IntroductionThis tutorial explains how to upgrade to Linux Mint 19.B. General considerationsB1. Do you need to upgrade?Linux Mint 17.x (17, 17.1, 17.2 and 17.3) will be supported until 2019.Linux Mint 18.x (18, 18.1, 18.2 and 18.3) will be supported until 2021.If your version of Linux Mint is still supported, and you are happy with your current system, then you don't need to upgrade.B2. Did you try Linux Mint 19 on this computer?Each new version of Linux Mint comes with a new kernel. This means that it handles hardware differently.
For instance, you may find out that a graphic card or a wireless adapter which currently works fine for you under Linux Mint, isn't recognized by the newer version of Linux Mint you're planning to upgrade to. In some cases, this could mean that upgrading to this release is the wrong decision, maybe you're better off skipping that particular release? There's only one way to know: you need to try it.Linux Mint comes as an ISO image which can be burnt to a DVD or a USB stick.
Upgrade to 18.3 This is the first half upgrade. Here, you will experience upgrade two times: (1) First update: Run Update Manager Install Updates; Let it downloads and installs all updates needed to go to 18.3; Answer any question appears with its default choice; Restart (2) Second update: Run Update Manager again go to Edit Upgrade to Linux Mint 18.3. Linux Mint 18.x is supported till 2021 and with Cinnamon 3.8 coming to these versions, the visual difference between Mint 18 and Mint 19 will vanish. It is a good idea to make a live USB of Linux Mint 19 and try it in a live session to see if it is compatible with your hardware.
Thanks to this, you can try the newer release on your computer and see if your hardware is recognized without installing and before upgrading.B3. Did you create a system snapshot?If anything breaks or if anything goes wrong during the upgrade, you can go back in time and revert all changes by restoring your latest system snapshot. Whatever happens, you're covered.B4. Did you make backups?Your personal data is the most valuable thing in your computer. If anything happens and you break your operating system, it's not a problem, it can be reinstalled or restored via a system snapshot. If you lose your data or you're unable to access it. That's a different story.To be safe, make a full backup of your data on an external device (USB stick or DVD).C.
RequirementsTo upgrade to Linux Mint 19 you need to satisfy the following requirements.C1. Experience with APT and the command lineUpgrading to a newer package base is not trivial and it should not be performed by novice users.You need to know how to type commands and read their output.You also need to be experienced with APT. During the upgrade you'll need to understand the output of APT commands. You'll need to understand if a package needs to be removed, if it blocks the upgrade, if it conflicts with another package etc etc.C2. Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon, MATE or Xfce editionThe upgrade tool only upgrades Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon, MATE or Xfce edition.If you are running Linux Mint 18, 18.1 or 18.2, you first need to upgrade to Linux Mint 18.3 using the.C2.
Timeshift snapshotTo install timeshift, open a terminal and type:apt install timeshiftThen launch ' Menu - Administration - Timeshift'.Follow the wizard to select a destination for your snapshots.In the toolbar, click on the ' Create' button to make a manual snapshot of your operating system.If anything goes wrong, you'll be able to restore your operating to this current state, either from within Linux Mint, or by launching Timeshift from a live Mint session (live DVD or live USB).C2. LightDMTo know which display manager you are currently using, open a terminal and type:cat /etc/X11/default-display-managerIf the result is '/usr/sbin/lightdm', you can skip this step.If the result is '/usr/sbin/mdm', you need to switch display managers by installing lightdm and removing mdm. Open a terminal and type:apt install lightdm lightdm-settings slick-greeterWhen asked to choose a display manager between MDM and LightDM, choose LightDM.Open a terminal and type:apt remove -purge mdm mint-mdm-themes.sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdmsudo rebootD. How to upgradeD1. Update your Linux Mint 18.3 systemUsing the Update Manager, click on ' Refresh' to refresh the APT cache and apply all updates.D2. Give your terminal unlimited scrollingOpen a terminal.Click on ' Edit'-' Profile Preferences'-' Scrolling'.Check the ' unlimited' option and click ' OK'.D3. Install the upgrade toolTo install the upgrade tool, open a terminal and type:apt install mintupgradeD4.
Check the upgradeTo simulate an upgrade, open a terminal and type:mintupgrade checkThen follow the instructions on the screen.This command temporarily points your system to the Linux Mint 19 repositories and calculates the impact of an upgrade.Note that this command doesn't affect your system. I do suggest everyone to follow hamaryns instructions before upgrading. In fact I experienced some problems (repeated 'dpkg: error processing package gconf2', as described by MRDK) when following this guide and solved it all with autoremove + autoclean + upgrade + reboot.Hope the author may want to update the tutorial.Besides this, I'm do experiencing important system slow down after upgrading, both at boot time and system running time. In fact, I've been looking for some driver updates, such as video and CPU microcode drivers.
Video drivers already result to be set on the recommended (proprietary) driver, but no trace of the CPU microcode which may really make the difference.That said, any suggestion to make my system faster and worth the upgrading?Thanks,Regards.ASUS S510UN-BQ052TIntel Core i7-8550U. Another attempt here, last time I thought the libgl1 issue was caused by the installed padoka-ppa only. After the latest blog post, however it turned out it was an issue with the latest mesa update, related to the upgrade somehow, so I've attempted to upgrade again, but failed due to a similar reason:```+ Re-installing the meta-package for your edition of Linux Mint.sudo password for tod:Reading package lists. DoneBuilding dependency treeReading state information. DoneSome packages could not be installed. This process will take 4 hours or more, only do on a weekend if you don't want to lose sleep on a work evening / night.2.
I got repeating error message:dpkg: error processing package gconf2 (-configure):dependency problems - leaving triggers unprocesseddpkg: dependency problems prevent processing triggers for gconf2:gconf2 depends on dbus-x11; however:Package dbus-x11 is not configured yet.then it said+ Error detected on try #1, running fallback commands.And I guess repeated everything all over again, and it seems OK.3. You will get a badly resized version of your desktop picture as your login picture, and this will have to be fixed.4. TimeShift image should, of course, go to a different and separate (i.e. External backup HD) media!5. I guess this is because how long it takes, but this process will ask for your su password about four times, so this process requires babysitting, or at least an occasional progress check.www.MKRD.info. One major gripe: the installation of timeshift is forced on the user - the installation won't run without it.
Then, ironcially, timeshift is what broke by install. It made a 16GB snapshot of my 13GB installation, filling up the 29GB root partition, which of course caused the remainder of the installation to fail.A forced backup, especially one written to the root partition, is a poor policy choice. Anyone running the upgrade without making a backup, or knowing how to recover, knows what the hell they're doing (or will know after the installation fails and they have to learn to recover it).
Hello,I just did a massive update on my old Chromebook running LM 19 as a result of 'update'. It had a problem with libwebkit2gtk-4.0.so.37 when starting gufw - see previous comments. Now, gufw starts with no problems. So, never mind.
One less item on your list.I still see 'Ubuntu 19' on the startup screen??I would appreciate a link to a discussion or a comment on:'It looks like 19.0 has moved from cron to a systemd timer. For example, my files in cron.weekly had their names changed - fstrim becamefstrim.dpkg.bak.
I suppose that means my fstrim is not being run or????' Hello Clem,Thank you for providing this tutorial, just tried to upgrade from 18.3 to 19 and it turned out that the timeshift step was really crucial:)Similar to RPeter52 I've had cinnamon complaining that libgl1 is missing (ldd was indeed showing no libgl1), however an attempt to install the libgl1 package actually removed cinnamon and a bunch of other packages. I've restored to the last stable snapshot, because the system was in broken state at this point.I guess this is caused by the non-default mesa installed from the padoka-ppa some time ago (I've actually forgotten about this).
Perhaps I'd need to first clean this up a bit and restore to the expected version provided by default in 18.3 (I guess 16.04 LTS).I'll use another drive tomorrow to play around with the upgrade without padoka-ppa drivers. Thought it would be best to leave a not here for other users before an attempt to upgrade.Best,T. Hi,I tried running gufw (Firewall) from the USB stick and it runs fine. On my upgrade it fails - see previous comment.I have used unix systems for a time (since the early 1990s) so I looked around for more info on the 'missing library'.
It is not obvious to me what the problem is. The upgrade's info about the library (libwebkit2gtk-4.0.so.37) appears OK to me and nearly identical to that from the USB stick run. ANY bright ideas???This is an old, slow machine, so I do not need it running anytime soon. Update to my last comment for others that may experience this issue.The answer at successfully re-enables the Hibernate option in the shutdown menu.
Worked for both machines. I don't know if it is necessary, but I marked the new.pkla file as executable.It seems strange that the live disk has the Hibernate option (it actually finds and mounts the swap partition), but the upgraded installation does not have it.Cheers, Bart.