Hello hello, I'm back again
Nov. 29th, 2012 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lovingbothThe standard way to upgrade a Debian-based Linux system to a new version is via apt-get. You tell it where to find the packages (the programs and libraries) that make up the system, then say 'sudo apt-get dist-upgrade' ('as the administrator, do a more involved upgrade than usual').
Works on Debian, works on Ubuntu which is based on Debian (although there's also a graphical tool which hides this process from you), but doesn't really work on Linux Mint which is based on Ubuntu. I know this, even if I have never had a good answer as to why it doesn't work on Mint.
Does this stop me trying it though...?
The problem is that it usually almost nearly works and you can do the 'almost nearly' bits yourself. So this time, something in the list of packages got in a twist. Amongst the list of programs that got deleted pending upgraded versions that it wouldn't install because it couldn't get the real latest version of something they depended on was Thunderbird and Firefox.
As no-one's worked that one out, this afternoon, I gave up and did it the way I am supposed to do: save a list of installed programs, install a fresh copy of the new release, then use the list to install the programs that weren't installed by that (it's semi-automated, so it's not too hard).
But grrr, why doesn't it work properly?
At least it's much easier than upgrading a Windows system, thanks to the proper separation of programs and user data. And it didn't cost £££s either.
Works on Debian, works on Ubuntu which is based on Debian (although there's also a graphical tool which hides this process from you), but doesn't really work on Linux Mint which is based on Ubuntu. I know this, even if I have never had a good answer as to why it doesn't work on Mint.
Does this stop me trying it though...?
The problem is that it usually almost nearly works and you can do the 'almost nearly' bits yourself. So this time, something in the list of packages got in a twist. Amongst the list of programs that got deleted pending upgraded versions that it wouldn't install because it couldn't get the real latest version of something they depended on was Thunderbird and Firefox.
As no-one's worked that one out, this afternoon, I gave up and did it the way I am supposed to do: save a list of installed programs, install a fresh copy of the new release, then use the list to install the programs that weren't installed by that (it's semi-automated, so it's not too hard).
But grrr, why doesn't it work properly?
At least it's much easier than upgrading a Windows system, thanks to the proper separation of programs and user data. And it didn't cost £££s either.