Linux Mint Forums

New to Mint but not Linux.

I have Maya installed because it's an LTS with five years of support according to my understanding. A little tired of upgrading every 6 months with traditional releases.

In your opinion, is it best to stay with an LTS and upgrade only future LTS releases or upgrade to new releases every 6 months? Or, Are the improvements and user experience better when upgrading every 6 months?

Thanks for your opinions.

I use both. My desktop. Newest and greatest. Because I install and reinstall.
Other comptuers which I don't want to manage get LTS.

Lookout, in the future ubuntu might be a 'rolling release'. Its kinda a middle ground between LTS and current 6 month cycles

joemartin wrote:New to Mint but not Linux.

I have Maya installed because it's an LTS with five years of support according to my understanding. A little tired of upgrading every 6 months with traditional releases.

In your opinion, is it best to stay with an LTS and upgrade only future LTS releases or upgrade to new releases every 6 months? Or, Are the improvements and user experience better when upgrading every 6 months?

Thanks for your opinions.

Why do you need to upgrade every 6 months if the current one is getting updates? I think every version is supported upto 18 months from its launch. I like the idea of LTS but if you compare lm 9 and lm 13, you will notice things have changed considerably. Hence I myself jumped from lm12 to lm14 but in my other old laptop, I have lm13 xcfe straight after lm9 just a week ago. all good.

Why I upgrade every 6 months.
There are two types of upgrades. Major Versions, and Security Updates.
With Major Version Updates, features are added, removed and changed.
With Security Updates, Usually only BUGS (bad behaving code).

With LTS, you get a garontee that you will only get Security Updates.


I want new versions of flash, Java, and linux kernels.

My server runs code, scripts. LTS is usefull because I don't want to have to re-code jsut because some behavior changed (at least every 3 years?).
My Desktop gets the newest because I use the web, and Flash and Java are vounerable to exploit.

Also re-installing on my desktop keeps my system un-cluttered.

joemartin...

Maya LTS is working wonderfully for me, and I do not plan to do a full upgrade anytime soon. Updates, security or otherwise, on my system are kept current. I so like the fact the Linux Mint team respects all the diverse choices people make about whether to stay on the bleeding edge or not.

What I do plan to do is "backporting" while keeping Maya LTS, meaning updating features of later releases onto my current system. This feature is nice to be able to use and here is Clem's instructive article "Nadia backports available in Linux Mint 13":

http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2225

Read the following tutorial by Clem on why or why not to upgrade and how: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2

jaderiver

backporting is the best choice you can make. I have installed Linux Mint 14 and it sems a bit ahead of the available themes. Many themes that work great on Linux Mint 13, Like energreen theme, (find it at http://www.noobslab.com/2012/09/install ... linux.html) which I adore, don't work on LM14

joemartin wrote:New to Mint but not Linux.

I have Maya installed because it's an LTS with five years of support according to my understanding. A little tired of upgrading every 6 months with traditional releases.

In your opinion, is it best to stay with an LTS and upgrade only future LTS releases or upgrade to new releases every 6 months? Or, Are the improvements and user experience better when upgrading every 6 months?

Thanks for your opinions.

Stick with LTS. Only upgrade when it is beneficial. (X doesn't work the LTS but with the new release it does work.)

Newer =/= better, especially when dealing with ubuntu or ubuntu derived distros.

I subscribe to the 6 month computer maintaince idea. It seesm like a good compromise of letting someone knolegable create a secure and correctly configured OS and new features. I let them fret about choosing the right applications to complete my system.

Functionally, LTS vs 6 month releases seems like a choice best left for philosophical thought of what do you want out of your computer: Predictability vs Newer Features. I find apt-get easy to use, and have suficcient internetconnection to download applications on a whim. I have a file share easily accessable, and allows me to work on my long term projects, where my short term projects get 'weeded out' so my home folder looks clean/tidy.

PS. My 2 cents turned into spare change/

You can have a look at Regarding Mint 9 LTS Isadora to understand LTS philosophy.

Regarding Maya and Nadia, all features of Cinnamon and MATE can be installed by enabling backports.

Mint 14 Nadia has better software manager and Cinnamon is fast evolving.

If you are using it for lighter works like listening music, surfing net, then older version of software will work for you. So upgrade only if you need it. Rest depends upon personal choice to update or not.

Some do not upgrade regularly using upgrade manager but simply install new version after 6 months. I would do that only if my pc has no important data and that data will be stored in separate partition. It's not recommended, as security updates are recommended, but if you are not doing online shopping or money transfer, then you might think of it - at your risk. In general system is stable. I have many distros. To one distro I did not update it, as I never logged in for many months, but system was working fine tough the software were older.

I keep atleast 2 linux distros, one for backup + XP