Upgrade from 18.3 to 19 and so on to 20?

[newbi462]

I have a Mint 18.3 system, it needs to update, but the instructions are conflicting.

the form ultimately links to these instructions:
https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2416

but then STEP D2. Give Your Terminal Unlimited Scrolling

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Open a terminal.

Click on "Edit"->"Profile Preferences"->"Scrolling".

Check the "unlimited" option and click "OK".

do not match the Terminal settings. The settings in this section are:

• Show scrollbar

• Scroll on output

• Scroll on keystroke

• Limit scrollback to

My goal is to get to at least Mint 20, but I am unclear on how long I have to do that. When will support for Mint 19 end? Is it Jan or April 2023?

And what settings are needed to complete step D2 above since "unlimited is not actually an option?

[manyroads]

I'm sure many will disagree (but I do the following successfully once or twice a week).

Personally, I'd take a totally different approach:
-- Get a spare machine (virtual or bare metal) and install Mint 21.
-- Backup my home directory (everything) from my ancient install.
-- Copy the old home materials (those I want to keep) on the New 21 base
-- Test, test, test.... the new 21 base.

If everything works adequately, then I'd perform a clean 21 install on my target machine and copy my data to it.

Limping through a significant number of upgrades, can be quite prone to errors..

[AndyMH]

I would certainly test LM20 before committing to it. There were a lot of changes between LM18 and LM19 and then more with LM20. Depending on what you installed, highly likely that some of the software you use in LM18 will not be available in the later versions.

I wasn't aware that there was an upgrade tool LM18 to LM19, I always do a fresh install. For some people the upgrade path is painless, for others trouble. I did try it but had a lot of issues with the upgrade from LM19 to LM20.

[billyswong]

Which desktop environment did you use in your LM 18.3? Cinnamon, Mate, or Xfce? They are not running the same terminal program and thus may be the source of difference. Try changing the "Limit scrollback to" setting and see if you make it set to a equivalent of unlimited. If there is no way to set it to unlimited, a last resort is hotkey Ctrl+Alt+F1 to a fullscreen terminal session. (Press Ctrl+Alt+F7 to come back to graphical shell at any time. They are independent to each other.) In that fullscreen terminal session, one will type username and password to enter another user session. In that terminal, there should be no scrollback problem that can block the Linux upgrade process.

No matter what, backup your personal files before upgrade. Also, prepare a Linux Mint live USB, preferably with the final destination version you want to upgrade to. Then in case the upgrade fails and the computer no longer boots, you can go with clean install with no worry.

[newbi462]

If a Clean install is required I can't use Mint. The sole reason I am "upgrading" is there is no other way to update Firefox and Chromium on Linux Mint.

It is a massive overkill to update the whole OS just to update the browser, but with the latest browser push these days nothing works once your browser cant update anymore.

I used Cinnamon. When I was building this system I tried to install Mint 19. but that was back in the 19.0 or 19.1 days, and the Live ISO Mint releases CRASHED if you tried to install it.

Rather I want to or not, the static nature of MINT forces this kind of update once they EOL a distro.

[newbi462]

Which desktop environment did you use in your LM 18.3? Cinnamon, Mate, or Xfce? They are not running the same terminal program and thus may be the source of difference. Try changing the "Limit scrollback to" setting and see if you make it set to a equivalent of unlimited. If there is no way to set it to unlimited, a last resort is hotkey Ctrl+Alt+F1 to a fullscreen terminal session. (Press Ctrl+Alt+F7 to come back to graphical shell at any time. They are independent to each other.) In that fullscreen terminal session, one will type username and password to enter another user session. In that terminal, there should be no scrollback problem that can block the Linux upgrade process.

No matter what, backup your personal files before upgrade. Also, prepare a Linux Mint live USB, preferably with the final destination version you want to upgrade to. Then in case the upgrade fails and the computer no longer boots, you can go with clean install with no worry.

I used Cinnamon

"Limit scrollback to" has no value, but the directions list this non existent "unlimited".


What I am hearing you all say is the UPDATE tool does not work? And when Mint EOL a distro you have to buy a new computer?

[newbi462]

I do not disagree with an ISO as a last resort, but that would be a DVD here, but looks like Mint 18 has no burner by default.

Tutorials say xfburn, but that is for XFCE not Cinnamon. What is the DVD ISO burner for Cinnamon called?

[karlchen]

Hello, newbie462.

When I upgraded from Mint 18.3 to Mint 19 in-place (Cf. here), following Clem's instruction, which you had linked to, my terminal window would not offer the option to set the scroll back buffer to "unlimited", either. So I set it to 50,000 (lines) or something similar.
The idea is to make sure that the scroll back buffer is big enough to hold all terminal output, displayed during the in-place upgrade, without having to discard early lines later during the upgrade process.

So set "Limit scrollback to" 50,000 e.g. This should be sufficient.

(Just checked on my Mint 19.3 xfce here; the terminal window is xfce4-terminal. It permits to tick the option "Unlimited scroll back buffer" (careful, the genuine Englich term may be a bit different, because I translated back from German to English.))

Regards,
Karl

[JerryF]

If a Clean install is required I can't use Mint. The sole reason I am "upgrading" is there is no other way to update Firefox and Chromium on Linux Mint.

It is a massive overkill to update the whole OS just to update the browser, but with the latest browser push these days nothing works once your browser cant update anymore.
...

In order to use the more updated versions of Firefox and/or Chromium is that those will eventually need an updated Mint version. The packages that may need to be updated are no longer available to be updated in version 18.x.

Using an Ubuntu-based OS, users must be prepared to upgrade their OS. Sometimes that includes doing a clean install. Unfortunately, Ubuntu and its derivatives are not a rolling release such as Arch, Manjaro, or Solus.

[billyswong]

I do not disagree with an ISO as a last resort, but that would be a DVD here, but looks like Mint 18 has no burner by default.

Tutorials say xfburn, but that is for XFCE not Cinnamon. What is the DVD ISO burner for Cinnamon called?

You can still install xfburn if you don't have a spare USB stick but plenty of DVD-R. xfburn is not exclusive to Xfce. It can be installed into computers with other desktop environment.

Another choice is brasero, a disc burner program maintained by Gnome team. Cinnamon doesn't seem to maintain or fork any disc burner program by itself.

I used Cinnamon. When I was building this system I tried to install Mint 19. but that was back in the 19.0 or 19.1 days, and the Live ISO Mint releases CRASHED if you tried to install it.

This sounds worrying for your plan of in-place upgrade from 18.3 to 19. I look at the LM19 download page and the ISO images there are named linuxmint-19-cinnamon-64bit-v2.iso. I wonder if the "v2" wording is related to your issue.

I used Cinnamon

"Limit scrollback to" has no value, but the directions list this non existent "unlimited".


What I am hearing you all say is the UPDATE tool does not work? And when Mint EOL a distro you have to buy a new computer?

Here is the Profile Preferences in LM18.3 Cinnamon Terminal.

20221122.png (30.7 KiB) Viewed 836 times

Keep the checkbox unchecked, and there will be *no* Limit scrollback to any number of lines. No limit = unlimited

Some people don't trust the update tool. While I won't recommend people to trust it blindly either, their recommendation or assumption of everyone having multiple computer on hand is overwhelming for me too. If one prepare an high-volume external HDD / SSD / USB stick to backup all the personal data, and then prepare 2 Linux Live ISO USBs/DVDs one for the existing old version and one for the targeted new version, such preparation is already extremely safe. No need for a complete 2nd computer. I am less prepared when I upgrade my Linux Mint.

[newbi462]

This sounds worrying for your plan of in-place upgrade from 18.3 to 19. I look at the LM19 download page and the ISO images there are named linuxmint-19-cinnamon-64bit-v2.iso. I wonder if the "v2" wording is related to your issue.

Maybe, it was a few years back: but if I recall I was asking about the forms but no one was helping. Later after I gave up and installed Mint 18 so I could have a computer someone said something about an extra step that would have made it work. Basically, something like you needs to install and then add things or something or it would not work. Supposedly it later got patched.


I trust no software blindly, but the things I do not want to need to redo right now.

• My Thunderbird, particularly my local forlders

• All my book marks and LINKS in Nemo

• The whole HP driver for an all in one over wifi[/list
  
  Just all those downtime I would have from a clean install to outright losing a weekend to resorting even if I have all the data backed up.
  
  
  If I have a working "with my settings" system that may need something like an intall this to the patch I am ok with that...
  
  But logistically this is a bad time to be without my scanner or some of those records where I can get at them in 30 sec. In a perfect world, I would do this in about a year. But with 19 being EOL, my understanding is I won't be able to update if I don't soon?
  
  Another concern I just thought off, this is an UEFI system, do I need to play with that again while doing the update? Or if my system boots now I should be good there? I remember having to screw with it, but forget 100% of what all I did...

[billyswong]

I trust no software blindly, but the things I do not want to need to redo right now.

• My Thunderbird, particularly my local forlders

• All my book marks and LINKS in Nemo

• The whole HP driver for an all in one over wifi

Just all those downtime I would have from a clean install to outright losing a weekend to resorting even if I have all the data backed up.

For thunderbird, you shall back up ~/.thunderbird. I only have experience in migrating thunderbird profile from Windows machine to another Windows machine, but the content in .thunderbird folder in Linux looks exactly like the folder I migrated for Windows computers.

What you need to take care is, since you are currently still running LM 18.3, if you haven't added any PPA or install Thunderbird manually, the Thunderbird in your computer is probably also running in a very outdated version. So, if you are migrating your Thunderbird profile to a clean-installed new OS, one need to make sure the profile folder is copied BEFORE Thunderbird is opened the first time in that computer, in order to minimize any potential conflict.

BTW, profile of Firefox is in ~/.mozilla. Similarly, don't open the Firefox in new computer until after one overwrite the profile folder.

For bookmarks in Nemo or Menu > Places, they are stored in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/bookmarks. It is a plain text file. You can open it and see if all the links you want to keep are contained there.

For HP driver, no good suggestion. I have an old HP all-in-one out of ink for a long time. It is only used for scanning. And it is over USB, not wifi. I gain access to it by installing hplip. Dunno about your all-in-one over wifi.

But logistically this is a bad time to be without my scanner or some of those records where I can get at them in 30 sec. In a perfect world, I would do this in about a year. But with 19 being EOL, my understanding is I won't be able to update if I don't soon?

You can still upgrade to 19. The upgrade path is not breaking that soon. The bigger issue here is the Firefox and Thunderbird in your computer have been seriously outdated now.

Another concern I just thought off, this is an UEFI system, do I need to play with that again while doing the update? Or if my system boots now I should be good there? I remember having to screw with it, but forget 100% of what all I did...

In place upgrade won't mess up an already healthy boot process, as long as you aren't playing with any dual-boot trickeries and let OS installation scripts of various OSes fight against each other.

[all41]

Also to to carry special settings/keyboard shortcuts, etc
on the source run:

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dconf dump / > ~/my_dconf

This saves a file to your home directory (save it where you like)
In the fresh install refer to that location and:

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dconf load / < ~/my_dconf

[billyswong]

Also to to carry special settings/keyboard shortcuts, etc
on the source run:

Code: Select all

dconf dump / > ~/my_dconf

This saves a file to your home directory (save it where you like)
In the fresh install refer to that location and:

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dconf load / < ~/my_dconf

I disagree with this suggestion here. I would never dump the whole dconf to a new computer unless they are running roughly the same version of OS / various software.