Support for older versions

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GratisLPG

Support for older versions

Post by GratisLPG »

Hi,

Linux Mint is supported to until April 2021. Is the Cinnamon environment also supported by this date? Specifically - the Linux Mint 19 comes out with the new version of Cinnamon, is the older version of Cinnamon in Linux Mint 18.3 still supported? If I find an error in the older version, will it be fixed?
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Cosmo.
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Re: Support for older versions

Post by Cosmo. »

In principle the support time is promised like this: For any Mint 17.x until next year, for 18.x 2 years more, for 19.x another 2 years more. Actually I have hardly seen any bug fixes for Mint components (Cinnamon or anything else); exceptions are extremely rare. This is the cold truth since years. Bug fixes come at best with a new Mint version (but even then not always), accompanied by new bugs.
GratisLPG

Re: Support for older versions

Post by GratisLPG »

So only the latest version of the environment is supported.
Hoser Rob
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Re: Support for older versions

Post by Hoser Rob »

Cosmo. wrote: Wed Apr 25, 2018 6:59 am In principle the support time is promised like this: For any Mint 17.x until next year, for 18.x 2 years more, for 19.x another 2 years more. Actually I have hardly seen any bug fixes for Mint components (Cinnamon or anything else); exceptions are extremely rare. This is the cold truth since years. Bug fixes come at best with a new Mint version (but even then not always), accompanied by new bugs.
Sad but true. Programmers would much rather work on new features than fix bugs. This is particularly true in the open source world where almost all devs are volunteers with other real jobs. They don't want to work on boring bug fixes in their spare time.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong - H. L. Mencken
Cosmo.
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Re: Support for older versions

Post by Cosmo. »

Hoser Rob wrote: Wed Apr 25, 2018 8:15 am They don't want to work on boring bug fixes in their spare time.
Then they should be more careful with their promise.
Mint Announcement wrote:Linux Mint 18.3 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2021.
means with my little common sense: Until 2021 found bugs will get fixed during life time. I do not interpret it in the sense: We promise to keep the bugs as they are until 2021 :mrgreen: .
GratisLPG

Re: Support for older versions

Post by GratisLPG »

In my opinion in the homepage must have a information - core supported until 2021, environment supported 2 years. Current information misleads users.
michael louwe

Re: Support for older versions

Post by michael louwe »

GratisLPG wrote: Wed Apr 25, 2018 12:11 pm In my opinion in the homepage must have a information - core supported until 2021, environment supported 2 years. Current information misleads users.
.
Please refer also to ... https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... hree-years
Cosmo.
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Re: Support for older versions

Post by Cosmo. »

GratisLPG wrote: Wed Apr 25, 2018 12:11 pm environment supported 2 years
Not even this is the case. If I look into the history of Mint 18 Sarah (now 2 years old) and leave out updates for update manager and the needed update for mint-artwork-common, than I find the last updates for any mint-packages back in the first months after its release 2016. The only update for Cinnamon was in August 2016. Updates for Nemo or xed: zero.
MintBean

Re: Support for older versions

Post by MintBean »

Supported tends to mean security related fixes are provided- that's pretty much the same case with LTS releases of Ubuntu and many other distros no doubt, same case with Firefox versions.
It doesn't mean you get a load of new software backported, not even necessarily bug fixes unless they're (as I said) security fixes or major show stoppers which shouldn't have got past QA in the first place.
Personally I'm glad the Mint team funnels their efforts into the latest release rather than wasting time backporting.
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