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Anybody load Mint 19 yet ?

D

Deadjasper

2[H]4U
Joined
Oct 28, 2001
Messages
2,856
I'm on 18.3 Sylvia and everything is hunky dory but I'm wondering if I should upgrade for the new goodies.

On a related note, is there a way to save my current install in case I want to go back?

TIA
 
Image it with Clonezilla I suppose depending on how much content you're dealing with - don't image music/pictures/videos since those won't compress at all, stash that stuff someplace else before the imaging, or just save the /home folder someplace since that's where all the good stuff is or should be.

I installed Mint 19 MATE on my ThinkPad T420s a few days ago (Samsung 860 EVO SSD), nothing interesting or special, it's Linux with a facelift of sorts, same old same old to me, went back to Windows 7 a half hour later. :D
 
I thought for sure you could upgrade mint to newer versions when they released. My main box, still on Mint 18.1 never gets offered OS updated. Pretty sure it went from 18 to 18.1 that way though.
 
Sounds like maybe it's not worth the hassle. 18.3 is working just fine for me so I think I'll stick with it till something compelling comes along.
 
Tiberian said:
Image it with Clonezilla I suppose depending on how much content you're dealing with - don't image music/pictures/videos since those won't compress at all, stash that stuff someplace else before the imaging, or just save the /home folder someplace since that's where all the good stuff is or should be.

I installed Mint 19 MATE on my ThinkPad T420s a few days ago (Samsung 860 EVO SSD), nothing interesting or special, it's Linux with a facelift of sorts, same old same old to me, went back to Windows 7 a half hour later. :D
Click to expand...

So are you saying that if I save the home folder and then copy it back to a new install I'll be back where I started? That would be super cool if so.
 
Well no, not everything will be there as some applications and libraries and all the other related stuff will be in various areas of the file system but as far as your user content, that's pretty much kept in /home/<username> so...
 
Tiberian said:
Well no, not everything will be there as some applications and libraries and all the other related stuff will be in various areas of the file system but as far as your user content, that's pretty much kept in /home/<username> so...
Click to expand...

All my stuff gets backed up to my backup server so that's a non issue. I could always install it to another SSD and store the old one till I'm sure it's a keeper but that's just added expense. Might do it anyway some time in the future. 18.3 has been a rock.

I previously ran Ubuntu-MATE and all was well until an update totally trashed the system, it's documented here somewhere. That really pissed me off and almost sent me back to Windows. Thankfully Mint has exceeded all my expectations.
 
I'm still running 16.04 LTS.

Upgrading from 16.04 to 18.04 is possible, but not recommended. Before doing so I recommend cloning the drive as OS upgrades do tend to go pear shaped at times.
 
I played around with it in a VM. Its nice. I dont think its big enough of an upgrade from 18.3 to worry about upgrading.
 
i would wait a month or two until a few more bugs are squished and things settle down. Also can't you just DD the drive ? why is clonezilla needed ?
 
GNUse_the_force said:
i would wait a month or two until a few more bugs are squished and things settle down. Also can't you just DD the drive ? why is clonezilla needed ?
Click to expand...

Ideally speaking, to DD the drive you really want it in read only mode, which means booting off external media - You may as well just use Clonezilla.

Deadjasper, if you're going to be distrohopping this software may come in handy:

https://www.tecmint.com/aptik-a-tool-to-backuprestore-your-favourite-ppas-and-apps-in-ubuntu/
 
I installed it on a boot usb flash drive to check it out on my hardware. It looks pretty much the same as 18.3 to me. Some of the software have been updated like LibreOffice. I'm not planning on upgrading from 18.3. I'm going to wait for 19.1 then do a fresh install. I think some of the issues people are having are upgrading from version 18. I never liked doing upgrades to a major release especially on Windows. Maybe the same with Linux.
 
Executioner said:
I installed it on a boot usb flash drive to check it out on my hardware. It looks pretty much the same as 18.3 to me. Some of the software have been updated like LibreOffice. I'm not planning on upgrading from 18.3. I'm going to wait for 19.1 then do a fresh install. I think some of the issues people are having are upgrading from version 18. I never liked doing upgrades to a major release especially on Windows. Maybe the same with Linux.
Click to expand...

I have always suggested that people keep their /home on its own part if not its own disc. Makes it really easy to backup home/.conf stuffs and perform fresh installs without loosing anything at all. You can even distro hop to some degree with that... depending how much stuff your using. (works well switching to distros with the same base such as Mint->Ubuntu/Debian ect)

Just do a fresh install on your 40-50gb /root part. and reuse the /home part.
 
I've got Mint 19 running on my file server. It was a fresh install not an upgrade though. I have heard they don't recommend upgrading yet. To be honest outside of a few cosmetic changes I don't notice much is different. Not a bad thing mind you. If you already use mainline kernels and a PPA for mesa then I don't know much of what you will gain from 18.3.
 
I've done hundreds of upgrades on different linux distros. Sometimes the upgrade fails on surprising things such as openoffice dependencies. Those of course are easily fixed by removing the packages and reinstalling them.
 
I went from Ubuntu 18.04 to Mint 19 on my laptop, and the biggest change I noticed were the speed improvements in Cinnamon. It feels much snappier than previous versions just in general use. Other than that it feels like Mint. I'd say the biggest reason to jump to it is that you will be on the 18.04 repo's, which means a lot of software will get updated. For instance, Gnome-Twitch (which I use frequently) is still at version 0.2.x on 16.04 and is non-functional due to Twitch backend changes. The 18.04 version is up to 0.4.x which means it has the updates that allow it to work. At the end of the day it's a personal decision, but the LTS nature of Mint will probably keep me from sticking with it for too long. I like having a stable base with reasonably up to date software. GNOME has royally pissed me off lately, so I'm considering a switch to KDE/Plasma, but I'm so used to the GTK world I'm not sure if I'll like it that much. I've also considered Budgie, but there are issues there too. Cinnamon is my favorite DE, but I wish there was a non-arch way to get it that wouldn't stick me on an LTS distro.
 
Lunar said:
I went from Ubuntu 18.04 to Mint 19 on my laptop, and the biggest change I noticed were the speed improvements in Cinnamon. It feels much snappier than previous versions just in general use. Other than that it feels like Mint. I'd say the biggest reason to jump to it is that you will be on the 18.04 repo's, which means a lot of software will get updated. For instance, Gnome-Twitch (which I use frequently) is still at version 0.2.x on 16.04 and is non-functional due to Twitch backend changes. The 18.04 version is up to 0.4.x which means it has the updates that allow it to work. At the end of the day it's a personal decision, but the LTS nature of Mint will probably keep me from sticking with it for too long. I like having a stable base with reasonably up to date software. GNOME has royally pissed me off lately, so I'm considering a switch to KDE/Plasma, but I'm so used to the GTK world I'm not sure if I'll like it that much. I've also considered Budgie, but there are issues there too. Cinnamon is my favorite DE, but I wish there was a non-arch way to get it that wouldn't stick me on an LTS distro.
Click to expand...

Just install Gnome-twitch via PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~nilarimogard...atch=75&direction=backwards&memo=150&start=75

I install via PPA all the time and I've never had dependency issues. Isn't Ubuntu 18.04 an LTS release?
 
This thread inspired me to give LM 19 a try. The thing about Ubuntu and LM that I'm not a fan of is that the kernel is always a bit behind. Updating to 4.17 stable kernel broke my display output on second monitor with my nvidia card. Ended up compiling my own kernel and manually installing the latest nvidia driver. Runs beautifully. Really liking 19 a lot. Real snappy. I'll probably stick to this for my desktop

Edit: I'm running cinnamon. I also wanted to add that compiling your own kernel for this is only a few commands. You also benefit from the security features in the 4.17 kernel. Since LM is officially on 4.15, it's a good jump. If I remember correctly, 4.16 introduced the spectre and meltdown vulnerability patches.
 
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Mazzspeed said:
Just install Gnome-twitch via PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~nilarimogard/+archive/ubuntu/webupd8/+index?batch=75&direction=backwards&memo=150&start=75

I install via PPA all the time and I've never had dependency issues. Isn't Ubuntu 18.04 an LTS release?
Click to expand...
PPA isn't a good option for Gnome-twitch actually. If you look at the version for Xenial in the PPA you'll see an example of what I mean. That's why I don't like staying on LTS releases. And yes, 18.04 is an LTS, but I intend on installing 18.10, 19.04, and so on.
 
Lunar said:
PPA isn't a good option for Gnome-twitch actually. If you look at the version for Xenial in the PPA you'll see an example of what I mean. That's why I don't like staying on LTS releases. And yes, 18.04 is an LTS, but I intend on installing 18.10, 19.04, and so on.
Click to expand...

The issue with Gnome-twitch 0.4.0 is that it requires GTK >= 3.20, that's why it's only available for Ubuntu 16.10 and 17.04 variants. It's limitations like this that make people hate Gnome. Since Gnome-twitch 0.4.0 can be installed under 18.04 LTS it really isn't LTS releases that are the issue, it was simply the timing of the 16.04 LTS release that was the issue.
 
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Mazzspeed said:
The issue with Gnome-twitch 0.4.0 is that it requires GTK >= 3.20, that's why it's only available for Ubuntu 16.10 and 17.04 variants. It's limitations like this that make people hate Gnome. Since Gnome-twitch 0.4.0 can be installed under 18.04 LTS it really isn't LTS releases that are the issue, it was simply the timing of the 16.04 LTS release that was the issue.
Click to expand...
I disagree. LTS releases are inherently the issue because crucial packages like GTK aren't updated as frequently. Great for business and enterprise markets that want reliable and stable, but for people like me it just means that the release lags behind. Hence the reason I don't stick to LTS releases. So, fast forward a couple of years from now, and the same issue WILL be present with those still using 18.04 as a base.
 
Lunar said:
I disagree. LTS releases are inherently the issue because crucial packages like GTK aren't updated as frequently. Great for business and enterprise markets that want reliable and stable, but for people like me it just means that the release lags behind. Hence the reason I don't stick to LTS releases. So, fast forward a couple of years from now, and the same issue WILL be present with those still using 18.04 as a base.
Click to expand...

For my personal use I can't even stand non-rolling releases never mind LTS. Things rarely break anymore, most of the main popular stuff has so many eyes on every single update that show stopping stuff just doesn't often happen anymore. Of course for business use or grandmas email facebook machine LTS is great... but for anyone that likes to run up to date stuff, having libraries and framework updates delayed is just annoying, I only managed to last around a month on a Ubuntu based distro... I found myself adding PPAs for stuff and it all just seemed a bit silly. Went back to a rolling distro.

It is nice to keep up on the main LTS distros though if for nothing more then to know what to install for your friends and family. lol
 
I've never run a rolling release in relation to any OS and had a 100% fault free experience, I tip my hat to you if you have. If My PC was fairly unimportant I might give a rolling release another go, but even Microsoft's attempt at a rolling release doesn't really work as well as Microsoft's updating strategy of the past.

I only use LTS releases and don't really see an issue with PPA's, it's simply an ever so slightly more secure method of installing software in comparison to both Windows and MacOS, it doesn't really bother me TBH and I prefer the ability to install software direct from the developer as opposed to the AUR. If GTK 3.20 was released and stable before the 16.04 LTS release there wouldn't have been an issue, hence the reason it's not an issue under 18.04 LTS. At the end of the day, we're both partially right, but the fact remains that LTS is all about stability over bleeding edge and I'm comfortable with that as bleeding edge just opens up too much of a possibility for frustrating downtime in my experience. Every update becomes a little too edgy for my liking under rolling release distro's.

I install an LTS distro after the first point release, I install it once and once only, that install usually carries over a number of upgrades/clones/machines while I keep my kernel a step behind the latest stable release due to my use of Nvidia hardware/drivers and I never have an issue. I honestly think it's a bit short sighted of the Gnome-twitch developers to limit the latest release of their software to GTK 3.20 only, it means you can't even compile from source to suit your chosen distro if it's below 3.20 and it's not like your stuck on 14.04.

Interesting points worth thinking about though Lunar. ;)
 
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There is something to be said for not trying to accommodate deprecated features in old versions. MS never does that, cause they have to keep people on 10+ year old Operating systems happy. It makes for bloated buggy software imo. That is partly why I like a good rolling release, in with the new out with the old. lol ;)

As I say there is of course a place for LTS distros. Business uses and users that don't know how to fix potential issues are best served by a good LTS... and I'm glad there are a handful of very solid LTS distros out there.

PPAs... they are a nice in between. In my case as I found myself setting up 10+ of them it started to feel a bit silly. At that point might as well stop using github fresh PPAs and just get into a solid Rolling.

Windows is a terrible platform to try and go rolling. Not enough end users eyes on issues. (windows users don't really know how things are working so can't help in any real way identify problems sources) Linux has a massive advantage there even when it comes to smaller distros. There may be fewer people testing... but they do imo tend to include more developers and the type of users that can properly identify a problem as they can see right down to the code themselves and sometimes even identify the fix, not just fill in cryptic issue reports as I'm sure most windows testers are guilty of. I feel sorry for the MS bug catchers, I can only imagine the crap quality of the average bug report they get.

Windows vs Linux bug reporting... its the difference between trying to help grandma fix her computer over the phone and just being there and doing it for her.

These days I mostly recommend manjaro to computer savvy friends... Its rolling with an extra layer. The manjaro guys do at times hold some of the arch updates up a week or two... honestly it can be frustrating sometimes waiting for a NV driver or something that they hold up. Still its nice to know they are identifying things and holding some of the arch updates up a bit if need be. I haven't had a show stopping (or anything at all I can remember) update issue with manjaro in a very long time. Its also extremely easy for even novice users to keep old kernels around. Manjaros settings manager and their kernel selector is genius, I am surprised more of the major distros haven't implemented their own versions of the same.
 
ChadD said:
Business uses and users that don't know how to fix potential issues are best served by a good LTS...
Click to expand...

There seems to be a bit of a power struggle in Linux circles between Arch users and Ubuntu users. Personally i think it's ridiculous and find that most Arch users aren't really power users, they're tinkerers and if you like to tinker than Arch is the perfect distro.

Generally speaking, power users want things to happen fast, fixing issues isn't fast. Power users want the latest software, and with the very rare exception of GTK compatibility issues LTS distro's support most up to date software via a PPA. When you hack it all down a PPA is no more than a location to store software while it awaits download, in itself a PPA is no big issue and I personally see no problem with 10 PPA's at minimum so a user can run the most up to date software.

Funnily enough, I know a number of Linux system administrators and with the exception of one they all run some xbuntu LTS variant, and I would defiantly class these users as power users. When I ask them why xbuntu, they say why not? It's stable and it simply works. The consensus is that they fix issues at work, the last thing they want to do at home is fix issues, but they still want performance and the latest software. The last thing any of them want to do is build their own OS.

I know that personally, I prefer installing and maintaining Nvidia drivers using PPA's over any alternative currently available under Linux. Essentially, there's nothing wrong with PPA's.

In relation to kernel updates under xbuntu, UKUU is fantastic regarding this task.
 
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Mazzspeed said:
There seems to be a bit of a power struggle in Linux circles between Arch users and Ubuntu users. Personally i think it's ridiculous and find that most Arch users aren't really power users, they're tinkerers and if you like to tinker than Arch is the perfect distro.
Click to expand...

I struggle with this too. I like Ubuntu because I'm not a huge fan of rolling releases. I love the AUR though since it makes even simple things like installing dependencies so much easier.
 
I think what a lot of tinker types love about arch is that it is not aimed in anyway at stable servers for profit. I know that sounds silly to most people... but there is still a pretty large number of Linux types that like to scream FREEDOM like they are fighting longshanks with their OS choice.

Ubuntu Fedora Suse there all great... but the goal for all of them is to turn out a stable product they can get installed on servers and sell support contracts. Sure they all have less stable releases aimed at desktop users. Still the point of those releases is to beta test for their LTS and enterprise releases, which they all monetise.

Arch and Gentoo are the only major base distros that are not built to turn out big iron powering distros. Hence they seem to be favored by the hardcore neck beard types. I guess.

With that in mind it seems pretty obvious to me that anyone that works with Server hardware... is going to gravitate to the desktop versions of the server distros they work with. Myself I don't work with just one distro... I do a bit of consulting and have done work for companies using different distros. I have found it very useful to not pick a favorite. The more you play around and use different distros the more you see how much they really are all the same. Only a very small handful (non of the majors) don't closely follow the FSH. For the most part other then running different package managers the distros are more alike at the system level then they have ever been.

I tend to favor Arch based distros for my own use... sure cause I enjoy tinkering. No doubt. Arch is a great distro if you like to tinker with things. I mean all those AUR entries are really users tinker projects.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/creating_packages
Some piece of Linux software you like but isn't in the main repositories... Arch makes it very easy to find the GIT project and create your own installer. From their if others want to use your AUR entry to install the same software no issue. No doubt its a tinkerers dream distro.
 
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ChadD said:
Some piece of Linux software you like but isn't in the main repositories... Arch makes it very easy to find the GIT project and create your own installer. From their if others want to use your AUR entry to install the same software no issue. No doubt its a tinkerers dream distro.
Click to expand...

The problem is: Is it really any harder just to compile from source compared to creating an installer for the AUR? The other issue you need to consider is "who's monitoring the code in this huge central repository", anything could be in there and I tend to trust adding a developers PPA over user compiled software in the AUR.

Yes, software contained in PPA's can also be malicious, but the smaller the repository, the easier it is to monitor.
 
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Mazzspeed said:
The problem is: Is it really any harder just to compile from source compared to creating an installer for the AUR? The other issue you need to consider is "who's monitoring the code in this huge central repository", anything could be in there and I tend to trust adding a developers PPA over user compiled software in the AUR.

Yes, software contained in PPA's can also be malicious, but the smaller the repository, the easier it is to monitor.
Click to expand...
I think you both have good points. I would argue that not all PPA's are maintained by their respective developers. A good example from earlier in this thread is GNOME-Twitch. It's PPA is actually maintained by webupd8 not the principal developer. Now, the main dev gave their blessing, but their focus is on Arch. As far as the AUR is concerned, I'd argue that PKGBUILDs are quite easy to create and understand, and anytime you go to install an app from the AUR you are asked if you want to edit the PKGBUILD. Plus, if you really don't trust the precompiled binary, almost every package in the AUR I've seen has also had a -git PKGBUILD available which pulls from the main development git repo and then compiles. So, I'd say they both have their pros and cons, and they both have their dangers. And yes, I think making a PKGBUILD and having the package manager handle compilation, installation, and uninstallation (if desired) is much better and easier than compiling and installing from source by hand.

EDIT: I'd also have to say that all this discussion actually has me considering going back to Arch via Manjaro now that life has settled back down a bit. I'd initially switched to Ubuntu due to my daughter being born, and the time to tinker being reduced to pretty much zero. But now that things have settled I might just go back.
 
Mazzspeed said:
The problem is: Is it really any harder just to compile from source compared to creating an installer for the AUR? The other issue you need to consider is "who's monitoring the code in this huge central repository", anything could be in there and I tend to trust adding a developers PPA over user compiled software in the AUR.

Yes, software contained in PPA's can also be malicious, but the smaller the repository, the easier it is to monitor.
Click to expand...

PPAs and AUR entries are no different. Arch makes it easier to find them is the only difference. No one is claiming AUR are 100% secure and are good to go for servers or mission critical anything. Having said that... AUR enties can also be examined by end users. Pacman and the other command line AUR installation tools allow you to view and even edit install scripts. So I guess you can say it "can" be more secure if you know what your doing... for average users though yes AUR PPAs... are very much the same thing. Most people to be fair have little need for the AUR, almost every major package is in the official repos. With Ubuntu you can almost say the same... accept I found the need to use PPAs a little more often to cover things like new Nvidia drivers ect... where such things would just be mainline repo territory in a rolling distro.

Developer PPAs are not an issue of course... but Developer PPAs are hardly the only example (nor the majority) of PPAs in the wild. Ideally users that don't know what they are doing shouldn't really be using PPAs or the AUR. Between the 2 I believe the AUR gives me much more control, but both have merit.
 
Lunar said:
I think you both have good points. I would argue that not all PPA's are maintained by their respective developers. A good example from earlier in this thread is GNOME-Twitch. It's PPA is actually maintained by webupd8 not the principal developer. Now, the main dev gave their blessing, but their focus is on Arch. As far as the AUR is concerned, I'd argue that PKGBUILDs are quite easy to create and understand, and anytime you go to install an app from the AUR you are asked if you want to edit the PKGBUILD. Plus, if you really don't trust the precompiled binary, almost every package in the AUR I've seen has also had a -git PKGBUILD available which pulls from the main development git repo and then compiles. So, I'd say they both have their pros and cons, and they both have their dangers. And yes, I think making a PKGBUILD and having the package manager handle compilation, installation, and uninstallation (if desired) is much better and easier than compiling and installing from source by hand.

EDIT: I'd also have to say that all this discussion actually has me considering going back to Arch via Manjaro now that life has settled back down a bit. I'd initially switched to Ubuntu due to my daughter being born, and the time to tinker being reduced to pretty much zero. But now that things have settled I might just go back.
Click to expand...

Sort of beat me too it ... and did a better job explaining (mostly) the same point. lol
 
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ChadD said:
PPAs and AUR entries are no different. Arch makes it easier to find them is the only difference. No one is claiming AUR are 100% secure and are good to go for servers or mission critical anything. Having said that... AUR enties can also be examined by end users. Pacman and the other command line AUR installation tools allow you to view and even edit install scripts. So I guess you can say it "can" be more secure if you know what your doing... for average users though yes AUR PPAs... are very much the same thing. Most people to be fair have little need for the AUR, almost every major package is in the official repos. With Ubuntu you can almost say the same... accept I found the need to use PPAs a little more often to cover things like new Nvidia drivers ect... where such things would just be mainline repo territory in a rolling distro.

Developer PPAs are not an issue of course... but Developer PPAs are hardly the only example (nor the majority) of PPAs in the wild. Ideally users that don't know what they are doing shouldn't really be using PPAs or the AUR. Between the 2 I believe the AUR gives me much more control, but both have merit.
Click to expand...

At the end of the day, even compiling from source can be insecure unless you inspect all the code very carefully, and i think it's safe to say no one ever does such a thing - I know I don't!

In relation to the similarities between the AUR and PPA's I totally agree, the issue is the AUR is a very large repository compared to most PPA's making it harder to monitor for malicious activity especially considering average users are allowed to contribute to software in the repository. I guess my point is, people go on about PPA's like they're a negative compared to the AUR, however the reality is there's pro's and con's to both. The only real consideration is: Are you a tinkerer that can afford potential downtime to rectify bleeding edge issues? But considering LTS releases and toolkit (GTK) compatibility, the example of 3.20 and 16.04 LTS is the only example I can think of where it was ever an issue, in most cases LTS is every bit as compatible as non LTS releases.
 
Well, I loaded Mint Cinnamon on a spare system. You guys were right. No big differences to be found. I duplicated my main system all except for dual monitors. All is well, no glitches, no surprises. Gonna stick with Mint-MATE on my main system for now cause I see no compelling reason to upgrade but I will be playing around with the spare and experimenting fearlessly, lol.

Spare system is a Lenovo ThinkStation S20 running a Xeon X5670 with 24GB of RAM. HD is a 80GB Intel SSD. Video card is a Quadro K2000 I think.

FreeDoom is awesome. :D
 
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