Linux Mint Forums

This thread caught my attention because I am currently transitioning from LM 17.3 to 18.3. So far, this has been pretty painless, as I've been able to work on it as time permits. The reason I can do it this way is because I am dual booting 17.3 and 18.3 (actually I'm triple booting because I also have Windows7, which I only use once a year). I have a separate Data partition with all my personal documents, photos, etc. which is shared between 17.3 and 18.3 (not with W7). I have also put my Thunderbird and Firefox profiles onto the Data partition, so I don't have to worry about keeping my e-mails and FF bookmarks in sync (had to whitelist the FF profile in Firejail to make that work). I did a clean install of 18.3 - was able to copy some of what I needed from the 17.3 /home to 18.3. If I have a question about how I set something up in 17.3, I can boot into it and check. I currently have separate /home partitions for each install - I may rethink that when I eventually install LM 19 - haven't decided about that yet. After I get everything set up (actually I'm almost there - running on 18.3 now) I'll keep the 17.3 installation as a fallback. When I install LM 19, it will replace 17.3 and I'll use the same method to transition from 18.3. I'm keeping a list of all the steps I'm taking so that I'll have a step-by-step guide for next time. I might also make a script file to help automate it.

I'm keeping a list of all the steps I'm taking so that I'll have a step-by-step guide for next time. I might also make a script file to help automate it.

This makes it so much easier when you have several machines to do. I have documented every setting and every launcher icon so that all of my machines are all set exactly the same. It makes it so much easier when you look at the launcher for documents and then try and remember where you got that loverly little icon from on your other machine. I've even listed all apps that I use from package manager along with desklets, Applets and their respective settings. How many of us remember our API key, let alone the location number for our weather desklet?

After 2021, presumably Ubuntu 16.04 and as such also Mint 18.x will no longer be supported. That means no more security updates...
Of course, Mint 17.x/Ubuntu 14.04 ends support in April 2019, only one year away. Your computer will still work when LM17.x stops being supported, but it will be vulnerable to attacks, due to lack of security updates, unless you backport security fixes yourself for every package you ever want to install, and once you put out enough effort to do that, you might as well upgrade to a supported release.