Mint 19.1 vs Mint 20.2

[tazmo8448]

Thinking about doing an upgrade and see where 20.2 is the latest iteration.
Currently using 19.1 (4.15) and was wondering three things really.

1) Can 19.1 Cinnamon be upgraded to 20.2 (or 20.1)
2) Will it take a new fresh install to upgrade to the latest distro.
3) Keeping old files. Is that doable moving to a newer distro in other words do they play nice with each other?

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

[RollyShed]

1) Can 19.1 Cinnamon be upgraded to 20.2 (or 20.1)
2) Will it take a new fresh install to upgrade to the latest distro.
3) Keeping old files. Is that doable moving to a newer distro in other words do they play nice with each other?

1) I've done it once but have since only done fresh installs. Personally I find it too much of a hassle.
2) That's the easiest way, fresh install. Either on a new disk or copy everything to a different disk and install on the first disk. When you copy back to the new install you now have backup copies on the "copied to" disk.
3) Files? Such as docs, spreadsheets, videos, sound files? No problem they all work. They actually work using the same apps (later versions?) as in v19. I don't think you will notice any difference. I certainly haven't.

Four? five? new installs in the past 5 days. Things such as fonts for LibreOffice, etc. I copy on to the new install from a USB stick.

[Moonstone Man]

1) Can 19.1 Cinnamon be upgraded to 20.2 (or 20.1)

It's a long road, and there are caveats. The risk of data loss or failed upgrade increases with every step so a backup that has been verified as restorable is absolutely essential, with two verified backups being prescient. In addition, we don't know anything at all about your machine, and that can and often does play a large part in deciding if one should move to something like 20.2 or 20.1. It's possible that 20.2 doesn't like your machine so you should download the iso for your preferred version, write (burn) it to a DVD or USB flash drive and give it a test drive. On the other hand, it's equally possible that LM 20.2 will run fine. Nobody can say.

To get better advice, read how to get help, especially section 5. If you wish to post output from a terminal, enclose it in code tags [code]output.here[/code]. You'll see the code tags icon </> when you reply

2) Will it take a new fresh install to upgrade to the latest distro.

A fresh install is always best, and given the hoops you will need to jump through in order to upgrade, a fresh install is recommended following at least one, preferably two, backups that have been verified as good. A clean install is the route of least risk, provided you have sufficient backups.

3) Keeping old files. Is that doable moving to a newer distro in other words do they play nice with each other?

That depends on how you configured your system, which, again, you've not told us about. If you have a separate /home partition then, yes, you can keep that partition with a clean install. If you don't have that separate partition, then backup as described above. As for your settings playing nice, it depends, again, on things you haven't told us, so you should assume that they might play nice together, and you should assume that they may not play nice together, and this is yet another reason to go the clean install route.

Irrespective of what you decide to do, backup twice and verify the backups before proceeding.

[henderson_bay329]

@Kadaitcha Man,

backups that have been verified as good

Please elaborate re verification. The only method that comes directly to mind is to perform a restore with said back up. Hope there are many better ways to verify.

[kc1di]

Though Technically and upgrade can be done. I always suggest a full new install when going from one major release version to another. point release within the same version upgrade ok. But when going to newer version as you propose 19 to 20 there are always remnants of the older version left behind that can cause trouble down the road. So I have found it actually simpler to back up what I want to save off disc IE cloud or external media of some sort and do a new install of the new version. Good luck which ever you choose.

[tazmo8448]

Thanks guys.

[Petermint]

Your current machine is probably backed up with Timeshift for system files and Backintime for user files. You can perform a clean install then configure Backintime on the new machine and restore from there. All my applications use the same profile across both or they automatically upgrade with few noticeable differences.

In fact Firefox is the only difference. It tends to reset some settings when you upgrade to a new release.

Timeshift is less useful as a timeshift restore would revert your machine too far. What you can do is compare things like /etc/fstab to the Timeshift version to see your manual settings for extra disks.

I prefer to keep partition copies, effectively a Clonezilla disk copy without the boot stuff, then copy system level changes back. The Clonezilla style clone retains permissions. You can compare the main settings directory, /etc, using Meld or similar.

There is also a command you can run before the clean install to list all the packages you added. That will highlight things like code dev libraries.In my case, the move from 19 to 20 removed the need for several PPAs I used to get recent releases of software, reducing the clean install by over an hour.

[tazmo8448]

Thanks for that heads up.

[Drugwash]

• The new Cinnamon shipping with Mint 20.x lacks the extra titlebar buttons (Menu, Sticky, Shade).
• Many of the older themes won't work, unless they have been - or will be, if maintained - updated for compatibility.
• Some applications store all or part of their settings in root instead of user home, so a clean install with separate home partition would yield a partly broken system.
• Reinstalling and/or reconfiguring a bunch of applications after a clean install will be at least tedious.
• Certain older applications may not have compatibile versions and/or may not be available at all anymore. Replacements may or may not exist.
• Many people and even companies have a policy of staying one major version behind the latest, reason being newest versions may ship with bugs and/or security holes that could take time to find and patch.
• And finally: if it ain't broken don't fix it.
• Other reasons may exist that I have not thought of right now.

The first reason above alone was enough for me to stop at 19.2, but I always take all of the above into consideration. Personally I decided an upgrade is neither worth not warranted. You do what you want now that you have both pro and con reasoning. Good luck whatever you choose to do.

[tazmo8448]

Thanks Drugwash you covered a lot and have to agree 'if it ain't broke'

[RollyShed]

I was running v18 and have been installing 20.2 on a number of laptops for other people.

Having seen how 20.2 worked I went and bought a 240GB SSD to replace my 120GB SSD in my desktop. Most of the files are kept on a 1TB.

The old v18 SSD was installed in a spare desktop and the main desktop had 20.2 installed. Dukto was setup on both machines and all files copied across to the required folders i.e. Docs to the Document folder, pictures to pictures folder (all drag & drop), etc.

One previous problem was the Brother printer, HL-2140 needed the HL-2710 driver (don't ask) to make it go. With 20.2, I needed a document in a hurry, switched on the printer, hit print and away it went, no driver installation or anything like that, it recognised the printer for what it was and worked.

Accessing the 1TB seems to be much faster now too, about half the time.

You don't say whether you have a laptop or desktop. If a desktop, you should be able to fit the old and new disk. Why a new disk? Mainly because it is easier to do the job and I'd expect everything will be much faster.

If a laptop, the removed disk can be connected via a SATA to USB cable for file transfer.

Firefox User Names and Passwords (on the old disk) - type "about:logins" (no quotation marks) into the address bar and there will be a list of every site requiring a user and password. The passwords will appear as ......
At the right hand end of the dots is a very little symbol for an eye. click on that and the password appears. Write it down or copy & paste into Text Editor. When finished copying all the passwords, go to the sites and re-login, copy and pasting the user name and password for each one.

And after all of that? Yes, the laptops we have are all running 19.3 and probably will be for a while.

[tazmo8448]

Thanks RollyShed and yes it is on a craptop er laptop.
Had an issue with initramfs on boot up and before it was able to be resolved was figuring hey why not just upgrade the OS. After soliciting the pros and cons have decided to just stay with 19.1 til the bitter end because of the apps used and so forth.
Good to hear that the later versions play better driver wise.
I had one heck of a time at first because the laptop was so new(2019) it was introduced after 19.1 and the driver hunt for workable printer/scanner apps along with wi-fi drivers was an ordeal and being on the road all the time and needing those things for business (and in a hurry) made it all a tense thing. I would find terminal commands on line and the OP would misspell things in the command lines and what not, plus I was going over from a Windows person new to Linux made it real fun. In fact the laptop came with Win10 and it was a fresh do over. YouTube saved the day in a lot of cases.

[gugalcrom123]

Is it 64-bit? If not, upgrade to 19.3.

[tazmo8448]

Yes it is 64 bit and thanks.