Mint Cinnamon 21 - the most buggy release in the Linux Mint history?

[karlchen]

Thread Title: Mint Cinnamon 21 - the most buggy release in the Linux Mint history?

My memory tells me and a forum search might confirm that it does not play tricks on me that whenever a new Linux Mint (major) version has been released, threads to the effect of Mint Cinnamon XY* - the most buggy release in the Linux Mint history? will appear sooner or later.
(* where you replace XY by the most recent version number at the given time: 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)

In the specific case of Linux Mint 21 the most common factor of all these complaints, rants and reports seems to be:
Some clickbait webpages have incorrectly announced the mintupgrade GUI tool for upgrading from LM20.3 to 21 were available,
and the starters of the rant threads have followed doing what those clickbait webpages suggest.

The only official source where the availability of the mintupgrade GUI tool will be announced is this webpage: The Linux Mint Blog.
Has it occurred to anybody perhaps that there will be a reason, why no official announcement has been published there, yet?
No? - Good gracious!

Really, folks, stop taking for facts everything, which some fake experts put on their clickbait webpages, please.

[Pjotr]

Exactly. Furthermore, my experiences with Mint 21 (fresh clean installations on two machines, one Cinnamon and one Xfce) are entirely positive.

They run like clockwork, just as stable and reliable as on their predecessor Mint 20.3. I expected no less, because Vanessa's code base is an excellent Ubuntu 22.04 LTS which has already overcome most of its teething problems.

[Redsandro]

The official mintupgrade tool was updated on august 5th.



I think they are testing different scenario's and that's why there is no announcement yet. I have used CloneZilla to take a complete disk image backup, and then ran the official mintupgrade tool for upgrading a clean Mint 20 to Mint 21. Some custom packages were removed but everything seems fine. I am very happy with this upgrade, because I can keep my many customizations.

This is of course for advanced users that know how to take and restore disk images and are confident to fix possible problems. Better wait for the guide.

[Dan-cer]

Better wait for the guide.

With "guide" you refer to a tutorial for "mintupgrade"?

[Acheron]

I kind of disagree with that assessment for two reasons.

#1 I spent a lot of time testing and watching Ubuntu 22.04 (the base for LM 21) being developed.
One could see in advance of the stable release of 22.04 that it was going to be very troublesome because it was going to be released in April 2022 regardless. The Linux Mint Team could not start their work until the upstream was finalized. I switched over to LMDE 5 because I did not want to deal with so many unfixed bugs, patched packages and regressions in the LM 21 base.

#2 This was a major re-base of the Cinnamon interface. There were bound to be some well loved but not commonly used features that were not going be carried forward in the re-base. In addition there would be popular themes and extensions by third party developers that would be broken or no longer functional. This is NOT a Cinnamon bug but yet Cinnamon gets blamed. It is up to these third party developers to update their software. If you look in the Cinnamon Spices there are some (a lot) that haven't been touched in two years.

What the Mint Team needs now is a well deserved "Thank You for all you do" and a some contributions time/money/talent to the project.

[Dan-cer]

What the Mint Team needs now is a well deserved "Thank You for all you do"

I agree. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO!!!!!

[MurphCID]

So far it is the best version of Mint yet, I have had NO issues, I am putting it on the 4th laptop right now, the System 76 Darter Pro Gen 2.

[all41]

Exactly. Furthermore, my experiences with Mint 21 (fresh clean installations on two machines, one Cinnamon and one Xfce) are entirely positive.

They run like clockwork, just as stable and reliable as on their predecessor Mint 20.3. I expected no less, because Vanessa's code base is an excellent Ubuntu 22.04 LTS which has already overcome most of its teething problems.

+1 @pjotr and MurphCID
Exactly my findings as well. 21 is the best first edition yet.
I have a 20.3 which I will use to test the upgrade path--after the announcements.
I think most members are waiting and want to do this properly.

[zcot]

It would be interesting to see how the live session test played out.

[MurphCID]

Exactly. Furthermore, my experiences with Mint 21 (fresh clean installations on two machines, one Cinnamon and one Xfce) are entirely positive.

They run like clockwork, just as stable and reliable as on their predecessor Mint 20.3. I expected no less, because Vanessa's code base is an excellent Ubuntu 22.04 LTS which has already overcome most of its teething problems.

+1 @pjotr and MurphCID
Exactly my findings as well. 21 is the best first edition yet.
I have a 20.3 which I will use to test the upgrade path--after the announcements.
I think most members are waiting and want to do this properly.

I did clean installations, and other than the one issue on the Darter Pro Gen 2, I have had no issues at all.

[gunfleet]

The official mintupgrade tool was updated on august 5th.



I think they are testing different scenario's and that's why there is no announcement yet. I have used CloneZilla to take a complete disk image backup, and then ran the official mintupgrade tool for upgrading a clean Mint 20 to Mint 21. Some custom packages were removed but everything seems fine. I am very happy with this upgrade, because I can keep my many customizations.

This is of course for advanced users that know how to take and restore disk images and are confident to fix possible problems. Better wait for the guide.

Most Linux users are tinkerers, and you learn from your mistakes, I don't think LM should be nannying us with this delay in a couple of simple commands and release note warnings, just a simple statement that it's at your own risk, which it always is with any distro unless you are paying some support contract like RHEL. I can understand they don't want a load of negative reviews if it's released early with a ton of bugs, but still for those willing to take the risk if can be a very useful learning experience and a source of feedback from users who find bugs, they can never test for everyone's configuration or we would never get any new releases.

[Pjotr]

Most Linux users are tinkerers, and you learn from your mistakes, I don't think LM should be nannying us with this delay in a couple of simple commands and release note warnings, just a simple statement that it's at your own risk, which it always is with any distro unless you are paying some support contract like RHEL. I can understand they don't want a load of negative reviews if it's released early with a ton of bugs, but still for those willing to take the risk if can be a very useful learning experience and a source of feedback from users who find bugs, they can never test for everyone's configuration or we would never get any new releases.

Bollocks. Nobody is nannying you.

Who exactly is stopping you from tinkering at will, right here and right now? You can always go ahead with all your wild cowboy experiments, as extremely as you want them to be. Yeehaw!

Just don't blame the Mint team for wanting to provide a solid risk-free mechanism for those who do not wish to run risks. How hard can it be to understand.

[all41]

@gunfleet is describing a beta

[gunfleet]

@gunfleet is describing a beta

Exactly, so where is the announcement for the mintupgrade tool beta version? and how to use it

[Cosmo.]

just a simple statement that it's at your own risk

This doesn't work so. Users complain, if something goes wrong and I hardly see since years, that anybody says "I did it on my own risk", rather they say "I followed precisely this or that [often doubtful, Cosmo.] instructions".

[gunfleet]

Most Linux users are tinkerers, and you learn from your mistakes, I don't think LM should be nannying us with this delay in a couple of simple commands and release note warnings, just a simple statement that it's at your own risk, which it always is with any distro unless you are paying some support contract like RHEL. I can understand they don't want a load of negative reviews if it's released early with a ton of bugs, but still for those willing to take the risk if can be a very useful learning experience and a source of feedback from users who find bugs, they can never test for everyone's configuration or we would never get any new releases.

Bollocks. Nobody is nannying you.

Who exactly is stopping you from tinkering at will, right here and right now? You can always go ahead with all your wild cowboy experiments, as extremely as you want them to be. Yeehaw!

Well, LM blog is nannying me if I have to find the commands on a site other than their blog

[Redsandro]

With "guide" you refer to a tutorial for "mintupgrade"?

I shouldn't have used the word 'guide' as it is not used in official channels, but I was referring to the "upgrade instructions" as announced in the release:

Upgrade instructions for Linux Mint 20.3 will be provided shortly.

They usually write a more detailed guide set of instructions taking multiple things into account rather than just "run mintupgrade".

I don't think LM should be nannying us with this delay in a couple of simple commands and release note warnings (...). I can understand they don't want a load of negative reviews if it's released early with a ton of bugs, but still for those willing to take the risk if can be a very useful learning experience

While Linux Mint is popular among a wide range of audiences, keep in mind that Linux Mint especially is a popular "first linux distro". The "nannying" is fine if it prevents bad press, bad reviews and loss of donations. It's fine because people like you and me will run mintupgrade regardless of announcement.

Very helpful tool. Thank you @clem and @mtwebster!

[motoryzen]

I expected some more polite discussion rather than attacking against me personally

OP....relax.

No one here is " attacking" you. pjotr and cosmo made valid points. Facts don't care about anyone's feelings.

You, not anyone else, chose a method/path of changing your 20.3 installation to a 21 without using the official Mint path/method that would come straight from Clem and the team. And that was obvious by your refusal to explain..HOW .exactly you went about " upgrading". If someone has something to hide involving an Open source available to the Public..Operating system upgrade path...something is alittle wrong there. That too should be beyond common sense.

That is no one else's fault other than you're own, and you're choosing to blame these buggy problems on Mint. What I'm explaining is no different than an experienced mechanic choosing to alter motor mounting mount hole sizes for particular bolts meant for one gen of a car that the next upcoming gen needs a bigger size for...but the car's manufacturer has NOT yet released the correct size/specs for those motor mounting mount holes yet and you chose to just select your own size and already bought those nuts and bolts as well as fab up some differently sized motor and transmission mounts.

And then that experience mech wants to blame the car manufacturer because he couldn't install the upgrade gen motor and transmission assembly into the car that is now a separately generation old. I've been using Mint Cinnamon since late 2010 and it's only when I've deviated from what Clem and his team have produced...that I encountered upgrade problems of any level

Thus talking like the Linux Mint community is being not only unhelpful but attacking you because many here stated facts, ..is asinine. OP..you're misunderstanding the situation here. No one forced you to go an alternative upgrade path/method to get from 20.3 to 21..." You were in too big a hurry" summed it up. Sorry but facts are facts. relax.

So either you can choose to do your own thing ( and if so I recommend that be Arch since that Linux world is really meant for more hardcore experimentation and is basically designed for you to get your hands dirty literally building the tools ..and then using those tools to build the OS world of your choice), or follow the tried and true that comes straight from Clem and the rest of the Linux Mint team..if you're going to use Mint. They've been building and refining Mint for well over 11 years now. They, not you, not me and not many of us out there, know Mint....better including a consistently solid way to upgrade to new main versions.

Grab something big and squooshable ( like a giant pillow or even gently squeeze a fat cheek baby's cheeks ) to squoosh for a bit. Take a mental break from dealing with this problem and put something funny in your head. We're human. It's all good. Humor heals.

[gunfleet]

With "guide" you refer to a tutorial for "mintupgrade"?

I shouldn't have used the word 'guide' as it is not used in official channels, but I was referring to the "upgrade instructions" as announced in the release:

Upgrade instructions for Linux Mint 20.3 will be provided shortly.

They usually write a more detailed guide set of instructions taking multiple things into account rather than just "run mintupgrade".

I don't think LM should be nannying us with this delay in a couple of simple commands and release note warnings (...). I can understand they don't want a load of negative reviews if it's released early with a ton of bugs, but still for those willing to take the risk if can be a very useful learning experience

While Linux Mint is popular among a wide range of audiences, keep in mind that Linux Mint especially is a popular "first linux distro". The "nannying" is fine if it prevents bad press, bad reviews and loss of donations. It's fine because people like you and me will run mintupgrade regardless of announcement.

Very helpful tool. Thank you @clem and @mtwebster!

That's very interesting that LM is considered as a first Linux experience, I usually find when I run a new distro I look for the apps I have been using on a another OS, in that respect LM is far from a beginners OS, the default of not running snapd is one example when you find your favourite app is not in their repository, I don't know if flatpaks are on by default, mine are but I may have configured it. When you finally resort to ./configure, make, you find that gcc c++ is not installed either. Having said that I like the admin tools on LM and most things are easier to configure than many other distros, but I would tend to recommend one of the Ubuntu flavours for beginners.

[Pjotr]

Most Linux users are tinkerers, and you learn from your mistakes, I don't think LM should be nannying us with this delay in a couple of simple commands and release note warnings, just a simple statement that it's at your own risk, which it always is with any distro unless you are paying some support contract like RHEL. I can understand they don't want a load of negative reviews if it's released early with a ton of bugs, but still for those willing to take the risk if can be a very useful learning experience and a source of feedback from users who find bugs, they can never test for everyone's configuration or we would never get any new releases.

Bollocks. Nobody is nannying you.

Who exactly is stopping you from tinkering at will, right here and right now? You can always go ahead with all your wild cowboy experiments, as extremely as you want them to be. Yeehaw!

Well, LM blog is nannying me if I have to find the commands on a site other than their blog

Nope, it's exactly the opposite. You're wanting to be nannied, by demanding instructions from the Mint dev team for the use of a tool that's not officially ready yet. In other words: you want the Mint dev team to assist you with doing something they think is wrong.

Such behaviour is both dependent and silly. Stand tall and do it. Or not. On your own.

Take what you want and pay for it. But quit the whining.