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Three systems upgraded (not clean install) no problems after a week or so. One or two programs don't work in wine any more, not a big deal.

I really love it. Can't think of anything that worked better in LM18.

Timeshift is improved. Vlc Mediaplayer is improved. The looks are improved. The only thing that has to be fixed is the standard setting for level 4 updates. For newbies this should be changed. Other than that I really enjoy Tara. Many thanks to the makers of this wonderful OS.

Did the upgrade as opposed to the clean installation. Clean installations always created issues with GRUB in the past, serious issues as a matter of fact.

Upgrade went smoothly and all I had to do was performing some "autoclean"ing to eliminate stuff that had been replaced but not removed from the 18.3 version.
LM 19 is working smoother than LM 18 or 17 for now. Unless line commands are required past the very basics instructions, any Windows user could be running and well in 1 or 2 hours time. Very impressed with how intuitive the use of LM is for a novice coming from Windows. I have not played around with Wine yet and may not do that. However, that would not be a LM problem per se.

Once the upgrade was completed, for some reason, the machine could not start and went into a GRUB rescue of sort, but I went into BIOS and noticed that the safe boot setting was checked and I unchecked it. After that, the next restart GRUB was back and already showing the LM 19 instead of LM 18.3 entries.

Upgrading saved me a lot of time by not having to toy with settings for the software I use (commercial or free).

Cinnamon looks better and sharper than before. I always create my own backgrounds and they look really nice.

All drivers switched on "out of the box", even the multiple displays, something that did not work in Ubuntu the last time I tried (with the 17.10 version of that distro 3 months ago or so).

The software in the official repositories still tends to be obsolete, although some updates were produced. But that is overall a different story. Thankfully PPAs have already been updated with the latest releases based on Ubuntu Bionic 18.04

I use LaTeX and TexLive was converted for me to the new Ubuntu Bionic... Very grateful to the people who made the upgrade program possible as it saved me lots of time having to roam the internet and downloading stuff.

I have made a point not to upgrade the kernel constantly and stick with the kernel 4.15.0 family In the past I could not as the kernel proposed was not covering the most modern drivers and needed to move to newer families for my machine to work.

Only "item" that surprised me is that in LM 17 and LM 18 I had an Intel microcode, not so in LM 19. However, the machine does not seem to have any issues. Not complaining, just stating that I noticed it.

One software issue that I am having, even if it does not produce any major consequence is with Anaconda. I have created my own launcher because, I will admit to it, I do like launchers and do not want to have to remember the "magic word" to launch a program from terminal. However, regardless of whether I use the launcher or if I start Anaconda from terminal, I get some issues with the terminal environment:
- from launcher I get bash: activate: No such file or directory
- from terminal, after typing anaconda-navigator, I get the message 2018-07-25 23:09:31,311 - ERROR anaconda_api.is_vscode_available:956
# Option “-x” is deprecated and might be removed in a later version of gnome-terminal.#
# Use “-- ” to terminate the options and put the command line to execute after it.#

and terminal environment refuses to open. I did not re-install Anaconda in going from 18.3 to 19. I wonder if that might have caused a problem. However the
message 2018-07-25 23:09:31,311 - ERROR anaconda_api.is_vscode_available:956 had been experienced by several users even under older LM editions.

I upgraded my iMac to Mint 19.0 Cinnamon. I was rebuilding my WD Passport USB external 1TB drive and it seemed to screw up GRUB on the iMac. I have no idea why but when I finally got the external drive working properly (dual boot with macOS and Mint 19) I just upgraded the iMac to Mint 19 to solve the problems.

I did find that if you use Cairo-Dock with Mint 19, there will be a few things wrong. My issue was that the trash bin on the dock was not linked properly to the operating system trash. You have to run the following command from a terminal to fix the existing issues with Mint 19 and Cairo-Dock:
Everything else is working fine.

To my mind Mint 19 is a good Linux distribution. However, it still suffers from the same problem as every other Linux distribution, which is why to this day I still use Windows as my primary OS: It takes a hell of a lot of time to get it working as I would like it to. Here are a few examples of the things I have been struggling with, just in the first few days:

1. My computer has multiple sound outputs. I never disconnect or reconnect any of them as my computer is located so that it is quite hard to reach the back.The system by default always changes back to the usb headphones at reboot/login. Changing the default device seems to do absolutely nothing. even if you do by using pacmd commands. (In windows I can simply choose the default output and the options stays through reboots)
2. Some of my bluetooth devices such as my wireless xbox 360 controller and my bluetooth headphones need to be paired again each and every time I want to use them. In Windows there are not any problems and even some Linux distributions have much better working bluetooth. For example in SteamOS my wireless controller works perfectly as SteamOS is using an upgraded version of xpad (I have been trying to find whether I can install the steamos version for Mint so far no luck)

These are just some examples of the first things that come to mind as to why Linux Mint is still not my daily driver. Don't get me wrong, there are also things I absolutely love. But getting started still is a lot of work which I could have spend doing something else then sitting on my computer

An Xbox 360 Wireless controller is not in fact a Bluetooth device; it uses a proprietary wireless protocol to communicate with its through USB to your computer connected receiver. A PS3 controller is a Bluetooth device...

rene wrote: ⤴Thu Sep 13, 2018 5:41 pm An Xbox 360 Wireless controller is not in fact a Bluetooth device; it uses a proprietary wireless protocol to communicate with its through USB to your computer connected receiver. A PS3 controller is a Bluetooth device...

My apologies. I had an error. What I meant was my xbox one wireless controller (bluetooth model)

Other than that, yes, Bluetooth support sucks

Wanted to also give my 2c on this topic.

I am a huge Mint fan and probably will always be.

Mint is the most polished, thoughtful distro I know. I love the balance between consistency and the ever-evolving experience.

But as of Mint 19, I have to find an alternative distro as my daily workhorse. I am pretty sure a lot of the issues are upstream but that doesn't take away from my frustrations. I seem to have caught the wrong end of the stick, suffering from many of the rare incompatibilities.

Some of the hurdles:

Disclaimer: AMD Radeon Rx570 installed

1. ACPI buggy/erratic thanks to ASUS but on Mint/Ubuntu the issue is worse (could also be 4.15?)
2. Random Cinnamon freezes (I mean complete lock-up, no reboot possible)
3. Screen tearing in FF and sound issues in Chrome
4. Sound over HDMI stops working randomly
5. AMDGPU-PRO drivers don't play nice with Mint (thanks to AMDs stupid install script)

Can't wait for Mint 19.1 with a newer Kernel to see if I am lucky this time around.

Keep up the good work.

Interesting observations, simonsaysthis. Have you ever used .0 Mint releases before? I have always used .3 releases and was wondering if .0 releases are always this buggy.

17.3 & 18.3 were great! Well, 18.3 was great until all the kernel upgrades for Meltdow/Specter/Forshadow. The proprietary drivers for my old NVidia card haven't kept up with the new kernels in 18.3, so I am also using 19.0 now. For some reason the NVidia 340 driver works with the 4.15.x kernels in 19.0 but not with the same kernels in 18.3. In 18.3 I come up in the nouveau driver even with 340 selected. The big problem with that is that nouveau will eventually cause Cinnamon freezes on my old HP Pavilion. So it's either 18.3 with an older kernel or 19.0 for me these days.

From my experience Mint 18.3 is BETTER than 19. check my post HERE => viewtopic.php?f=60&t=279882

I am a newcomer to Linux Mint having used fedora for the last eight years and others before that. I came to Linux Mint after choosing it as a Windows 10 alternative for a new PC I was building for my wife. The ease of installation onto a mix of NVMe and conventional drives, availability of Timeshift and native snapshots on BTRFS and ease of integration of NVIDIA graphics cards all appealed to me.

Post-install, I just replaced Thunderbird with Evolution and Tomboy Notes with gnome-notes but that's just personal preference. The applications aren't always as current as in fedora but the availability of PPAs addressed that. I'm not a fan of Ubuntu but I think the PPA support in standard Linux Mint is better for me than LMDE - which I would have found frustrating.

Having installed it on the new desktop PC, I was sufficiently impressed to replace my laptop install of fedora Workstation with Linux Mint too. This is a Toshiba P50C from 2015 and, with Linux Mint on it, it must be the best Linux laptop experience I have ever had - even hibernation works should I choose to use it and it's already demonstrated excellent reliability.

If Linux Mint is like other distributions, in that it takes a couple of point releases to settle after a re-base, then versions following 19 "Tara" should be something for me to look forward to.

puddleglum wrote: ⤴Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:46 pm Interesting observations, simonsaysthis. Have you ever used .0 Mint releases before? I have always used .3 releases and was wondering if .0 releases are always this buggy.

I would not say that is any kind of rule or blanket statement. I use 18.0 still without ANY issue, I don't want, or NEED an upgrade. Before that it was 17.1 again without issue. I've tested 19.0 on persistent sticks, both Mate, and Cinnamon. Mate seems fine, cinnamon, not so much, slow boot, and terminal would not launch. As always your mileage may vary.

It's a good thing some people do use .0 releases, otherwise why produce them, and there would be no feedback for possible fixes for the .1, .2 etc. No need to fear .0 releases. If you don't like it don't install, like me with cinnamon 19.0

Speaking as a complete noob, here's the YUGE problem with 19...

Noobs like me, coming from the Windows World (WW) think that "very latest update" means "all bugs n stuff FIXED! As best we know, anyway."

However it seems in the world of Linux (WoL) "very latest update" means "Doesn't really work yet on some systems, such as yours. Be a pal and a beta tester, wouldya?"

That distinction REALLY needs to be driven home and made super super obvious to noobs.

I came within a single millimeter of giving up on Linux entirely, forever, because it was impossible to get my 1 yer old HP laptop to install LM 19.

It just shat the bed with "0.0 bytes of space" and a whole bunch of "ubi" this and that errors, while 'running'(!) slow as treacle. I spend pretty much an entire afternoon and evening just trying to get it to install.

Only the fact it was sooooo slow and being bored I was reading the forum, made me notice a few experienced users also having problems, so in a brief moment of random desperation, before reinstalling the disk with Windows on it, did I decide to start all over again. With 18.3.

18.3 installed entirely smoothly, without a single hitch - while doing the exact same steps, with the exact same machine, on a brand new hard drive purchased specifically for LM, so no upgrade issues involved at all.


From a UX experience this went from "Well this is a pile of hot shit! Why the FUK am I wasting my goddamn time on this half-baked turd of a nerd's OS BS!!?" to "Oh cool, this is quite easy. It's like Windows! "

Seriously, the update thing is a huge change in attitude. Noobs do NOT expect the very latest to be the most buggy.

Warn them.

B.

These are a minor issues which might be easy to fix

1) Linux mint Start-up screen the one with 5 dots. The DOTS are too small and the contrast between mint green and white is not clear to see the dots changing colours.

2) All Ubuntu the start up and shut down screen deploy these moving DOTS but if you look away you can be unsure whether the RESTART is doing SHUTDOWN or has begun START-UP.

Any suggestions for changes Mine would be a ^ on top of the DOT for START-UP and a V below the DOT for SHUTDOWN

Thank you

I've put Linux Mint 19.1 XFCE on a Dell 6420 and a Lenovo T420s. Both installations just worked straight out of the box with only one comment, Samba. In fairness this is probably a Samba issue rather than a Mint issue. In the home environment at least there appears to be a subtle shift to using Samba Usershares rather than Classic Shares. To that end (particularly for Noobs) it would probably be better to make Nemo (+Nemo-shares) the default file manager rather than Thunar. A side benefit is that Nemo has become lightning fast in Mint 19.

I know this on an old thread. If you have a dell computer, unfortunately I would recommend to keep using Linux Mint 18.3 or install xubuntu 18.04 LTS. I am just basing that on my experience.

patday8472 wrote: ⤴Thu Jan 31, 2019 6:13 pm I am just basing that on my experience.

With your Dell(s).

Note that the manufacturer label on a computer is often not much more than that. All manufacturers buy their chipsets, CPU's, drives etc. from just a few factories in the USA (Intel, AMD), China and Taiwan.

A manufacturer is roughly just an assembler of "generic" parts. What matters is what hardware combination you have, not what the label is.