Mint Upgrade

booman

booman

Grand High Exalted Mystic Emperor of Linux Gaming
Staff member
First thing you need to do is:
  1. Open Terminal: Ctrl+Alt+T
  2. Type: sudo apt-get update
  3. Enter credentials
  4. Type: sudo apt-get upgrade
  5. Enter credentials
  6. Press Y
This should get all of your packages up to date.
Then go to your update "Shield" and click "Edit"
At the bottom you should see "Upgrade to Mint 18.X"

Let me know if it's not there.
 
Please let me know why I should be doing this?:D Reminds me a lot of DOS. trying to get to a windows platform. I love win 7, best OS ever in MY opinion! Could I be wrong? Nope!:p
 
porporme said:
Please let me know why I should be doing this?:D Reminds me a lot of DOS. trying to get to a windows platform. I love win 7, best OS ever in MY opinion! Could I be wrong? Nope!:p
Click to expand...


Two bad security bigs have been recently found in the very lowest level of nearly, every, that's every Intel processor made in the last ten years. And maybe even older ones as well. These maladies, known as Spectre and Meltdown are serious because they let hackers "commandeer" the most basic level of said processors. More than a few AMD CPU's have this problem as well. AFAIK, AMD has been forthright and offers fixes to address this security hole.

Otoh, Intel has lied and has offered bad fixes. Thanks Intel, yer the best! One of these problems will need periodic attention for many years to come. The other is probably "fixed" for good.

Now AFAIK, Microsoft has a patch to address one of these holes. For Win10, at any rate. I apologize, I can't remember which hole is which.
Spectre and Meltdown are the both of them.
 
Son of a gum, after the successful entry of "sudo apt-get update" the terminal asks for my password. But it won't let me type one itty bitty letter of my password into the terminal. Kewel or what?

Off to a ugh start. Yay.
Thank you again for the directions, booman!
 
Better and more complete command would be 'apt-get dist-upgrade'

You can add the -s switch [simulate] to see what it's going to do, before actually doing it.

dist-upgrade is the preferable command because it will upgrade all installed packages [just like the other command] but will also pull in or update any new dependencies that might have been changed or added. apt-get upgrade does not do that.

To see what I mean, run apt-get upgrade first, and then run apt-get dist-upgrade after. You will most likely see other packages that have to be upadted.
 
well, I did it. Installed Mint 18.3 and upgraded per Booman's instructions-worked great!
Will try TR'S tomorrow-past my bed time now.
 
Back up-no sleep for me tonite.Was going to do TR's upgrade but decided to get the folding clients installed instead.8750 PPD right out of the box. That's 1000 PPD increase over Windows! I think I'll let mint run for a while.
 
cloasters said:
Son of a gum, after the successful entry of "sudo apt-get update" the terminal asks for my password. But it won't let me type one itty bitty letter of my password into the terminal. Kewel or what?

Off to a ugh start. Yay.
Thank you again for the directions, booman!
Click to expand...
That happened to me too-I just backed out of every thing-booted and then everything worked fine.
 
Awesome! Glad to see you are back on the Linux train.

When you type your password, its invisible, but will work fine.
If you make a "typo" just backspace for a long time to insure all the characters are erased.
 
If you are using the Cinnamon version:
  1. Right-click the taskbar (bottom of screen)
  2. Click System Settings
  3. Click Screensaver
  4. Click the Settings Tab
  5. Change "Delay before starting screensaver" to: Never
 
All of your system settings are there. They are pretty easy to understand as well.
 
It's great that PorPorMe is back in the fold. Congratulations!

This time following booman's instructions worked. Yay! I typed "Y" and got "Command not found."

Wish me luck, I'm going to follow TR's instructions now.
 
Hoo boy, apt-get dist-upgrade" started getting a whole lot more entries. The first time the "fetched" upgrade said "config file etc issue" it asked me whether to install the new package maintainer --with the choices of keep it as is or use the new update provided" I said "gimme the new one." Hoping that not choosing the old same file wouldn't moider my box.

I said I choose the package maintainer's new version For '/etc/issue' --'etc/issue.net' --'etc/lsb-release' --. Than a bit ahead in the info "stack" . Warning: No support for locale:en_US.utf8. Followed by the same message a good deal later.

Then -- Error Bad return status for module build on kernel: 4.4.0-109-generic (X-86_64)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/ndiswrapper/1.59/build/make.log for more information .

Farther down I see yak yak /usr/lib/nvidia-384 Sone a beetcth, I'm too tired of trying to get the data right switching back and forth from command line to the message I'm writing.

Suffice it to say that I see two more error messages before the end. Sorry!

No doubt, mebbe you should choose "the old same" rather than "gimme the new." ????

But I'm trying to update so why choose the same old?
 
Show us the following 3 commands, in a terminal window as root [you could try as non-root user first, if you want, the '-s' might allow that]:

apt-get upgrade -s

then:

apt-get dist-upgrade -s

then:

apt-get -f -s install

Don't forget the 's', it will show us what apt-get wants to do, but won't actually do it.

Those config file choices you have to be careful with; if you have personally altered a setting in a config file for your machine you would probably want to retain your version and zap the maintainer's new one. That is a case where newer isn't what you want.

[Yours truly once broke the GOL/AOA server's mail services by making the wrong choice on a config file, Gizmo had to bail him out]

That being said, when you're learning how to do these updates, [or even if you're not] it's a g.i. to make a backup/disk image or something before you actually pull the trigger. Then, if something goes tits-up you can go back and redo what you have to.

Rebuilding the nvidia drivers after a kernel update is absolutely normal. A kernel update requires that the modules be rebuilt, so anything X-related qualifies: nvidia drivers, xorg server, and X input drivers for your mouse and etc must be rebuilt against the new kernel so they get loaded properly.

If you have DKMS installed it might be automatic, but I'm not 100% sure if that's a Mint thing or not.
 
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Whenever I get warnings of packages being overwritten or removed, I just click "Yes" to all of them. I don't fully understand them all, so I tend to go with the newer version because older packages with a distro update probably has a higher chance of breaking something.
 
Thank you both for your efforts on my behalf!

Two very different philosophies. Ugh. I didn't understand that these particular files were so critical. (Of course!)
I'll try ThunderRD's recommendations.
The upgrade/updating I did SEEM to be working fine. I saw an up to date Mint logo once at the end of rebooting. This gives me pause about doing more to mess with my machine.

I don't like to beg, but maybe, just maybe Gizmo could weigh in with his recommendations about this?
 
booman said:
Whenever I get warnings of packages being overwritten or removed, I just click "Yes" to all of them. I don't fully understand them all, so I tend to go with the newer version because older packages with a distro update probably has a higher chance of breaking something.
Click to expand...


Packages, yes, but config files are a COMPLETELY different story. Consider, as an example, that you created a configuration file for Samba, which contains all the directories you wish to share with other specific computers on the network. The file is tailored to your needs; it can't be the generic config file that the package provides when it's installed.

So you edit the original samba.conf to allow access to the directories, and merrily go on your way computing...until the samba package updates to a new version. When that happens, the installer/config file utility will offer to give you a new config file: 'the package maintainer's version'.

The utility will give you some choices here; you can accept the new file, compare it side by side with the file in service, or zap it, in which case you keep your custom samba.conf and decline the new one.

Here, you have to be careful. If you blindly accept the new one, thinking it's newer or better or something, you will completely break samba, and nothing will be shared on the network.

This is one thing that can make Linux a bit complex; you have to be intimate enough with your system's innards to know which config files you've edited and customized for your use. There's usually a way to back out/undo a wrong decision on config files, but that would vary between distros. Another thing you can do is to completely back up /etc/* on a regular basis, because that is where the config files live.
 
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