My upgrade experience

[MurphCID]

Download- took about fifteen minutes on my internet connection, no issues with the download. Installations- I followed the directions on the Mint blog, and it look about 15 minutes. Rebooted, and things worked. I did a timeshift backup and the system locked up hard. I had to hold down the power button to turn off the machine. Rebooted and so far so good.

Impressions:

It appears "snappier" the fonts appear cleaner and sharper (Fonts being one of my issues with Linux, the fonts are usually ugly), The computer boots even quicker (or so it seems), and things are doing well. It kept all of my files and settings. Super great. Thanks Mint team!

Note: This is on an HP Spectre x360 laptop 13.3" screen, i7, 8 gb, 256gb ssd, 1080 resolution.

[MurphCID]

It definitely seems that the monitor is sharper. I also have the perception that the computer is "snappier", more responsive. I think that so far based on my use over the last day or so it is the best version of Mint yet. The trackpad issue still has not been corrected, but I can work around that by turning off the trackpad when I type. I am running Cinnamon as the desktop, and I might try XFCE on my wife's old laptop since it looks so good on the YouTube videos I have watched.

Again, thanks to the Mint Team for an excellent version of Mint.

[MurphCID]

Power seems improved. It seems like I am getting more battery life out of the laptop, it used to last about 3 1/2 hours (claimed to have 10 hours battery life), but I am seeing around 5 hours right now (I have 26% battery left). I am not sure what they did, but the battery seems more efficient.

[MurphCID]

Libre Office 6 is nice, and works well. At this time I cannot tell any big difference between it and the 5.x versions. Maybe later I will be able to tell. Gimp seems to load a bit faster, but I cannot really tell too much of a difference. The fonts and wallpapers are great! I will fully admit to being a font snob, having been spoiled by Apple and Microsoft fonts. I haven't really had a chance to try out the HiDPI function since my laptop has a full HD screen. But I might boot into Linux on the Macbook Pro or even my desktop machine which has two 1440 monitors to check out the HiDPI functionality.

Anyone else have any comments on how they perceive the new Mint 19 to perform?

[SpectreOl]

I had an issue with a cheap and nasty DVD drive with mint 18, tried mint 19 on live and nothing was broken, just the dvd was fixed.. happy days..

Trying to do a 18.3 - 19 upgrade and it's taking forever. May have to abandon soon as it well late, may have to fresh install. Damn, should have gone fresh in the 1st place...

[SpectreOl]

I have noticed g++, girl and hexchat being unpacked at least twice now.. I think it's suffering from an endless loop.. fighting the urge to stop it and be done..

[SpectreOl]

Yeah, finishes with an error.. fresh install it is.. it did boot into 19, but things are not right at all..

[MurphCID]

Sorry to hear your difficulties, mine went really, really well.

[SpectreOl]

No bother.. I did the fresh install.. now the problem dvd drive is recognised and all other hardware is out the box ready too..

Yeah, I've had to reinstall software, but I backed stuff up, so it's not end of the world. I know each new version has it's issues, but so far, it's fixed more than anything else.

[Portreve]

My installation on a 2011 MacBook Pro 13" was a clean install. So far, everything works extremely well. I ran the beta for about three or four weeks before the release version and it ran better than the release versions of 18.0, .1, .2, and .3.

My work requires that I trade in M$ Orifice documents (primarily spreadsheets) and I don't know if there's any real difference between LO 5.x and 6.x, but it runs well and I'm glad to finally have a current generational release of LO up and running.

I wanted to try and get Myth II up and running, but the Magma Project's Myth 1.8.2 installer doesn't recognize my Myth II CD as being a Myth II CD, and I gather WINE is kinda borked right now for LM 19.

If anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear 'em.

[MurphCID]

Let me start off by saying I love Mint 19, and it is a great operating system. BUT: the darn trackpad issue still is broken, and I have to turn the blasted thing off in order to type on this little 13.3" HP otherwise my cursor goes flying across the screen, which really pisses me off. Could someone from Mint PLEASE fix that issue? I could be eternally grateful.

[MurphCID]

I had to re-install 19 after a weird glitch that cause all minimized windows to vanish and when I clicked on them, caused the program to open a new instance, and the minimized windows were somewhere still active. It was annoying as heck. For some reason 19 now just does not feel as polished or ready as 18.3 was and I am seriously thinking of going back to 18.3 until all the bugs are worked out of 19. HiDPI still sucks. I can liken 19 to that tooth that hurts, but you just really aren't ready to go to the dentist because it is more of a minor nagging annoyance rather than a requirement to get the tooth filled or pulled.

[AZgl1800]

I am so happy that I put LM19 on a separate partition and kept it from knowing about my 18.3 Cinnamon.
19 is just not yet ready for the big time, I am waiting until the touchpad can be turned off, and stay off.
and a list of other issues dealt with.

the plus side is that it seemed so much smoother, and faster on the same hardware as I use every day.

[MurphCID]

It seems to have settled down a bit. I hope it just keeps getting back to rock solid stability.

[151tom]

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[DAMIEN1307]

doing an upgrade within the same version such as, 18 to 18.1 to 18.2 etc i usually find pretty painless but going to new versions like 18.3 to 19,...the only way to go is clean install to an entirely new platform...DAMIEN

[sikejsudjek]

I haven't bothered with a clean install and all three of my machines are working perfectly. Not only that but I've saved going through the tedious manual amendments to get some rather obscure hardware working. There are reasons not to clean install - if it works it works.

[MurphCID]

doing an upgrade within the same version such as, 18 to 18.1 to 18.2 etc i usually find pretty painless but going to new versions like 18.3 to 19,...the only way to go is clean install to an entirely new platform...DAMIEN

I normally just upgrade, but this time it seemed to go painlessly, then issues happened, so I had to do a clean installation. Nothing major, just nagging little problems that were not there in 18.3.

[MurphCID]

It seems to have settled down but the annoying trackpad issue is still there. Grrrrrr.

[kenetics]

I haven't had any problems at all with Mint 19 Cinnamon. I'm using an desktop built with a dual core Athlon 64 5000+. I did a fresh install on a couple of partitions for / and home, as I usually do, and leaving Mint 18.3 in place. If I have to I can go back to 18, but so far I like 19. I'm using the Nouveau drivers, as support for my AMD Radeon graphics card ended during Mint 17's run..

The only thing I had to change was to make the default font larger and a few other customizations, which I enjoy doing anyway. It seems a bit speedier than 18, as some have mentioned. At least It's fast enough for this ageing box.