[Sheflug] Linux Mint Upgrading

[John Southern <linuxtarragon@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Peter, All,

We upgraded two laptops at today's meeting and one appeared to work and the
second did not. They were both running Linux Mint 22.2 and the upgrade was
to Linux Mint 22.3

So after a little reading, the instructions (which supposedly came from the
Linux Mint blog, but I cannot find the particular post) were given were
only sort of right.

From memory we edited the list of repositories file
(official-package-repositories.list) with the default installed text editor
nano

*sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list*
This showed us

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com zara main upstream import backport
#id:linuxmint_main
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble main restricted universe
multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates main restricted universe
multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports main restricted
universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ noble-security main restricted
universe multiverse

Into this file we added the line
*deb http://packages.linuxmint.com <http://packages.linuxmint.com> zena
main upstream import backport*

we then changed other previous version 22.2 name (zara) to the name of
version 22.3 zena

That meant the file was
deb http://packages.linuxmint.com *zena* main upstream import backport
#id:linuxmint_main
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble main restricted universe
multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates main restricted universe
multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports main restricted
universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ noble-security main restricted
universe multiverse
*deb http://packages.linuxmint.com <http://packages.linuxmint.com> zena
main upstream import backport*


We then used
*sudo apt update*
This added in all the new packages to our repository list

We installed all the changes with
*sudo apt full-upgradable*

So there was no need to add the additional line as it was really the first
line again after we had changed zara to zena.
The bit after the # is just a reference comment.

On one of the laptops this appeared to work. The second laptop again almost
worked except neofetch was showing Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble Numbat version).

I thought it a little odd because you were using neofetch which is a
depreciated package and no longer supported. I am assuming neofetch is
still available in the Ubuntu Nobel repositories although I thought they
had changed to hyfetch, screenfetch and neowofetch. The current recommended
package in Ubuntu 25.10 and Debian 13 is fastfetch

What should have happened for the upgrade is LinuxMint has a graphical tool
for this. First run the *UpdateManager tool* and select refresh. This
should then show any packages that can be updated in the zara version.
Apply these updates by selecting the "Install updates" button
Next chose the Edit button and in the dropdown list there should be a
"Upgrade to Linux Mint 22.3 Zena" option. Select that and choose next.
What it is actually doing in the background is four commands

*sudo apt install mintupgrade*             <-- This installs the upgrade
utility program
*sudo mintupgrade*                             <-- This reconfigures the
repository files and runs an update so your list of files is complete. It
then downloads all the new packages and removes all the old packages with a
*sudo apt autoremove*
It then upgrade the packages by running
*sudo apt upgrade*

It then checks for downgradable packages that you might have installed from
outside the standard repositories with the command
*sudo apt install --allow-downgrades*

It then cleans up after itself with a
*sudo apt --purge autoremove --yes*
*sudo apt-get clean*

Followed by a reboot.
I think the difference is you still have old packages in the system. That
should have been removed with the
*sudo apt full-upgradeable*
rather than the
*sudo apt upgrade*

However, my notes say that
*sudo apt full-upgradeable -- autoremove*
would ensure no packages after the upgrade.

Thoughts anyone who uses Linux Mint?
When we ran it for a second time I hashed out the first line in the
repositories list to give

#deb http://packages.linuxmint.com zena main upstream import backport
#id:linuxmint_main
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble main restricted universe
multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates main restricted universe
multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports main restricted
universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ noble-security main restricted
universe multiverse
deb http://packages.linuxmint.com zena main upstream import backport

Is this correct or should the last line have been hashed out. Does
precedence matter in this file?
Why would one laptop still show as Ubuntu under neofetch?




You also mentioned that your free disk space had previously dropped. My
best guess on this is you had run a timeshift to capture a snapshot file of
the whole system.



Regards
John
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