I don't understand all of the post, I'm more of a belt & braces type, if someone says RTFM then I smile and look for plan B.
I don't mean to be argumentative and I hold you in the highest regard from your many very knowledgeable posts on this forum but do you know what levels he was using when the update borked his laptop? as I see no mention in his post or signature of the levels he used or whether he used Synaptic to upgrade.
From another recent post
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=141&t=69886This is my first boot-up after installation and, after the turbulence I encountered trying to update, I fear it may prove to be my last as well....
If I am right then this is very important for newcomers to LMDE
If I'm wrong then I am just confusing matters more but I will go back and edit out my posts, I just wish somebody with more skills than I would have a spare partition to try out my level 1-3 install, for updating i just installed the minty ones logged out/backin and the other, I think 800 odd updates went in with no broken packages error, so simple.
I can only repeat my experiences on three machines using only level 1-3 for the past week could not have been better, totally trouble free but I might have been lucky with my hardware.
Also as a very knowledgeable Linux person, may I ask your opinion of the phoronix link about kernels I posted on the other thread?
yours with due humility and the utmost respect
ukbrian
edit
I see there's a thread about the kernel thingy at http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 74&start=0