machine did exactly what you told it to do. This is why you should always use the update manager unless you know exactly what will happen as a result of blindly typing commands found in dubious articles on the web.

[fabien85]

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sudo apt-get upgrade

That would have done it. Your machine did exactly what you told it to do. This is why you should always use the update manager unless you know exactly what will happen as a result of blindly typing commands found in dubious articles on the web.

Are you sure ?
To change Mint version, the addresses of the repositories have to be changed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
I dont think a sudo apt-get upgrade does it. I have a box on Mate 18.3 and just ran an update & upgrade, reboot and same again, and it is still on 18.3, nothing changed. Even a sudo apt-get dist-upgrade does not change anything.

[gm10]

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sudo apt-get upgrade

That would have done it. Your machine did exactly what you told it to do. This is why you should always use the update manager unless you know exactly what will happen as a result of blindly typing commands found in dubious articles on the web.

Are you sure ?
To change Mint version, the addresses of the repositories have to be changed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
I dont think a sudo apt-get upgrade does it. I have a box on Mate 18.3 and just ran an update & upgrade, reboot and same again, and it is still on 18.3, nothing changed. Even a sudo apt-get dist-upgrade does not change anything.

Correct. I think catweazel didn't have his morning coffee yet, or more fittingly tea.

Probably same for the OP, unless he messed with his repositories as you said.

[catweazel]

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sudo apt-get upgrade

That would have done it. Your machine did exactly what you told it to do. This is why you should always use the update manager unless you know exactly what will happen as a result of blindly typing commands found in dubious articles on the web.

Are you sure ?

My apologies to the OP. Clearly I was wrong.

[garrr]

My answers to the questions posed:

First, I made mistake when I said Linux mint 18.1. I actually started out with Linux Mint 18.3.

This was a vanilla install on a dedicated Dell Latitude onto a hard drive.

After the generic install I only added Google Chrome. I ran like that for a few month. And then I added a Dell printer driver.

Then I did

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Nothing else was done. No other packages were added nor did I use any third party drivers.

After doing the above:

1. When I hover with the mouse over Linux Mint Menu icon, the popup says “Linux Mint 19 Tara”
2. When I do cat /etc/linuxmint/info it says “Linux Mint 19 Tara”
3. When I do cat /etc/issue it says “Linux Mint 19 Tara”

So, somehow, I got from 18.3 to 19 without wanting to do that.

I am going to try this again. I will install a fresh copy of 18.3 next weekend and repeat:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

to see if it puts me to 19 again.

Meanwhile if anyone has any explanation please let me know.

[smurphos]

My answers to the questions posed:

First, I made mistake when I said Linux mint 18.1. I actually started out with Linux Mint 18.3.

Meanwhile if anyone has any explanation please let me know.

I think you installed 19 in the first place not 18.3.

[garrr]

Is there any way to tell what version of Mint was Originally installed. Is there any log file that would have such information?

[gm10]

Is there any way to tell what version of Mint was Originally installed. Is there any log file that would have such information?

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cat /var/log/installer/media-info 

also

[sleeper12]

If you still have the flash drive or cd you installed from, System Monitor will say what version it is.

[rene]

Is there any way to tell what version of Mint was Originally installed. Is there any log file that would have such information?

Or try zcat $(ls -t /var/log/apt/history.* | tail -1) | sed -n '/base-files:amd64/s/base-files:amd64 (\(.*\)).*/\1/p'.

[garrr]

It appears that I may have to own everyone an apology

I executed:

cat /var/log/installer/media-info

as suggested and that shows: Linux Mint 19.

Moreover, the date on the file is 07-AUG and the upgrade I did was done on O8-DEC.

I've been using Linux Mint Since version 13, and this was the first question I ever posted.
It turned out to be bogus. I was really convinced that I started out with 18.3, but that seems to be wrong now,

Please accept my apologies for the wild goose chaise.
I will be more careful if I ever ask another question.

[Pierre]

Nah - we do like those Wild Questions - - it gets us 'thinking a bit more


- - and catweazel is stiil probably correct:
sudo apt-get upgrade
as that command would still upgrade your installed LM18.3 - - LM19.0
- IMHO anyway.

[rene]

sudo apt-get upgrade
as that command would still upgrade your installed LM18.3 - - LM19.0

No, it will definitely not.

[smurphos]

sudo apt-get upgrade
as that command would still upgrade your installed LM18.3 - - LM19.0

No, it will definitely not.

Indeed - from man apt-get - nothing about changing sources as we all should know

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       upgrade
           upgrade is used to install the newest versions of all packages
           currently installed on the system from the sources enumerated in
           /etc/apt/sources.list. Packages currently installed with new
           versions available are retrieved and upgraded; under no
           circumstances are currently installed packages removed, or packages
           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.

[murray]

- - and catweazel is stiil probably correct:
sudo apt-get upgrade
as that command would still upgrade your installed LM18.3 - - LM19.0
- IMHO anyway.

Doesn't sudo apt-get upgrade just update the list of available packages and their versions, but it does not install or upgrade any packages?

[Pierre]

since, I've not that often used the Terminal for this,
and so I've always assumed that sudo apt-get update would just update the repository,,
and using the sudo apt-get upgrade would perform the actual upgrade itself.

[rene]

apt-get update updates local copies of the lists of packages available from your configured repositories, apt-get upgrade retrieves and installs those packages said local copies list newer versions of than are currently installed. It is equivalent to Update Manager while having set the update strategy to "always update everything" (i.e., if you don't use the Mint-specific level system),

Not even apt-get dist-upgrade will upgrade between major versions; versions that require different repositories. See man apt-get for the horse's mouth.