Update Pack 4 is out!

Note about server speed

Current status:

  • The following servers are fully up to date with UP4:
    • Main Server: deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest (1Gbps, Colorado – USA)
    • Emergency cloud server: deb http://us.debian.linuxmint.com/latest (150Mbps, Texas – USA)
    • RTS Informatique: deb http://mirror.rts-informatique.fr/debian.linuxmint.com/latest/ (France)
  • The synchronization between the server and the mirrors was resumed (3 mirrors at a time).
  • If you experience issues or if you’re going through the update at the moment, don’t hesitate to connect to the IRC chatroom (irc.spotchat.org, #linuxmint-debian)

 

Introduction

Update Pack 4 was released as the “latest” update pack today. If you’re not using Linux Mint Debian, please ignore this post.

In Update Pack 4, the following significant changes occur which might cause regressions on your system:

  1. Gnome 2 gets “upgraded” to Gnome Shell
  2. The Linux kernel is upgraded to version 3.2

Changing your repositories

Please skip this paragraph if you already updated your APT sources for Update Pack 3.

Before you apply the updates for Update Pack 4, make sure you’re pointing to the correct repositories.

Edit your APT sources by running the following command in the terminal:

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Within this file, replace the following:

  • Replace security.debian.org with debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security
  • Replace debian-multimedia.org with debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia

Your APT sources, should now look like this:

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest testing main contrib non-free
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security testing/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia testing main non-free

Save and close the file.

Using the Update Manager

… to update itself

The Update Manager always updates itself before other packages. If you see an update for “mintupdate-debian“, accept it and wait for the Update Manager to restart itself.

If there’s a new Update Manager available, it will only list itself as an update

… to check your APT sources

At the time of writing this blog post, the latest version of mintupdate-debian is 1.0.5. From this version onwards the Update Manager is able to check your APT sources and tell you if they are properly configured.

  1. Click on the “Update Pack Info” button
  2. Make sure “Your system configuration” shows up as green and doesn’t show any warnings or errors
  3. If you see a warning or an error, follow the instructions given and repeat the process until they’re gone.

Check the system configuration and read the Update Pack information

… to know more about Update Pack 4

In the “Update Pack Info” window, make sure to read all the information related to Update Pack 4. Some of it might be irrelevant to you, but it will only take you a minute and it might you save you hours.

… to upgrade to Update Pack 4

When you’re ready and you know all that there is to know, press the “Install Updates” button.

During the update you’ll be asked a few things. One is quite important.. the new kernel will ask you where to install Grub. Answer with the location of your current Grub menu (which on most systems is “/dev/sda“).

FAQ

Will upgrading to Update Pack 4 mean I will lose Gnome 2?

Yes. But you will also gain access to MATE (which is almost the same as Gnome 2). To install MATE install the package “mate-desktop-environment”.

Is Cinnamon included in Update Pack 4?

Yes. To install it, simply install the package “cinnamon”.

Can I keep Gnome 2 and ignore Update Pack 4?

Although it’s not a long-term solution.. yes, you can. Please read the following blog post for more info on Gnome 2, Update Pack 4 and alternative desktops.

Will LMDE get new ISO images with Update Pack 4?

Yes, in the coming days/weeks, LMDE will be released in two editions featuring Update Pack 4:

  • The traditional XFCE edition
  • The main LMDE edition featuring MATE 1.2 as the default desktop and Cinnamon 1.4 as a secondary desktop. MATE will work with Compiz (also installed by default) and Cinnamon will work in Virtualbox, so you’ll be able to enjoy both desktops and see which one you like best.

337 comments

  1. Any idea yet on when we can expect the arrival of the updated iso’s?

    Edit by Clem: To finish them we’ll need a few more days (1, 2, 3? It’s hard to say… they’re 95% ready, we’re just fixing cosmetic problems and applying polish at this stage). After that they’ll go to testing though, and that could take more time.

  2. I was mid update process when I saw this in my RSS feed, and quickly halted and autocleaned. xD

    Edit by Clem: It’s all ready now. At worst you would have experienced some conflicts and missing dependencies until it became ready. Still, well done on holding up, it’s always better to be careful.

  3. Roger Sir, repository mirror set offline until it’s all in sync.
    These will be crazy days 🙂 The average people should consider starting new from the ISO, especially with many customizations the 3->4 upgrade can be quite painful to newbies.

    Edit by Clem: The upgrade path works really well and there are very few regressions. The one thing people are going to have a hard time with is Gnome 3. Their new desktop will be radically different than the one they had before… and even if they install MATE they’ll still need to remove a lot of GNOME packages to get back to something tidy. Having both Gnome/Cinnamon and MATE on the same system well integrated takes time. We managed to do it on the ISOs but it will require configuration and adjustments from users who upgrade and who are interested in both desktops.

  4. I have KDE 4.6.5 installed on my LMDE and using it as my primary environment. What will happen when UP4 upgrades? Will it install Gnome Shell or MATE? I’m assuming it will also upgrade KDE to 4.7.4, but will it keep it as my main/preferred environment?

    Thanks,
    Clyde

    Edit by Clem: Hi Clyde. It will upgrade your KDE to 4.7.4. Unless they’re triggered by some dependency, neither Gnome or MATE should get installed.

  5. Great news!

    Just a question: is there any will to go back to the original proposed pace for the update packs? (was it 1-2 months?)
    This is important because, as Cinnamon (e.g.) is in active development, having only 1 update a year will leave you far behind from the actual stuff (bugfixes, new functions, more stability and usability, etc).

    Edit by Clem: The pace itself isn’t a priority but we’ll be careful to update Firefox, Thunderbird, Cinnamon and other important packages regularly. If these require new libs, we’ll update the UP again. Sometimes being far behind is also a positive thing, LMDE users have enjoyed Gnome 2 until now, when they can migrate to a stable MATE 1.2 and Cinnamon 1.4.. no other distro was able to offer such a transition, even Mint 12 only had MATE 1.0 and MGSE at the time. I don’t expect UP5 to take as long. Firefox/Thunderbird/Flash should get updates in the near future without the need for another UP… and Cinnamon 1.5 eventually will hit LMDE as well with a new UP5 (that will happen after Mint 13 though).

  6. excellent, waiting for the iso’s but am confused whether to use lmde + gnome shell 3.2 or mint 12 + gnome shell 3.4 which am using currently.
    Can any body tell me which will be better?
    Mint is the best !!!!!!!!!!!

  7. Clem: It is pretty much impossible to install them. Been that way for quite a while.

    $ sudo apt-get install mint-artwork-debian
    The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    mint-artwork-debian : Depends: gtk2-engines-clearlooks
    E: Broken packages

  8. Lol Phirae, that conflict only exists in testing (with gtk2-engine 2.20.2-2), latest has 2.20.2-1 and no conflict whatsoever.

    Edit by Clem: Ok that explains it, I was wondering why this didn’t pop up during my tests on UP4.

  9. Hmm… MATE and Cinnamon in the same ISO… I thought it would be best to separate them since they don’t have anything to do with each other (except for you can safely install them alongside). I understand it would require more testing though.

    I have several questions about them. Will it be possible to choose which DE to run in live mode? Will the installer offer a choice of installing MATE/Cinnamon/both, or will it just install both without asking?

    Edit by Clem: It installs both without asking. And yes, you can run both of them from the live disc. It logs in MATE automatically but logging out and launching Cinnamon works well.

  10. Clement, I would like to thank you and the team for all the hard work on Linux Mint. Even though I don’t use the debian version, my LM11 is working GREAT for me, and I never hesitate to recommend Linux Mint to new Linux users.

  11. What a difficult choice… sticking with gnome 2 for a while or updating for cinnamon…

    So difficult… Can I have a cancel button in case cinnamon is not good for me ? 😀

    Edit by Clem: MATE is very similar to Gnome 2. I would recommend you don’t update right now and wait for the ISOs so you can try MATE and Cinnamon from the liveDVD. That way you’ll see if you’re happy with them before making any change to your computer.

  12. Clem, thanks for clarifying. I hope it will be shown somehow that two DE’s are available. Judging by what goes in the forums, I suspect that people still know almost nothing about MATE’s existence mostly because it’s not available in live mode in Mint 12, and it’s installed silently, and unless you know where to click on the login screen you might never know you have another DE on your system. 🙂

    Edit by Clem: Good point. In the upcoming ISOs though, MATE is the default (not Cinnamon) so it’s Cinnamon that is harder to find. It’s probable both of these desktops will eventually get their own separate editions going forward.

  13. Waouhhh Clem, what for a fast answer…

    Monsta. I will stay with my LMDE64. It’s working so fine 😉
    But thanks for the tip 😉

  14. Clem, i see Monsta’s comment above (n 14 right now) and your Edit and for what i understand from there the main ed. will bring gnome3.2 and mate (defaulting to mate at login), am i right?

    if so, i don’t understand (sorry 🙁 ) “and Cinnamon will work in Virtualbox”; doesn’t this mean that cinnamon will in some way be “virtualized”?

    or to make things clear (to me) the main ed. will bring 2 DE with the option to login to one or other?

    tks for the time and patience (today i’m just a bit to dense 🙂 )

  15. zerozero: That one sorted, thanks. Had to delete the cached 2.20.2-1 deb though and redownload, no idea whether someone changed the deps in the file silently or what. mint-meta-codecs is another b0rked one, with gstreamer0.10-esd dep which does not exist anywhere.

    And on the note of broken deps, debian-system-adjustments is missing libglib2.0-bin in depends: /var/lib/dpkg/info/debian-system-adjustments.postinst: 35: glib-compile-schemas: not found

  16. Does update pack 4 come with the PAE kernel? I know you used to have to upgrade the kernel to get dual core use.

  17. Clem,

    I’ve switched to the “latest” repositories and this is what I get from the Mint Update using the “Main server”:

    “Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/dists/testing/InRelease
    Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security/dists/testing/updates/InRelease
    Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia/dists/testing/InRelease
    Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.”

    I know the “sources.list” is right and I understand the update server for LMDE might be well overloaded at the moment but I’ve also experienced the same problem for the “incoming” repositories over the last two weeks or so. Download speeds consistently below 100kB/sec or no downloads at all. I’ve tried switching to other mirrors but all I’ve tried do not have the latest updates (“incoming” or “latest”) or simply refuse to download anything.

    As a comparison, Linux Mint 12 updates with no problems, often with download speeds of up to 2MB/sec on a high speed broadband connection using the “Main server”. This wasn’t always like this with LMDE. Only for the last two weeks or so as I said. I’ve noticed others on the various LMDE forum threads that have been experiencing the same problem.

    Just letting you know.

  18. I takes like forever to open debian.linuxmint.com. And when my update command give a response, it say:
    Err http://debian.linuxmint.com testing/updates InRelease

    Err http://debian.linuxmint.com testing InRelease

    Err http://debian.linuxmint.com testing Release.gpg
    Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:
    Err http://debian.linuxmint.com testing/updates Release.gpg
    Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:
    Err http://debian.linuxmint.com testing Release.gpg
    Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:

  19. I can’t wait for the new iso! It’s nice to have a choice between desktops, but as it’s so easy to install them, another possibility would be to have Cinnamon as the main and only desktop.

  20. Posting from LMDE 64-bit, Live CD.

    It’s just peachy! Seems better than Katya GNOME. I have high hopes for Mate and Cinnamon. Only small bug, so far, was convincing the system clock to recognize my time zone (USA, NY City). No idea why the clock didn’t change when I defined my time zone (the first time…). Tried a few times more, and it became local time.

    Becaues Katya is quite usable, after reading this blog, I might as well wait for the ISOs.

    So nice!
    [nb]

  21. is it me and my computer or is there something wrong? i can’t update.nothing works.download (1gb) got to half then stopped and now nothing works ok on my computer…i’m so pissed…

  22. I think its the best to launch 1 ISO for LMDE with gnome 3, one ISO with LMDE and MATE and another ISO with LMDE and XFCE. Not one ISO with MATE AND GNOME 3 in the same installation.

    I guess there are a little group of people liking the ONE ISO idea.. I guess there are more people who wants to install only what they want/need, not the both DEs in the same place.

    Anyway.. After installed the MATE/Gnome3 ISO, is that possible to REMOVE MATE without breaking the LMDE system?

  23. apt-get upgrade….

    0% [Connecting to debian.linuxmint.com (204.45.82.130)]

    it just stops there and can’t continue

  24. A solution for that would be to put them all in the Same ISO, but give installation options to choose which one to install instead of just automatically installing both…

  25. +10 on separation of the DEs, whether by installer choice or by separate ISOs. I’m a huge proponent of LMDE, and am excited about both Cinnamon and MATE, but by having the installation of both it is adding unnecessary weight to a system.

    In all likelihood, a person is not going actively use both DEs; there will be a choice involved, which means inevitably either (A) manual uninstallation of the DE that you do not use, or (B) living with less HD space and/or running dependencies from a DE that is never used. Either way, it produces a less optimal user experience.

    The main pro I can see from both options is that uncertain users can install the ISO and play with both to find the one they want. This is a valid point, but it is overshadowed by a number of negatives. For one, there will be a multitude of users wanting to try the new LMDE solely to try Cinnamon, and with it as a backup it is very confusing to a new Linux user to switch DEs. Additionally, a person installing these ISOs are installing a new system from scratch, so if they don’t like one, wiping and reinstalling with the other DE would not be very impactful. Finally, it assumes that the number of users waiting to make that choice are greater than the number of users that have already chosen or are unwilling to make the choice prior to installation. This assumption may or may not be true, but is a bold assumption to make considering its impact.

    Like I said, I am a huge proponent of LMDE and am VERY excited about UP4. I just also feel that the ISO that forces users to install both is not giving the majority of users what they want. Considering how great Clem is at listening to his user base, I thought a quick breakdown of reasons would help influence his decision. Whether I am in the minority, or you agree with me, I ask you to speak up. Clem will listen.

  26. I was resisting gnome3 (shell) but after spending some time on it in Mint12 I’ve gotten used to it. Started to find 2 menus that did the same thing a touch irritating, but it really helped with the learning curve – thanks mint team. Today I decided to install LMDE not 12 and the proceed with the upgrade (dont want to wait for the iso). Seems to be good as long as I’m paitent with the upgrade manager.
    -Thanks for the article-

  27. @30 – LifeInTheGrey

    *Clap clap clap*

    I couldn’t agree more with you! I’d like to add that, having both DEs on a fresh install would also be annoying considering the fact that you’ll get duplicate apps all over the place (e.g. Nautilus 3 and Caja, that is Nautilus 2; and a big etc).

    Though I think having a Mate+Cinnamon ISO would be nice for a user to be able to try both of them before installing, most probably such user would choose one over the other and therefore, installing also the ‘other one’ would be unwanted.

    Also, LMDE is targeted at intermediate-advanced users, most of which already know Mate/Cinnamon/Gnome Shell/etc and therefore already know which DE they want. So, having a multiple DE ISO would be unwanted because it would have a bigger-than-wanted size to download, and of course it would install unwanted software in their computers.

    Conclusion: a multiple DE ISO would be nice ONLY for the means of trying out those DEs before installing, but in that case there should be an option to install only one of them.
    As probably most LMDE users already know which DE they want, I believe it would be best to have separate ISOs for each DE (or, to make your life easier, something like a single ISO with all DEs, providing the choice of which one to install, kinda like openSuse DVD. In this case, if download size is a problem, you could also provide a mini-iso or netinst apart from the main ISO).

  28. Is it the server overloaded or the problem is on my end? When I try to start the update, the manager sort of hangs there for a minute or two and then closes down to tray. If I open the update manager again, it just refreshes the list of packages.

    I updated the manager to version 1.0.5 without any issues.

  29. i really don’t see what all the fuss is about the ISOs. people are so demanding! I assume (hope!) that all the bombastic and demanding language is the result primarily of non-native command of English, but for my part, I’m delightedly looking forward to the ISOs however the team find it most convenient to release them. It’s really not a big deal.

  30. Running Squeeze here w/Gnome 2… will adding the Mint Debian repos and installing MATE bork my system?

  31. I am very happy with my LMDE with gnome2, but I would like to stay up to date. The problem is my ancient hardware (2005): a notebook with Pentium Centrino 1.60 MHZ, 2MB Ram, nvidia GeForce 6200 Go. What to do in your opinion? Update to UP4, then install Mate or freeze gnome 2?
    Thank you in advance

  32. Fully agree on separating the DEs. MATE is a fork from Gnome2 and Cinnamon is based on Gnome 3. Please give users the choice on which to choose.

  33. When I see the release of the UP4 I open the Update manager, Updated to the new version, and after that closed, it open again as normal, then trying to update to the latest UP4 and fail, then i try again, and fail.

    After many times trying and fail, then I diced to Update and Upgrade via Terminal and is runnig ok via Terminal, I wiil wait to finished, and will update it the info how this ended.

  34. Well, the update idea is very good, but it doesn’t work. The new Gnome 3 desktop gives an error and it’s not starting, so I only can use the Gnome Classic desktop. Any idea to solve it? Because the right mouse button is dissable also.

  35. if upgrading straight from last 64 gnome iso – remove mint-meta-common mint-meta-debian otherwise upgrade fails (add it back later – I guess)
    Not using update-manager as it seems apt-get upgrade is mostly the same and it lets you know what is going wrong and possible ways to fix.

  36. Seriously, is anybody here able to actually get it? It seems that the servers have been borked all day. Usually those things are worked out before release… you know, so people can actually get the update pack.

  37. Hi, I am from Indonesia, I like to try LMDE since I read LMDE has supported GNOME3. But I failed to sync repo using debian.linuxmint.com.

    Can you provide me mirror from Asia ?

  38. I am looking forward to trying and hopefully installing LMDE. I purchased a laptop with an AMD A6 processor, but have been unable to get Lisa loaded, let alone installed. It hangs during boot-up. I cannot wait to get the virus OS that was pre-loaded removed!!!

  39. @clem Can’t Install mintupdate-debian
    http://pastebin.com/Ji2ACPDi
    The following NEW packages will be installed:
    mintupdate-debian
    0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1716 not upgraded.
    Need to get 0 B/116 kB of archives.
    After this operation, 737 kB of additional disk space will be used.
    (Reading database … 379797 files and directories currently installed.)
    Unpacking mintupdate-debian (from …/mintupdate-debian_1.0.5_all.deb) …
    dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/mintupdate-debian_1.0.5_all.deb (–unpack):
    trying to overwrite ‘/usr/share/python-apt/templates/LinuxMint.mirrors’, which is also in package mint-mirrors 1.0.0
    dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
    Errors were encountered while processing:
    /var/cache/apt/archives/mintupdate-debian_1.0.5_all.deb
    E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

  40. @36 – Thomas

    KDE 4.7.4 is the lastest version of KDE SC in Debian Testing/Sid.

    Did you ever find any KDE 4.8.x packages for Debian, already?

    You should do some searching before making such comments. Also, for your information regarding KDE packaging for Debian, check out this webpage: http://pkg-kde.alioth.debian.org/

  41. Damn… any idea anyone ? The source list is as indicated.

    sudo apt-get upgrade
    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information… Done
    You might want to run ‘apt-get -f install’ to correct these.
    The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    libgconf2-4 : Depends: libgconf-2-4 (= 3.2.3-3) but it is not installed
    Depends: gconf-service but it is not installed
    E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.

  42. It appears the update server(s), at least debian.linuxmint.com (204.45.82.130), are very slow and often unreachable.

    Is it me or a server side problem?

  43. LMDE 64bits here, using update pack 3.

    When I launched the upgrade process with the mintupdate it failed, so I went back to terminal (dist-upgrade)… and it failed too 😉

    Package “vpnc” did not upgrade properly (unable to execute new post-removal script). And this error blocked the whole upgrade process, even when restarting it. I couldn’t remove vpnc (same error). I had to “apt-get install dpkg” in order to upgrade dpkg from 1.16.0.3 to 1.16.1.2 first… then I restarted the upgrade process… vpnc is not a problem anymore (but I removed it anyway).

    Now wait and see if something else breaks !

  44. I followed the instructions on top of the page.
    The update manager shows the mintupdate-debian package.
    However, clicking the “install updates” button does nothing and freezes the update manager.
    Sometimes, clicking the same button shows up a progress bar which never reaches 100% but stays forever on 99%.

    Doing a sudo apt-get update on terminal shows this:

    sajukk@computerataki ~ $ sudo apt-get update
    [sudo] password for sajukk:
    Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com debian InRelease
    Get:1 http://packages.linuxmint.com debian Release.gpg [197 B]
    Get:2 http://packages.linuxmint.com debian Release [12.2 kB]
    Get:3 http://packages.linuxmint.com debian/main i386 Packages [13.1 kB]
    Get:4 http://packages.linuxmint.com debian/upstream i386 Packages [8,659 B]
    Get:5 http://packages.linuxmint.com debian/import i386 Packages [54.9 kB]
    Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com debian/import TranslationIndex
    Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com debian/main TranslationIndex
    Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com debian/upstream TranslationIndex
    Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com debian/import Translation-en_US
    Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com debian/import Translation-en
    Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com debian/main Translation-en_US
    Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com debian/main Translation-en
    Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com debian/upstream Translation-en_US
    Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com debian/upstream Translation-en
    99% [Waiting for headers]

    and also stays on 99% forever.

    There is clearly something wrong here. Any help?

  45. I am sorry for the above post, please ignore it. It just took too long (about 20 minutes), no idea why. It works now

  46. I was right in the middle of installing LMDE when the update pack 4 arrived. Since then I am unable to update because I get the following message:

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/dists/testing/InRelease

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security/dists/testing/updates/InRelease

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia/dists/testing/InRelease

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/dists/testing/Release.gpg Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security/dists/testing/updates/Release.gpg Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia/dists/testing/Release.gpg Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:

    W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

    Seems some server is not available. Any suggestions how to proceed?
    I also tried to change my settings to the ‘frozen’ repository but got another server fetch error. So right now I am stuck and can’t even get to update pack 3.

    Thanxs,
    Anja

  47. Hi
    I am trying to apply UP4, but get the following response after starting the process…

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/dists/testing/InRelease

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security/dists/testing/updates/InRelease

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia/dists/testing/InRelease

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/dists/testing/Release.gpg Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security/dists/testing/updates/Release.gpg Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia/dists/testing/Release.gpg Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:

    W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

    Is this any more than servers busy?
    Or is there something I’m missing?
    There are no errors showing in the Update Pack Info dialogue box.
    Looking forward so much to the finished article.

  48. Hi Clem, after the entry into the Sources.list it is not possible for me to perform an update. I note below, unfortunately in German, I hope it is understood as such:

    W: Fehlschlag beim Holen von http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/dists/testing/InRelease

    W: Fehlschlag beim Holen von http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security/dists/testing/updates/InRelease

    W: Fehlschlag beim Holen von http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia/dists/testing/InRelease

    W: Fehlschlag beim Holen von http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/dists/testing/Release.gpg Verbindung mit debian.linuxmint.com:http nicht möglich:

    W: Fehlschlag beim Holen von http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security/dists/testing/updates/Release.gpg Verbindung mit debian.linuxmint.com:http nicht möglich:

    W: Fehlschlag beim Holen von http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia/dists/testing/Release.gpg Verbindung mit debian.linuxmint.com:http nicht möglich:

    W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

    1053 empfohlene Aktualisierungen verfügbar (840 MB)

    What’s going on why does not work anymore? Excuse my English translated by Google.

    Friendly greetings, xanvader.

  49. Sorry to burst your bubble, but I’ve been trying to download the update pack to no avail. It says it’s “unable to fetch” from the packages.linuxmint.com. Any help would be appreciated, I think Linux Mint Debian Edition is the best.

  50. debian.linuxmint.com – almost impossible to connect. i understand everybody is trying to update right now; still, is there an alternative server – could we use original debian repository ?

    thanks and happy easter !!!

  51. Here is the text of the issue.
    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/dists/testing/InRelease

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security/dists/testing/updates/InRelease

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia/dists/testing/InRelease

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/dists/testing/Release.gpg Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security/dists/testing/updates/Release.gpg Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia/dists/testing/Release.gpg Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:

    W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

  52. debian.linuxmint.com has serious issues ATM… I’ve been trying to upgrade since last night but it either has very low bandwidth or doesn’t connect at all. And I’ve got issues with:
    debian-system-adjustments
    mint-meta-common
    mint-meta-debian

  53. Don’t quit get what you mean with

    Cannot update all replies are back as failed?

    I have now a list with 1055 or so packages, but I do get a warning when I try to install that some packages could not be retrieved from the server and if I want to continue. I am reluctant to continue because this can take for ages since the servers are apparently pretty busy and could potentially leave me with only a partial upgrade.

    When I use the froze repositories nothing can be loaded, that I just tried and the update manager was unable to retrieve any packages. Get this big red X over the icon.

    Any help is appreciated.

    Anja

  54. Clem,

    Just an exceptional product you have here in LMDE! I’m using the LXDE version of LMDE, and IMO it may be even better than Gnome.

    In a previous blog post,
    http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1944

    “With Update Pack 4 LMDE users will gain access to new versions of KDE, Xfce and LXDE, but also for the first time to Gnome Shell, MATE and Cinnamon.”

    It sounds like there will be separate ISO spins for KDE and LXDE as well. Is this true?

    Thanks greatly!

  55. Great news!

    At long last I’ll be able to do lots of stuff I’ve been longing to do – such as trying Cinnamon and getting rid of that irritating Thunderbird update message.

    Unfortunately, servers appear to be overwhelmed by pent-up demand. Get ‘Failed to fetch’ messages and, when past that hurdle, clicking on Update Pack info. or Install Updates renders MintUpdate totally unresponsive.

    I guess I’ll have to possess my soul in patience for a day or three.

  56. Hi, I can’t update to UP4. I’m usning the XFCE version and I’m in Portugal.
    The Updater Manager hangs and when I try to run apt-get update I get the following:

    Err http://debian.linuxmint.com testing Release.gpg
    Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:
    Err http://debian.linuxmint.com testing/updates Release.gpg
    Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:
    Err http://debian.linuxmint.com testing Release.gpg
    Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:
    Fetched 89.0 kB in 2min 0s (741 B/s)
    Reading package lists… Done
    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/dists/testing/InRelease

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security/dists/testing/updates/InRelease

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia/dists/testing/InRelease

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/dists/testing/Release.gpg Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security/dists/testing/updates/Release.gpg Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:

    W: Failed to fetch http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia/dists/testing/Release.gpg Unable to connect to debian.linuxmint.com:http:

    W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

  57. After some troubles yesterday depending on the masses to update, I get a wonderful nice and running LMDE with cinnamon. I don’t see the problems with mixed packages.( #30 – @LifeInTheGrey)
    If you don’t install mate-desktop-e… you get only caja-gksu & caja-open-terminal, think it depens on missing nautilus-ones. 😉 I know Clem & his team doing a good job to give us a stable and well designed distro. First use it – than crying! 😀 Thank you (#34.) Simon!
    Cinnamon looks great and its fun to get some „Spices“ for the panel.

    Thank you

  58. Dear Clement,
    two (Cinnamon and Mate) in one ISO is a very good idea. Everybody’s preferences can be met if in the process of installation there would be a possibility to select between three variants: Cinnamon, Mate, both (the latter – by default). And no need to worry about newbies. If a person was clever enough to choose Mint, he or she will manage putting a flag in the right box.
    Thank you very much for your work.

  59. Is it just me or debian.linuxmint.com is toooo slow?
    I just can’t download the updates because apt-get update can be executed correctly.

    1. Sorry about the server issues. We’re working on fixing the situation as best we can. Please check the blog post for regular news update and workarounds while we’re working on this.

  60. I’m using LMDE gnome2, I;m gonna pass to xfce because I think gnome 3 is immature

    Will it be an xfce variant for the upcoming LTS LM13?

  61. Hi,

    I tried to upgrade to the latest Update Pack 4.
    The new Update Manager version was installed without problems.
    When I started it, it has shown info about the Update Pack 4 and a list of packages to update (it is a rather big list, about 1000 packages to update). Then I told it to install all those updates. It has shown that 23 packages will be removed and about 300 will be installed. I accepted it and Update Manager started downloading packages.

    But then I got into problems. Many packages could not be downloaded with 404 errors (Not Found). As a result, Update Manager could not proceed and install all required updates.

    Questions:
    1) Is it a known problem? What it the reason for it? May be this is due to the fact that mirrors have not finished mirroring of the Update Pack or latest Debian testing packages?
    2) Could it be that the content of LMDE repositories shown at the beginning of this blog entry is not quite up-to-date with the packages lists that are returned by repos to “apt-get update”?
    3) Are others experiencing the same problem?
    4) How it can be solved?

    Thanks,
    Romix

  62. I switched to the Romania mirror but don’t work either, files stored seems to be older anyway and I get errors trying to install anything.

  63. All mirrors and main seems to be missing a lot of packages which prevents any upgrade what so ever.

    It seems to me that the automatic process which is used to populate repositories is broken?

  64. Correct, none of the mirrors have all the packages available.

    Judging by the number of people trying to update, LMDE is becoming very popular.

  65. As expected, the main server is overloaded.
    Our repository mirror is still running rsync. We set up a redirection so we can keep people informed of the current status (wish the other repository mirror maintainers did this too, before someone updated obsolete packages along with new ones).

    Edit by Clem: Thanks Emmanuel, we stopped rsyncd just a few minutes ago. The bottleneck on our server is the CPU at the moment.

    1. Thanks for the feedback on the mirrors. We stopped rsync and managed to get a stable output on HTTP for 300 people and 400Mbps. We’re trying to push the server a little more to be able to serve more people.

    2. The server is now managing to support updates for up to 800 concurrent users. It’s currently serving 500 people at the moment and everything seems to work ok. We’ll be keeping an eye on it as more and more people join in… to see whether it handles 800 people OK, and if we can push that limit even further.

  66. I decided to add a bunch of different mirrors, it seems to be working, it is pulling the files it can from other mirrors, and then pulling from the main server what it can’t get from the other mirrors. (I used three of the mirrors that were listed before the status message at the top of the thread changed.

    I just have to keep clicking no, don’t continue without all the packages and trying again. It keeps pulling the packages it didn’t get before from different places.

  67. Had just upgraded using the incoming repositories on the very morning of the release day. I had grown very impatient and curious to see cinnamon running. I have to say, I am impressed, its come a long pretty well. Even gnome shell is now more responsive than I remember, comes to show that things are improving fairly well. I understand currently cinnamon is still growing but I really hope the search feature from the old mint menu will eventually be revived in this new one, so you can install, search documents, even google etc. Right now Cinnamon is very stable and MATE is even more responsive than I remember. Looks like things are looking up.

    I have chosen to stick with Cinnamon but keep MATE as well for those times I want to play around with compiz. I have also installed xfce and lxde for backup. I’m having a few issues however with amarok, after I installed UP4 it’s been crashing with a relocation error that I haven’t been able to resolve. I had KDE on my mint as well but was hoping it would upgrade to 4.8.1. As a result I’ve decided to completely uninstall KDE and amarok and wait for 4.8.1. I guess I will also have to do without amarok for now and hopefully when I eventually reinstall KDE and amarok the problem will not persist.

    A second issue I’m having is with virtualbox though I think it’s more related to the kernel rather than the mint release itself. I haven’t been able to run virtualbox and this is a real loss for me since I am one of those people who like collecting various linux OS’s to play around with and try out on a virtual machine. Has anyone had any similar problems?

    I am very excited for the growth and development of Cinnamon. To the Mint team and Clem thank you so much for all your time and hard work you have put into this. Hope you have a great Easter and I will continue to support and recommend your distro to others.

  68. Wow! I’m impressed at the demand for this LMDE update pack and remember, this is just a subset of Mint users! Guess I’ll wait awhile and let the dust settle tho I can’t wait to try to new desktops in LMDE

  69. Hello.
    I can’t get the amd-64 parts of the package, 404-not-found. Does anyone know where to point source.list to get them? Or haven’t I done my homework???
    Thx

  70. Never mind, I read the rest of the comments, so I’ll just grab a beer and wait for the rush hour to get by…

  71. It’s nice to see all the “official” versions of the desktop, hated Gnome 3, found
    MATE very easy to configure to my tastes. I noted that it was branded as an
    “unattractive and unintuitive” desktop, which is total crap! Other than that, some
    very nice enhancements and V4 rocks for speed.

  72. After upgrading to update pack 4 there are some caveats:
    1) The mint menu is gone in which case the only way to reboot is to right-click mouse over the desktop and choose “open terminal here” and then sudo reboot
    2) Running under virtualbox means that X will not start after a reboot which means you are left in the console. To fix this install latest version of VirtualBox guest Additions which is 4.1.12 and reboot.

  73. Glad to hear the word got through about the servers. Guess there’s a lot more folks using LMDE than we thought? 🙂

    Still no change for me when using the “Main server” though and I see the resync for the mirrors has been stopped. No big deal for me as I plan to do a clean install when the iso(s) come out but upgrading my current (old and venerable) LMDE install is something I’d like to test. I’ve already installed the initial (incoming) upgrade to UP4 so that’s a start but wasn’t able to receive any further updates since then.

    Otherwise, LMDE UP4 and the plans future updates and how they’re going to work looks very promising indeed. An “install once” type OS with a stable base and continuously updated applications definitely sounds like the way to go.

  74. The server is now managing to support updates for up to 1400 concurrent users. It’s working OK for now but America is waking up at the moment and I don’t feel very confident about the present configuration.

    We’re looking into using a different server and optimization techniques right now. I’ll keep you up-to-date as we’re progressing on this.

    1. We swapped Apache for Nginx. The server is dealing much better with the load now. It looks like we’ll be able to re-open rsync and satisfy all the traffic.

  75. Hi Clem, in Germany with 1400 updates, I’m lying in an upload speed of 35-125 kb / s First of all thank you for your efforts to get the server back up and running. Also thank you for your work on Linux Mint Debian, just great. Excuse my English is translated by Google. Friendly greetings, xanvader.

  76. Use Dreamhost as host to serve the updates, a so excellent hosting.

    Edit by Clem: Thanks Alejandro, we’re using AYK. The bandwidth is fine, we had a bottleneck on the CPU usage.

  77. I’m not able to connect to the main server at this time. I’m in Colorado.

    Edit by Clem: Hi. The server is working fine right now. What error message are you getting?

  78. The update is hanging for at least a minute at “Connecting to debian.linuxmint.com (204.45.82.130)”. Then it is hanging for a long time while “Waiting for headers”. After that I get a lot of 403 Forbidden messages.
    I am using SMXI to update.

    Edit by Clem: Does it work with apt-get itself? “apt update”, “apt upgrade”, “apt dist-upgrade”.

  79. @Clem. Same result with pure apt-get. This is the third system I’m updating. The previous updates had to be restarted several times but eventually completed.

    Edit by Clem: I’m sorry, it’s on our side here.. we’re optimizing the server’s configuration to allow more people to connect at the same time. We’ve managed to bump the number from 100+ to 800+ and to reduce a load average of 300 to about 1… we’re definitely on the right track here, but every time we restart the server for our changes to take effect that interrupts people’s upgrade process.

  80. Great! Now my system is dead, doesn’t even boot up. I did nothing but follow the instructions.

    I know that I don’t have the right to make demands but, for me, the whole idea of Mint over Ubuntu was reliability and the idea of LMDE over LM was reliable rolling upgrades.

    BE CAREFUL. YOU MIGHT WANT TO WAIT FOR THE ISO OR STICK TO LM12.

    Edit by Clem: UP4 was tested and is known to work well. That doesn’t mean upgrading is safe for everybody. This is explained in http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2 and it also applies to LMDE. With that said, your problem is probably easily solved with a bit of help. Whether it’s to do with the kernel, your GPU drivers or something else, please seek help on the forums or the IRC and don’t hesitate to provide more information about what is failing (error messages etc..).

  81. i get some errors in updates like this: 403 Forbidden

    Edit by Clem: Thanks Wolny, I can see this in the logs. I’m on it.

  82. Saweet….downloaded the old ISO, updated 1440 packages and installed Cinnamon and looks great so far.

  83. Hello Clem and friends,
    I have LMDE UP 3 running on some very old machines with just 3-500MB of memory. How much increased memory will be required with the new UP 4 and Gnome 3?
    I have set up many machines for others using LM 9 up through LM 12 and mate. You have been doing a wonderful job! –Mike

  84. My system updated without much fuss:
    aptitude remove mint-meta-common mint-meta-debian
    aptitude update
    aptitude -y upgrade #some questions were asked
    aptitude install mate-desktop-environment
    reboot
    select MATE at the login screen (I forgot this at the first login and got a taste of Gnom3 *shudder*)

    Now I have some duplicate icons in the menu, and (at least) panel and nautilus forgot their settings, but nothing dramatic.

  85. I hope a lesson will be learned from this: LMDE is increasingly attracting interest and growing, and big UPs will generate a lot of server load. I am waiting for the ISOs to get rid of my Ubuntu (did not hate Unity, but do not like either), and I considered installing the old ISO and updating, but then thought about traffic load (on my and on Mint’s side) and decided it wasn’t a good idea. I think a smater plan would be:

    1. rsync mirrors first, both repos and ISOs
    2. release repos and ISOs to the users

    This way, the main server would have less load because people could go to mirrors, and no one would install an old ISO and then do an update which is probably larger than the ISO itself.

    Edit by Clem: Hi nep. Lessons are being learnt the hard way here. Mirrors will sync prior to release next time around. We already do this for ISOs. We didn’t think it was necessary for them to mirror “incoming” since it’s only used by testers, but we realize now that would allow them to have all the files synced prior to the release and upgrade their UP almost instantly when it hits latest.

  86. rsync running, a bit slow but oh well.. 🙂

    No, seriously… I want to make a test. When it’s finished I gonna make a torrent out of the whole repository, and see if transmitted through BitTorrent keeps the files intact so rsync doesn’t need to replace anything.

    If it works, well… then I may ask the Mint team to release a torrent with every update pack so all mirrors can download and seed with each others, keeping the rsync load on the main server low. That would be great. But as said: I want to check first 😉

    Edit by Clem: I’ve been thinking about this as well 🙂 I tell you what, I don’t know how we’re going to face the growing traffic if it continues like this and how much our servers are going to cost, but we’ll definitely sync with you and the other mirrors first before opening up the UP next time around. On our side migrating incoming to latest is done by simply changing a symbolic link.. on yours it involves separate rsync calls though.. and so there’s definitely room for improvement here. The migration on your side should be done by simply rsyncing that link and nothing else… we’ll get this right the next time around.

  87. I have been running Mint 12 waiting on the latest Update Pack and now I’m testing out Ubuntu 12.04. I’m also going to wait for the ISO to help with some of the traffic loads, etc. I wish I had the skills and/or knowledge to actually help the Mint team with pushing these out, but, alas, I do not. I’m looking forward to the new ISO images to re-install.

  88. Hmm Is http://debian.linuxmint.com/ down again ?
    I screwed a lot of things updating for now.
    Entering in manual mode…

    Edit by Clem: It’s up but we probably interrupted your upgrade by restarting it. The upgrade should continue where it stopped, it downloads everything before applying anything so it shouldn’t impact your system.

  89. It is not possible to get the update. Red cross. Cannot get all the packages. All day it is not working.

  90. The performance of the updates server seems to have done the same on me with a virtual machine LMDE installation of mine. Looks as if waiting is in order. Patience is a virtue… At least, it’s only a test installation that’s suffered this fate though I have been playing with running LMDE as a main desktop OS.

  91. An idea for mintupdate.

    Would it be an idea to implement the network part in mintupdate as a torrent client and at the same time have main and all mirrors feeding a shared torrent from which mintupdate would fetch updated packages?

    Edit by Clem: The user would need to be aware that he’s uploading data, but technically it’s a neat idea.

  92. Michael good idea about seeding the packages like Clem said the user would need to be aware they are doing because some people have have limited bandwidth each month and they could not do it, but good idea

  93. HA! now that the repositories work – upgrading from last iso is easy. BUT upgrade apt as 3rd step (immediately after updating the updater) before the rest. reboot. sudo apt-get update. sudo apt-get upgrade. then go back to the update manager after.

  94. I cleared update manager selections and selected everything beginning with apt. if you are on pack 3 it probably doesn’t matter.

  95. @ 15.Jose – Fedora16 installs well and its gnome3 is great … but its like a kids toy and you’ll soon be bored and wonder why its so controlling. I installed it yesterday after trouble with LMDE repositories and I was impressed and dissapointed at the same time. Re-installed LMDE (from last iso) today – upgrading is smooth but apt needed to be done first ??

  96. i cant wait for cd release. clem how come Cinnamon wasn’t default?

    Edit by Clem: Cinnamon is a great project and I’ve no doubt it’s going to seduce many people out there, but first, it’s got to prove itself (unlike MATE which is following in the steps of the already-most-popular Gnome 2 desktop), second it doesn’t work well on all GPU chipsets (unlike MATE which works everywhere), third it’s different and it breaks with the past… so even though many people might enjoy it, if I forget I’m a Cinnamon dev. and I put my Mint hat, I have to value continuity and expectations and give people what they want, and most people want Gnome 2, some aren’t even aware it’s gone yet. In the short time between Mint 12 and now, Cinnamon has gathered a lot of momentum and MATE has been completely underestimated. I still hear people go for Gnome Fallback and disregard MATE as an option. So I think it’s important we put emphasis on MATE here, make it clear to everybody that despite its new name Gnome 2 is back, that it works well, that it supports Compiz, that it looks just like it looked before and that we’re able to continue building great Mint releases on top of it. And then in the background, for those interested, yes.. there is the beautiful and promising Cinnamon there as well… it’s new and different.. to the novice, it’s not a change, it’s an extra.

  97. Clem, as a LMDE user since early on, I just want to thank you and your team once again for your fine work.
    For the system I used to try out the update on, I had 1119 updates with a total of 1471 files to download and install. Whoa! I threw caution to the wind and went with the update rather than waiting for the new spin to come out — granted, with your server issues it did take a couple days to get them all to down load, but they finally did all make it.
    So, here I am on the other side with a major update that didn’t just frak the shit out of my system. Color me impressed.

    Now, I just have to retrain myself on the intricacies of this new GUI. Damn you young kids and your progress … 😉

    Anyway, thanks for the time and effort. In the next week or two I’ll send you another donation. I have no problem paying for good software!

    Thank you Clem and the rest of your team!

    Edit by Clem: Thanks Peter. That new GUI is Gnome Shell. It’s radically different.. people either love it or hate it 🙂 Either way, it should be a lot of fun to discover. Don’t hesitate to try “cinnamon” as well, and of course you’ve got “mate-desktop-environment” in case you want to go back to the same desktop you previously had.

  98. Clem, I have one doubt. Please answer me..

    Is that possible to have Cinnamon without the Gnome3? Or Cinnamon needs Gnome3 to work?

    And, is there any plan to have an Cinnamon desktop independent from Gnome 3?

    Edit by Clem: You can actually install Cinnamon and run it without most of Gnome 3 or even Nautilus.. so technically we could make it more independent going forward, it just doesn’t really make sense right now to do so. Cinnamon handles the interface, the layer of the desktop you interact with.. except the background, desktop icons and the file browser which are handled by Nautilus. Going forward, it’s hard to say… it really depends on the direction taken by Gnome 3. At the moment Gnome 3 is a good base for Cinnamon and the resulting desktop is something we’re happy with. If tomorrow Gnome 3 lose critical features we need, or if they deviate in a way that only suits Gnome Shell we’d either use another desktop underneath Cinnamon, or we’d fork Gnome itself or we would make our own. Whatever happens we’ll always do what makes the most sense for us in terms of what we want to achieve and the quality we expect from the desktops we support/develop within Linux Mint.

  99. Linux Mint with gnome 2 was my favorite linux distro, now with MATE, cinnamon, gnome3 im very disappointed, so now im burning debian install dvd => back to the roots. Anyway thanks for all and good luck with LMDE.

    Edit by Clem: Thanks. Please give us more feedback as to what you miss in MATE 1.2 in comparison to Gnome 2.

  100. OK. Well, I have to say that I really hope that You and your team take Cinnamon a new full and independent DE.

    Any date for the new ISOs?

  101. I just installed the update and had my first real look at the gnome shell. I admire their courage for pushing the envelope, but this particular envelope is as counter-intuitive to me as a desktop user as I’ve ever seen. Then I went and got cinnamon. I just wanted to say thank you for your efforts. You took all the good stuff about gtk3 and made it not just usable, but very appealing and intuitive. Well done… I’m really impressed.

  102. Linux Mint with gnome 2 was my favorite linux distro, now with MATE, cinnamon, gnome3 im very disappointed, so now im burning debian install dvd => back to the roots. Anyway thanks for all and good luck with LMDE.

    Edit by Clem: Thanks. Please give us more feedback as to what you miss in MATE 1.2 in comparison to Gnome 2.

    MATE maybe looks like gnome 2 but its not gnome 2, somethimes mate didnt react on mouse click on main panel, somethimes it worked, on my laptop (acer aspire 5720z) gnome2 works nice & smooth, but with MATE ive experienced some lags and weird behavior across the system, its not exactly like with good old gnome, yeah its about feeling from it, or maybe simply i am too old for that 😉
    (yes i tried them all=> cinnamon – too big fonts everywhere but too small icons in main panel? useless, gnome3 – why is icons in activity menu too BIG and unsorted? same thing under gnome2 i made with 2-3 mouse clicks but with gnome3 click => searching => click => searching… round and round an theres more bad things)
    Surely in future i try Linux Mint again…
    sorry for bad english im form czech republic

  103. I don’t want to try gnome 3. I just need cinnamon.
    If I do not install cinnamon before upgrade I would boot into gnome 3 as you said. If I install cinnamon and then upgrade my LMDE what would happen?

    When I should install “cinnamon”? before upgrade or after upgrade?

  104. Very interesting, especially the comment Edits.
    Having failed to get satisfaction from the older LMDE when installed to a WD My Passport Essential, I’ll take the tip and wait for the dvd iso before trying again, although LM13 or even LM14 may be a better bet ?
    I have similarly tried LM12 which isn’t as good as 32bit ZorinOS in my opinion, although added Cinnamon was promising.
    I have bought some time by replacing trusty LM10 with Zorin, so roll on LM13 or LM14, but as said, I will try new LMDE isos when available.

  105. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY STABLE MINT DEBIAN SYSTEM???

    After 6 hours of downloading and installing an update that I didn’t even want. I no longer have a system I can even read the menus. All the drop down menus and the top task bar have missing letters. And there isn’t any way of shutting down either, it only goes into sleep mode.

    What are the chances of getting this fixed or returning my system to some functionality?

    Edit by Clem: This is Gnome Shell, please read the content of the blog post, it’s all explained.

  106. aargh! ran into another issue (upgrade from last iso)
    dpkg: error processing debian-system-adjustments (–configure)

    saw a post about it on the pack3 update so i hope this helps someone who is stuck somewhere between gnome2 and 3

    Find package libglib2.0-0 & libglib2.0-bin select and install
    (right click on screen and use terminal)

    this is not well tested! yes and wait for new iso’s.

  107. Installed and upgraded all went smooth. Only upgraded part took time as others said. As I already have Mint-12, so I am familiar with Cinnamon and Gnome-3. For a change on first look in LMDE, to me Gnome Shell in its original (without extensions) looks good. How long can’nt say as I agree with others that one gets bored with Gnome 3. I did’nt try MATE, but thinking of giving it a chance, as in Mint-12 the version is lower, just to see how much it changed. In the end I would say that I am still missing Gnome-2 and Mint Menu.
    Any way great work.

  108. Forgot to tell that Last time when I installed KDE in LMDE sound problems were there and I was not able to make sound work properly. I am not that expert. Being a KDE fan I am definitely gon’na try LMDE-KDE again. Hope it works this time.

  109. Err http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/main muffin-common all 1.0.2-lmde1
    403 Forbidden
    Err http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/main libmuffin0 i386 1.0.2-lmde1
    403 Forbidden
    Err http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/main gir1.2-muffin-3.0 i386 1.0.2-lmde1
    403 Forbidden
    Failed to fetch http://packages.linuxmint.com/pool/main/m/muffin/muffin-common_1.0.2-lmde1_all.deb 403 Forbidden
    Failed to fetch http://packages.linuxmint.com/pool/main/m/muffin/libmuffin0_1.0.2-lmde1_i386.deb 403 Forbidden
    Failed to fetch http://packages.linuxmint.com/pool/main/m/muffin/gir1.2-muffin-3.0_1.0.2-lmde1_i386.deb 403 Forbidden

  110. @ Clem:

    Differences between Gnome 2 and MATE.

    I miss the easy way to activate Compiz that I have in my all time FAVORITE – Mint 10! (The best Mint ever made)

    This is by right-click at the desktop and select “Change deskop background” -> “Visual effects”. Now I can get access to “Simple Compiz Config settings”

    This possibility was already dropped in Mint 11.

    I don,t feel Compiz is only eye-candy, it’s very useful. (The super-key plus mouse-scrolling is fantastic and of course the cube!)

    /Sven

  111. In my opinion MATE wins the game for now.
    Please do not cease to support MATE, at least until you have advanced cinnamon to the point that it provides equal functionality and user friendliness.
    Thank you for the great effort.

  112. First of all, thanks for the updates, and I really appreciate the efforts you’ve taken (by announcing about server problems) and the efforts you are taking (by working round the clock to keep servers running).

    On the other hand, it is a good thing that servers are flooded – it means that lot of people (more than your expectations) are making the updates 🙂

    I’m facing issues like very slow updates (it takes few minutes to executed `apt-get update`). Also, in the middle of execution of `apt-get dist-upgrade` all of a sudden I get that some servers are not working (e.g. 404 page not found etc.).

    So, is it temporary issue, or should I give up for a couple of days and then try updating?

    Thanks again.

  113. LOW priority:

    Oh, fun! (Not the kind that openSUSE advises when installation is done.)

    Katya installed, stable; typing this from the LMDE Live CD. HD is using a GPT. Rebooted after deleting Lisa GNOME (dual boot), which I know had a GRUB subdirectory. That was Absolutely Not Smart. As I recall, #sudo grub-update (or update-grub?) command worked apparently OK before shutdown.

    I still have a partition, mystery filetype, with the flag “bios-grub”, just about certain. Size is 975 MiB, iirc.

    Expected more from the newer GRUB.

    Tried flagging Katya ( / ) as bootable; no luck.

    Rebooted a few hours ago:

    grub-rescue>

    Oh, fun.

    Parted Magic (Still using ver. 11.11.11) was quite handy.
    Searched for a while to try to find command list for grub-rescue.
    No luck. Amazing what does /not/ work — almost everything, including [help].

    [ls] and [set], no params, provide crucial info., and
    the [prefix= ] and [root= ] commands (with parameters) are accepted.
    I’m not assuming that the gpt partition numbers mean anything elsewhere; been burned too often by partition numbering/lettering.

    Found this:
    preview.tinyurl.com/85g8wwl
    Basically, it sets up using [chroot] to execute some critical grub commands.

    Will be trying it out using the LMDE Live CD. Parted Magic did its best, but some commands weren’t found.

    Not asking for help, yet, and might try the Newbie Forum instead of cluttering here (I do, however, appreciate the help I recently got).

    I see lots of new messages; will go read them.

    Best,
    [nb]

  114. Just read through more-recent messages. Clem and crew surely had a trial, with all the interest in Update 4. Sometimes, Life is not all peaches and cream. My condolences, and great appreciation for what you’re doing! Must remember to donate. 🙂

    While my machine is obsolescent (although I read here about much-older ones), I do have a fast, affordable optical fiber connection (25 Mb/s symmetrical, and will probably upgrade to 35 Mb/s at minimal cost). This could help seed BitTorrent nicely. Intriguing idea to distribute/mirror interactive upgrades via torrents. (Can you imagine a reliable APT system that fetches by torrent instead of from a server? Seems like a variety of cloud computing.)

    Nice going, and best of luck!
    [nb]

  115. Update servers seem to be very very slow again this morning, what a pain. Glad that the US got a good connection last night though. Can’t imagine there is an excess of 1,000 users looking to update to UP4 as we speak?

  116. Going at 350kbps as we speak, much better! I guess I should learn how to be patient, sorry for the rant!

  117. I think the bittorrent idea has merit: it fits nicely in a networked organization. If Mint’s falls victim to its own success there are just a few choices left: leave it as is and live with the issues we’re experiencing now or innovate. The bittorrent protocol has proven its use and I suppose large part of the community would love to participate in this great project (well, I would).
    Just out of curiosity: has apt-torrent been done yet, are there any developers that has been experimenting with this?

  118. @Nicholas Bodley
    “[..] Intriguing idea to distribute/mirror interactive upgrades via torrents. (Can you imagine a reliable APT system that fetches by torrent instead of from a server? Seems like a variety of cloud computing.)”

    There is no APT implementation using torrents but libtorrent-dev is available so extending the current network implementation in mintupdate to use torrents is not rocket science. I could imagine the following scenario: When installing LM* for the first time the user is asked whether updates should default to using torrents and at the same time explain the pros and cons. Also there should be a user configuration allowing to switch between client/server and torrent when ever this change is wanted.

    The cloud you are referring to is basically constituted by any user using torrent updates and the feets provided by the main server and mirrors.

    Using torrents for updates IMHO would have prevented the situation seen yesterday since everybody participating in the torrent cloud would have provided bandwidth for everybody – a clear win-win situation.

  119. I finally managed to upgrade to UP4. 6 hours of downloading and 1h for installing.

    Installed Cinnamon before reboot, but… it didn’t worked. Went to bed, and this morning I found the solution. Forget to stop starting Compiz at boot.

    Now everything is working well, Cinnamon seems great. UP4 solved my problem of font and sound. Thanks Clem and thanks to the team. Great Distro !

    I just see a big problem at this moment 😀 : the del key should really delete selected files. Ctrl + del is counter intuitive.

    Thank you so much again. Was afraid of Gnome Shell, now I’m like a kid with a new toy.

  120. @Schoelje
    “I think the bittorrent idea has merit: it fits nicely in a networked organization[..]” Yes, and it would be easier for people with a home flat-rate solution to participate. Hosting a mirror for client/server access is more network intensive than must home users can afford.

  121. @Schoelje

    Some time ago I tested how’s apt-p2p working (distributed transfers based on BitTorrent and DHT). The main problem is that for EVERY single little DEB package, a new transfer has to occur (DHT query, peer contact, torrent info retrieval, and the piece download). It does make sense for big pkg like LibreOffice or VirtualBox, but for every lib* and plugins it’s painfully slow (less than 10 kB/s, for an Ubuntu natty). And involves lots of overhead.

    The best way to me is making a single torrent for the full repository (it is not changing so often, so the torrent keeps alive and up to date for long time). Then, a special mintupdate could select the needed packages from the torrent and download them (so it doesn’t need to download the full repository -just what it needs according to what the user has installed).

    By default mintupdate should be set to “leecher”: some people do have limited traffic, and upstream is counted. Plus firewalls could block. If the user is aware, he could activate the “seeder” mode, allowing mintupdate to try to open ports with uPnP (or informing if it fails, user having to forward ports manually in the NAT router) and then announcing itself in the DHT as seeding the packages it has.

    There’s still an issue: restrictive firewalls (the ones who only let HTTP traffic through, typically wireless hotspots). In that case, a HTTP fallback should still be available. But this could concern only a few people, nothing worrying for a normal HTTP server.

    But for sure, this would be a very very powerful update distribution system 🙂 No wonder Twitter and Facebook use BitTorrent technology for their internal server updates.

  122. “The best way to me is making a single torrent for the full repository”. Exactly. Convert the Release file to a single torrent and you are set to go.

  123. As @Michael and @Schoelje said bittorrent idea is good. So guys how to do it. Why not make some changes in Update Manager itself. I always wanted to have the Update Manager like torrent, where I can control the speed of internet also, just like Utorrent, where I can specify a bandwith of uploading and downloading. Because while downloading updates, it become really difficult to do anything else on the net simultaneously (specially if download is huge in mb). Net becomes too slow, as downloading takes up maximum of the bandwith. May be some tweak in the Update Manager is required.

  124. @RTS INFORMATIQUE
    Very good points and I understand you positively see possibilities there as do I. I’m not a Linux expert (I once contributed to the MonoTorrent project, but that’s been a while) and I suppose the UpdateManager is Clem’s work so I’m curious what his thoughts are on this matter and if it would fit into the Mint Vision.

  125. @164 michael: Forgot to say I also have flat rate (lucky, for once!).
    A while back, I seeded over 21 GB of Lisa, and was still going pretty strong. Would love to help, but don’t yet know how to create a torrent (and am not sure I should).

    Fascinating to read about using torrents for updates and such.

    =+=+=+=

    SOLVED: #159, Nicholas Bodley Says: April 7th, 2012 at 4:27 am
    LOW priority: (etc., about scary [grub-rescue> ] prompt)

    With the Mint “LMDE” 201109 live cd, used the chroot procedure in
    preview.tinyurl.com/85g8wwl (Previewing, you should see “opensource-sidh” near the beginning). Unlike Parted Magic, where you’re essentially root, I did start with [sudo su] to reach root mode, then proceeded.

    Some commands took a few seconds to finish, but I’m back to normal.
    It was 13% scary…

    Recommendations welcome on which Mint forum to post this…

    —>> Significance of this is that if you have dual (or multi-) booted a Linux distro. that you don’t want any more, don’t casually delete its partition. Check to see whether something “GRUBby” lives there, first, and ask for help.

    What I went through is not for newbies, although I still need to learn some simple basics.

    Best,
    [nb]
    who disables operating systems (only his own)

  126. I guess I’m late to the party.
    Well, thank you Clem and all your team for the hard work and testing. Mint 12 LXDE was top notch, as was Mint 12 KDE. Linux Mint continues to stay at the top of my (rather large) list of distributions that I play with and enjoy using.
    I probably won’t have a chance to use LMDE until the end of May, but I do keep an eye on it.

    By the way, I discovered that Mint 12 was quite usable without KDE, GNOME 3, or Xfce. Perhaps if someone wants to create a community distro with LXDE, Fluxbox and Enlightenment, offering a slim but perfectly functional set of applications….

  127. @RTS INFORMATIQUE && @Clem
    I understand your reservation of apt-p2p (about performance) but I just read Cameron Dale’s paper (http://www.camrdale.org/Resume/apt-p2p.pdf) on the subject and I think it deserves our attention. It is well thought and investigated. Sure, there are issues but I’m convinced he too would appreciate a large scale test the Mint community could deliver.
    The question remains whether or not to pursue the idea (after the storm has settled down).

  128. Feedback – If I play VLC or Banshee and increase the volume from VLC or Banshee the system volume goes up tremendously, even if you increase it a little. Next just wondering how to switch off Banshee in Gnome (without extensions its a problem, now I see the use of extensions, enough for original look). Only xkill seems to function for closing Banshee. Could not install MATE or any other application due to server problems, which seems to be still there.

  129. In this moment the repository is very, very, very slow. I mean the speeds are modem like. The mirrors are not sync-ed. I am getting errors and disconnections, upgrade did not finish successfully and I am afraid to reboot.

    I think someone should put a warning on the beginning of the page.

  130. Yes, it seems that the repository servers are under heavy load atm, d/l speed is close to 2000 B/sec, while some repositories are unreachable.

  131. Still not possible to upgrade. For two days now. very slow download and after all the message “can not get all the packages” (something like that).

    Somebody know how to upgrade without problems?

  132. @JanG && others with upgrade problems
    It’s obvious that LMDE has become victim of its own success. That, I think, is a very good thing but that doesn’t solve the upgrade problems users are having in the past few days.
    I’m an old geezer and learned some time ago that patience is virtue: wait a couple of days and the problems will be resolved after which a more permanent solution have to be thought of.

  133. That’s for sure. But waiting is the biggest problem, who can wait when Linux Mint comes with something new :-)))

  134. Did virtual machine re-installation and subsequent upgrade successfully. Only problem was caused VirtualBox Guest Additions. Sorted that by running the following as root to remove them and restarting:
    /opt/[VboxAddonsFolder]/uninstall.sh
    Reinstated Guest Additions afterwards.

  135. Repository is still extremely slow.

    The update of mintUpdate I did today took almost a couple of minutes. After that, downloading the complete list of updates takes several minutes (with very low download rate)

    I think everybody should wait until the rep is in a better shape

  136. Done … Wow, must say it looks good … now to clean up and re-learn.

    @Clem make this note please – if using last iso – install libglib2.0-0 (and possibly apt) first. then just be patient with the servers.

  137. Last Night i downloaded and installed Update 4 for my work laptop. (Old Dell Inspiron 6000, 1.73Ghz, 2GB RAM, 40GB HD) The update took a while but went very smoothly. So far, everything is working well. Thanks again for all of the hard work. It’s really appreciated. Looking forward to Linux Mint 13 for my home computer!

  138. Even downloading the repositories is still slow atm.

    The mirrors were faster, but I got multiple failed dl’s on the packages on them.

    Don’t want to drain resources on the servers, I’ll try again tomorrow.

  139. MATE and Cinnamon will be separated in due time, maybe the ISO release after this one. But for now, considering that it’s their first time included in a release, it’s important for both of them to get exposure and for people to have an easy way of trying both (rather than trying out both ISOs).

    Also, will there be an additional note for multi-core computers when the ISO is out?

  140. W: GPG error: http://debian.linuxmint.com testing InRelease: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY AED4B06F473041FA
    W: GPG error: http://debian.linuxmint.com testing/updates InRelease: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY AED4B06F473041FA
    W: GPG error: http://debian.linuxmint.com testing Release: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 07DC563D1F41B907

    The end errors I got looked like this. I also found that my sources list was in a folder called sources.list.d not sources.list. Just letting everyone know, as always thanks for the continued development on mint, my favorite distro by far. Keep up the good work.

  141. I installed update pack 4 today. My Realtek 8188CE wireless card stopped working and would not reinstall. I installed the liquorix kernel and was able to get the wireless to work. I’m also having trouble with my Brother HL-5370DW printer. When I try to open the printer settings I get “Error: Options ‘printer-resolution’ has value ‘(unknown IPP tag)’ and cannot be edited.” I reinstalled the printer and get this error with the standard kernel and the liquorix kernel. I’m going to play around with it more. If I can’t figure it out, I’ll create a forum topic. I’m running xfce by the way.

  142. sorry if already is there my issue, ando for the bad english..

    i tryed to update my fresh install Xfce version but some pacages didn’t install and now i have to use the startx command after logging in in terminal mode, and my network indicator is gone(but network is working)…

    and cant start mintupdate to try to finnish the update to the pack4…

    is there a command to do it via terminal? sorry for the truble 🙂 i’m a noob on LMDE…

  143. First time checking out LMDE (or any linuxmint, for that matter), it looks nice, although i can’t deal with these repos! My download speed won’t go above 15 kB/s… Are there any faster repos for users in the USA?

  144. Congratulations to all the LMDE fans for the new upgrade. I moved away from LM last year but still interested seeing how things are in the LM world and I’m glad to see LM hitting the #1 spot on distrowatch.

    Is been rough, very rough for Clem and the team triying to bring some sense into this mess called Gnome3. However it seems there is some light coming in the next Ubuntu 12.04 release, it appears Canonical will release “Genome Classic” which will be available as alternate to Unity. I’m guessing that will make things much easier for LM to mintified it and bring back a fantastic LM UI.

    For now I’m sticking to KDE base distro, it is been fabulous to me, the best OS I ever had by far.

    All the best to all of you.

  145. I noted that the repositories “http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest testing” are very slow.

    Is it normal because there are many people downloading the Update Pack?
    Or, is it a problem with the LMDE’s servers?

  146. @Manny: Being KDE fan can’nt stop myself asking from you, which KDE distro you are taking about and using. Thanks in advanced and would be waiting for your reply.

  147. Thanks to the mint team for this brilliant LMDE distro. Unfortunately, some update error destroyed my LMDE install so I had to erase it (I could save my work on an external drive, hopefuly). Anyway, I will reinstall LMDE once the UP4 iso is out.

    And don’t give up on XFCE ! LMDE is the only lightweight, reactive and acceptable distro that can run smoothly on my EEEPC 1201PN ! Netbooks NEED lightweight desktop centric out-of-the-box ready distros like LMDE !

    (Yep, I don’t like LXDE for now. Not fonctionnal enough to my taste.)

  148. @bobby: Kubuntu 11.10 KDE 4.8.2. Probably there are better ones but since I installed it back in November I have no had any issues at all, rock solid. It has been the best Linux experience I ever had. Again, there are others that might be as good or better still, for example LM-KDE12 which a heard good things about it too. KDE shines in its own merits really and getting better all the time.

    Personally I would prefer using LM-KDE because LM community is great, the best and provides good help in the forums. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, KDE is not a priority to this distribution. Mind you, is not for Canonical either. Will see how good the next LTS will be, if it turns to be as good as the current one it will be just great.

    Cheers!

  149. @Manny : I totally agree with you on your second paragraph. I also reached almost there where you are. I also tried Kubuntu 12.04 and Unity 12.04. Kubuntu is way ahead from Ubuntu in terms of speed etc., but right now its not stable. Will wait for final release of Kubuntu 12.04 and then will give another try to it.

    LM-Kde and Netrunner are all Kubuntu. Netrunner although little refreshing but gives feeling of Windows-7 and lags behind in terms of speed from Kubuntu. Well this is my feeling.

    Anyway thanks for reply. Regards.

  150. after i change the sources.list, then run sudo apt-get update i got these error:
    W: GPG error: http://debian.linuxmint.com testing Release: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY AED4B06F473041FA
    W: GPG error: http://debian.linuxmint.com testing/updates Release: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY AED4B06F473041FA
    W: GPG error: http://debian.linuxmint.com testing Release: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 07DC563D1F41B907
    please, help

  151. Feedback : Nvidia driver is not installed properly it asks for some dependencies. Workaround is enabling default source list of Debian and then installing. This way seems working, but not perfectly. Seems I have to mess with Mesa as per instructions (which I am not good at).

    The fonts at terminal, if I use it looks totally cluttered and at the rest of the desktop fonts are fine.

    It seems there are some network problem in all the distros right now. If I try to connect to the net and from there to any site it takes few seconds extra to start and seems slow. If I configure the network manually interestingly the problem gets solved. Don’nt know why is it happening .

  152. Is this a possible way to get around bandwidth/server issues for an update pack: distribute the update pack as an ISO via bit-torrent, and then use apt-cdrom at the computer to install it?

  153. My only gripe is that the installer needs to support creation of a home directory on another drive. Currently a pain in the ass to move a home directory on an asus eeepc with the two ssd’s (one soldered to the motherboard).

  154. Why was the synchronization between the server and the mirrors halted? Doesn’t it make more sense to prioritize the traffic between the server and the mirrors (over the normal user traffic). Because in the end, with more synced mirrors, more users will have a better upgrading experience.

    Edit by Clem: It’s arguable. The problem is that rsync needs 266GB per mirror and that is extremely slow. We also don’t know the status of the mirrors. At the moment we’re rsyncing towards a secondary server we’re setting up while serving as many people as possible. The bottleneck is the IO on the HDD, the bandwidth is fine.

  155. I really don’t understand all the people asking for different iso’s for their favourit DE. If you want KDE, take whatever LM version you have and KDE is in the repos. Can’t be easier really.

    I would like to see a bare bones netinstall iso though! Lot easier to add the applications you need than removing those you don’t need.

  156. Hi – just thinking that I’m not sure where my current Grub menu is… In fact I might have managed to install it in a couple of locations by accident when I went to LMDE all those long happy months ago.

    Is there an easy way to find it?

    Cheers,
    Pete

  157. I love it. I just replaced my hard drive when it crashed so it is great to have new LMDE update come out. The only problem I had was with the very slow update. Finished this morning. Thanks you. I may have to try cinnamon since Gnome Shell is pain just like it was with Fedora

  158. I have installed the UP 4.
    I have an IntelHD video card. Everything works OK after UP4 installation, but I have the following problem:
    – Gnome Shell, i.e. the Gnome3, has problems when scrolling in browsers, PDF viewers, etc. Sometimes scrolling is laggy – it freezes for a few seconds and doesn’t move at all for a while. The CPU does not show any spikes at this time, according to “top”.
    – On the same machine, Cinnamon works fast and without any problems with scrolling

    Does anyone else has the same problems with scrolling in Gnome 3?
    What are the reasons for it?
    Is it a configuration issue? How it can be solved?

  159. @poodle : taking the main iso, installing Gnome and then installing KDE from the repro… Not the best way to do it. That’s why Mint Team releases a KDE version (without Gnome libraries & soft)…

  160. Ok, Installed MATE and KDE, server and repos are working now.

    MATE : Recordmydesktop is working fine in MATE but not in Cinnamon. Cinnamon panel becomes invisible while recording, so have to use ctrl+alt+backspace. In MATE change desktop background “scale” function is not working properly. I would say that speed of MATE is very good. Mint Menu is working perfectly. Sound problem as reported earlier is there (from any music or video player). Terminal font problem as I said earlier is not there in MATE, MATE Terminal font is ok. MATE panel can be placed anywhere, I can add panel also. Any application can be tagged to panel and can be placed at anywhere at the panel. In Compiz only snapping windows I could mange to work, not other things.

    LMDE-KDE – is looking fine. Little spacing problems in two-three setting menus. Otherwise, its working great, all the effects are working fine. Lags behind in speed if I compare it to MATE and Cinnamon (just a bit).

    So now after installing MATE, Cinnamon and KDE, in all desktops menus are having duplicate entries and plus the entries of applications of other desktops. Except Cinnamon nvidia driver is working fine in MATE and KDE. Rest on further exploring

  161. To Mint team:

    At this point I am running Fedora Linux instead of Mint Debian. I think you have to look forwards. Nobody likes Gnome 3 but the change will go on.

    I choose now to getting used to Gnome 3. That means I don’t want other opltions like Mate or so.

    What I want to say is this;
    Please think about the roots of systems and make also a Debian version with only Gnome 3.
    For sure in the furure people want that. No adjustments, no special versions but just plain, the roots.

    Hope my Englisch is good enough to give my thoughts…

    Thanks, Jan (still a Mint lover)

  162. @JanG: There are no roots in Gnome3. Not to mention, you can install that crap anywhere, incl. Mint. Not really sure what you are asking for.

  163. I mean a Mint (debian) version with just Gnome 3, plane, without mate or Cinnamon…

    Just as plain as possible…

    (I don’t like Gnome 3 also but I know this change will go on, so why all that work to make it look like the past…)

  164. @JanG : Gnome-shell is installed in LMDE as a default system. Today I had to install cinnamon but not Gnome-Shell…

    You should think before speaking. Have a nice life in Fedora world. That’s a great distro. I used it 2 years ago at school…

  165. @emmanuel: I’m absolutely not criticising the LM team for releasing different iso’s with different DE’s. But all the users asking for and iso with their favourite DE surprises me. As do the users who choose their distro based on the default applications and the default DE. A linux distro can be whatever you make of it yourself.

  166. Glad to see Mint Debian getting some love. It is my favorite Mint distro and I think it will continue to grow in popularity. Looking forward to trying the new iso with Cinnamon! Thanks Clem!

  167. Lots of minor problems so far…

    As a python user, I had to reinstall everything I had previously installed with pip and easy_install

    Cinnamon — It’s very pretty, but I cannot figure out how to prevent my laptop from suspending when I close the lid. The options are missing!

    MATE — very nice, since I personally liked LMDE + Gnome 2 a lot, but a lot of things don’t seem to work out of the box. Keyring no longer works and the CPU freq applet doesn’t respond. Is this because I’m upgrading rather than doing a fresh install?

    Sadly, getting work done trumps spending the time to get everything working again, so I’m going back until some of these bugs are sorted out (thanks partimage!)

    Edit by Clem: Having both gnome-keyring and mate-keyring installed creates conflicts in dbus.. the best is simply to remove mate-keyring and that will make MATE use gnome-keyring instead.

  168. after successful update to update pack 4 now:
    1) bash terminal is not in color -> I don’t know how to solve it?
    2) auto update do not work properly -> I solved it by editing /etc/gdm3/daemon.conf manually
    3) there was a error during shutdown: unable to unmount /run which is solved by deleting that directory and creating another one with mkdir command.
    4) log viewer do not show anything at all -> any solution
    5) cinamon freezed once -> I have no idea why

  169. libcanberra-gtk3-module
    should be installed to remove this error
    Gtk-Message: Failed to load module “canberra-gtk-module”

  170. @ Clem: Thanks for the reply (ie: #147). Although I wasn’t clear in my post, once the update was finished, I promptly installed Cinnamon, and that is the new GUI I am talking about learning.
    I did install Mate to check it out, and although it takes me back to my Gnome 2 days, I am going with Cinnamon.
    My only suggestion/request at this point is a dedicated Cinnamon forum. I think it would be incredibly useful.
    FYI: My thoughts on my Cinnamon adventure — http://larsonsworld.com/?q=taxonomy/term/207

  171. After a slightly nervous upgrade last night (wasn’t sure where my grub list was and couldn’t access the command line during installation) I’m now loving my new LMDE/Cinnamon setup. Beautiful, a few rough edges but very usable and good looking.

    The upgrade process and my unnecessary anxiety made me thing that it’s possible the least stable part of my LMDE setup is… me.

    Thanks Clem and the team.

  172. With a bit of patience, i did the upgrade last night. I used apt-get update until I had no errors, and then apt-get dist-upgrade two or three times until I didn’t receive any message of missing packets. After that, I proceed to the upgrade without problems. But when I rebooted, I ended with a tty black screen. It was not the first time, something similar had occurred to me with UP3. So I used the sgfxi to reinstall and upgrade the nvidia drivers and now everything seems ok.
    Right now, I’m concentrating in Mate, cause cinnamon freezed with just an attempt to put a shortcut on the panel; but I will return and explore it, because I’m convinced it will be the future.
    Anyway, I found fantastic to have so many choices when I boot the system. I am sure that Mint will be more and more the number one Linux distro! Congratulations, clem and team! You are fantastic!
    And I must tell everyone that I was one of the first to install LMDE, and I’m running several machines with LMDE and never needed a fresh install. It’s a rolling distro all right!

  173. I’m a big LMDE fan and have been using it as my main laptop OS since its initial release. After experiencing a lot of trouble downloading UP4, I finally got it. It seemed to update okay, but after a reboot all I got was a blank screen. Recovery mode yields nothing different. My system is totally hosed at the moment, so I eagerly await the re-spin ISO to try again with a clean install (saving /home of course). So I’m trying to be optimistic and patient, but I am not very happy just now.

  174. I’m waiting for all the hub-bub to die down so that I can upgrade. I started with Linux Mint 7 and switched to LMDE as soon as it was available. The clincher for me was the rolling distro concept. I hated having to re-install newer versions + all the software + tweaking the software from scratch each time. LMDE + clonezilla is awesome. The only problems I have is the mic on Acer Aspire AO722.

    I’ve been anti-windows for a while now and I’ve been anti-mac since 2nd grade (I’m almost 40). Now if I could only get rid of my windows partition forever.

    I’ll be making a donation very soon.

    Thank you.

  175. Hi, I had saved notes sticky note in the gnome panel, but when upgraded to Gnome 3 they all disappeared. Is there any way to retrieve it on them?

  176. Finished the upgrade from a fresh install of the 64 bit ISO. It took hours and hours to finish but my system is up, running, and stable even after installing the Nvidia drivers. Thanks for the release!

  177. i completed the update today, and everything worked perfectly, except all my web browsers are broken — they all (Chromium, FF etc.) crash loading pages. Anyone know why?

  178. You guys are seriously badass! Tackling so much stuff at once, N>3 DEs (lost count), kernels, upgrade paths, server resources, forums. Even if I would not like your choices, I would stick this one through. All the best!

  179. Conclusion – Some minor problems as reported earlier are there. In my view only Desktop working perfectly with all effects on etc. is LMDE-KDE (I know only a small percentage of people like KDE). The only problem in LMDE-KDE that some menus/ applications like Update Manger and Firefox and one and two other setting menu are looking just a bit weird, not like KDE or Gnome. Perhaps due to installation of KDE over Gnome.

    The Speed of LMDE in all desktops MATE, Cinnamon and KDE is very good. Much better than Ubuntu/ Kubuntu based ISOs. And KDE is having very good wallpapers, thanks for that. Just a thought for your Clem if LMDE-KDE is working that great (to me it almost beats LM 12-KDE in every aspect), isn’t it time to switch to LMDE-KDE as main KDE instead of Kubuntu based KDE. This way there won’nt be a 6 months release and you might be having much time to spare on other important aspects.

    Considering the speed and stability of LMDE-KDE and also the rolling release feature I am sticking to KDE for now. If the above minor problems are solved in LMDE-KDE it will be a very good combination of rolling + KDE.

    Its time to do my part of the job as I will also be making some donation. (Bobby is my nick name)

    Thanks for all the hard work. Regards – Bobby (Ashwani)

  180. I updated without thought or preparation. Result: an unsatisfactory dog’s breakfast where Gnome 3, Mate, and Cinnamon were not to my liking.
    I will try the new LMDE Xfce when it is released separately.
    In the meantime, I am using Xubuntu 11.10 on my main machine and Dream Linux 5 Xfce on my backup machine, both of which are very impressive.
    Xfce 4.8 serves my needs very well indeed.

    1. Quick update on LMDE:

      – The server is still really slow, many people go through the update but we’re still getting a massive amount of connections. The bottleneck was identified as being the hard drive itself… the disk simply can’t read that many files for that many people concurrently. There isn’t much we can do.. we’re setting up a second server to share the load and the next time we’re ready UP5, we’ll have multiple servers in places.

      – The implementation of the LMDE ISOs for Xfce and MATE/Cinnamon is finished. They should go into testing today.

  181. Good news about the new ISOs!
    I’m waiting for the XFCE one, because old kernel distros don’t boot on my new laptop.
    Thanks Mint team

  182. Funny thing happened to me, UP4 forgot to update my systems kernel, so I had to get it manually. Did this happen to anyone else or is this intentional behavior of the update pack? Shed some light! 😉

  183. Thank you Clem and all the LMDE team for this huge step forward!

    This is what I get in MATE when trying to maximize windows http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/9159/dimbas.png

    In both Gnome3 and Cinnamon I have issues with fglrx driver: windows move not smoothly but abruptly, video playback also behaves like streamed video with low frequency rate. This, however, doesn’t happen without fglrx turned on, but in this case the CPU goes crazy with all this 3D stuff. My Catalyst version is 12.2 (from repos), laptop HP G62, graphic card ATI HD 5470 1GB (but Catalyst Control Center thinks it is HD4200 256MB). Should I try to install Catalyst 12.3?

    (I know that the best solution is to throw this laptop away and buy a new one with NVidia card, but still =))

    Edit by Clem: I know Catalyst 12.1 works well with Cinnamon.. and I wasn’t aware of problems between fglrx and MATE. It’s possible there’s a regression in 12.2… or maybe it’s a problem with the version available in the repositories. I would give the upstream drivers a try, straight from the ATI website, starting with 12.3, then 12.1, then eventually 12.2.

  184. What a rightout mess…

    Upgraded a nearly fresh LMDE installation to pack 4. It seemed to work quite well but some idiotic program called gnome-session gets a CPU score of 5, needing 5x my Athlon64 3200+ 939 to function. Seems neither CTRL+ALT+Backspace nor CTRL+ALT+Shift+F1 work anymore, I had to SSH to my machine to put it in single user mode. There I found out, with aptitude, there are 269 packages ‘out of repo’, so unsupported. And mint-meta-common, -codec and -debian were removed by the upgrade.
    I think this makes it a wonder it survived through the reboot at all.

    Don’t start this upgrade unless you plan to make a day out of it!

    Edit by Clem: Ctrl+Alt+Backspace is set by debian-system-adjustments and it works in all three DEs. The meta packages aren’t necessary.. with that said you shouldn’t lose them with the upgrade, they don’t conflict with the base. From what you’re saying it looks like you’re using an obsolete mirror or something? Check your versions of these packages with http://packages.linuxmint.com.

  185. “The synchronization between the server and the mirrors was halted.”

    “We’re trying to set up a 2nd emergency update server to face the traffic.”

    So first you force people to use the one server.
    Then, when it gets overcrowded, you’re going to install a second.

    Edit by Clem: No, because our bottleneck is disk IO and rsync is killing the server right now… We opted to serve as many people as possible instead and it’s starting to work, most people got through the upgrade already and everything is slowly getting back to normal. We changed the number of rsync connections to 2 this morning. Just to put things into perspective the data pool is 266GB.

    Wouldn’t it be a bit easier on everyone when you actually put the mirror infrastructure to use?

  186. Woh.. Gnome 3 sux as hell..
    I was so worried.. but.. then I discover MATE..
    If u still want to have gnome 2 go with MATE!! 🙂
    GREAT JOB
    Cheers! 😉

  187. I like mate using it now, upgrade went well and the system is working fine.
    But the upgrade takes almost 2 GB of disk space, is there a list of GNOME applications that can be safely removed?
    Maybe a clean up application?
    Thanks

    Edit by Clem: Once you’re done with the upgrade, open a terminal and type “apt clean”.

  188. Theres a translation error in Spanish Update Manager. I don’t know where to submit it so I post it here.

    The button “Update Pack Info” was translated as “Actualizar Información del Paquete”, which back into English means “Update the Information of the Pack”. I think the proper translation is “Información sobre Paquete de Actualizaciones”, which would be understood as “Information about the Pack of Updates”.

    Although the translation is technically correct (the translator is not to blame), the context is very important, drastically, as you can see in this situation.

    The purpouse of that button is to get detailed information about the bundle of updates which are going to be applied, not to update the information about a pack. This leads to a serious misunderstanding in terms of usability.

    It took me along time to figure out what that button did until I saw it in its English version.

    Thank you.

  189. Updated today to UP4. After update finished the shutdown button didn’t work anymore so I exited X and rebooted from the console. After reboot gdm3 fails to start with some obscure error even Google doesn’t know about. So the mileage definitely varies…

    Edit by Clem: It might be something else, but just in case… when you see weird problems like this, check your HDD space. Many processes need to log what they’re doing and so they need a tiny bit of free space on the HDD.. when space runs out, the system starts doing really weird thing… one amongst many.. it won’t let you log in X 🙂 From the console you can type “df -h” to check your disk space, and “apt clean” to purge all the temporary files used by the upgrade.

  190. Hi !
    Thanks again for the great job.
    I’ve been a long time LM9KDE user, am currently a LM12KDE much satisfied user and would like to give LMDE KDE a try but don’t want to get any Gnome/Mate/Cinnamon on my system …
    Question : is there any chance we’ll see a LMDE KDE iso out any time ?

  191. LMDE, which came w/Gnome2 also allowed me to install e17 without any problems at all. And like many here, after update, login to system default (Mate, I am guessing?) is problematic. I have an older nvidia pci card~eGeforce FX 5200 w/128mb DDR. But I got no worries because enlightenment keeps runnin’ like the ™ bunny. Gnome sysmon reports 13.3% of 1.9 gb memory. This, or other lightweight wm’s are the best hedge against incompatibility.

  192. Broken Package for nvidia-glx-legacy-173xx.

    I was using LMDE XFCE with update pack3 with NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 AGP VGA card.
    It was working very well with the property driver nvidia-glx-legacy-173xx version 173.14.30. I had no problem to using XBMC with VDPAU 3D accelaration.

    I found the update pack 4 repository has the up-to-date XBMC
    I updated to UP 4 and now am facing broken package issue to install nvidia-kernel-legacy-173xx-dkms nvidia-glx-legacy-173xx.

    It is trying to install the version 173.14.30, yet indeed the version in the repository is 173.14.27, and have some missing depandencies.

    Can you please take a look?

    $sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx-legacy-173xx nvidia-kernel-legacy-173xx-dkms nvidia-kernel-legacy-173xx-source glx-alternative-nvidia libgl1-nvidia-legacy-173xx-glx libglx-nvidia-alternatives glx-alternative-mesa

    Reading package lists…
    Building dependency tree…
    Reading state information…
    nvidia-kernel-legacy-173xx-source is already the newest version.
    Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
    requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
    distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
    or been moved out of Incoming.
    The following information may help to resolve the situation:

    The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    glx-alternative-mesa : Breaks: libgl1-nvidia-legacy-173xx-glx (< 173.14.30-2) but 173.14.27-2 is to be installed
    Breaks: nvidia-glx-legacy-173xx (< 173.14.30-2) but 173.14.27-2 is to be installed
    glx-alternative-nvidia : Breaks: libgl1-nvidia-legacy-173xx-glx (< 173.14.30-2) but 173.14.27-2 is to be installed
    Breaks: nvidia-glx-legacy-173xx (< 173.14.30-2) but 173.14.27-2 is to be installed
    libgl1-nvidia-legacy-173xx-glx : Depends: libgl1-nvidia-alternatives but it is not going to be installed
    libglx-nvidia-alternatives : Breaks: nvidia-glx-legacy-173xx (< 173.14.30-2) but 173.14.27-2 is to be installed
    nvidia-glx-legacy-173xx : Depends: xorg-video-abi-6.0

  193. Well, I’m another happy LMDE UP4 user, successfully updated my system the same day the UP4 came out.
    I just wanted to drop a few lines for the LMDE team. I mean, Linux Mint is just awesome. My #1 desktop distro.
    Thank you so much Clem and Linux Mint team. Such an amazing job. I really appreciate the titanic effort specially on this update pack. Cinnamon is looking really good, so good that I’m leaving XFCE and making Cinnamon my #1 Desktop. Thank you so much guys!

  194. Got UP4 working! First attempts failed miserably, then reinstalled 201109, applied all updates, and all is well… mostly. I say mostly because although all the usual Mint goodies function as expected (great job as always, Clem and Co.!!!), Gnome 3 is horrible.

    I loved Gnome 2 (I tried various versions of KDE, LXDE, XFCE, Enlightenment, you name it), but this is just not good. Currently using the “Gnome Classic” settings, or whatever it is. Will try Cinnamon tomorrow, but I’m leaning toward switching to XFCE, I guess. Who are the fools behind Gnome who decided to change the way everything works, looks and feels, and alienate half of their user base? I want my screen space back, yet I can’t figure out how to get rid of the stupid, useless bottom bar, or how to hide the top bar, which is a piece of cake with Gnome 2, KDE, Windows, etc…. I hate to say it, but Gnome 3 is far less comfortable and functional than Windows 7, which actually works pretty well. THANK YOU for giving us other options!

  195. I’m another happy LMDE UP4 user. I had a couple of issues with Cinnamon (netspeed icon and network indicator applet drawn black on black, i.e. non shown but clickable) then switched to MATE.
    WOW! MATE is about 50% faster then Gnome2 and everything works fine!

    Hurray for Clem & the Linux Mint team!!!

  196. Hey Mint Team.
    Update done and i really like it.
    I use Gnome 3!It works nice and i hope you support Gnome 3 on, although most of the ppl here prefer Cinnamon or Mate.

  197. Edit by Clem: Once you’re done with the upgrade, open a terminal and type “apt clean”

    That solved the problem.

    Now I have 4 options at Login Mate,Cinnamon,Gnome classic and Gnome3
    With Mate I can be productive immediately
    Cinnamon requires some adoption but is very well done
    Gnome classic can be used if no other choice
    and Gnome3 is unusable for me

    Thanks for the great work

  198. @Clem (253): I was using an official mirror, but you decided to make all mirrors obsolete when they weren’t updated anymore. Instead of making the one main server unavailable, you decided to make all the other servers unusable and even breaking installations. Of course this makes the main server running hot when people aren’t only doing their updates, but are also trying to restore their broken installations they got from being a good user and selecting a mirror close to home.

    But that all doesn’t matter now, because I you dropped support for Nvidia 173.x.x which isn’t available in repo and the official version gives a nice segmentation fault after accepting the licence.

    The packages which break the meta packages were: gstreamer0.10-esd and gstreamer0.10-pitfdll which are required but unavailable. After I downloaded the debian versions I could reinstall the meta-codec thus the meta-debian again.

  199. *170
    emmanuel

    can you explain me please how to stop starting Compiz at boot to me two ?
    I think i have the same problem.
    I install cinnamon but when i try to go in it crash.
    Only gnome classic works for me but i don’t now how to disable compiz from startup,i was enable it from Gnome2 before UP 4.

    If anyone else can give me some help i would appreciate it very much. 🙂

  200. @TK: I have already pointed out the gstreamer0.10-esd nonsense a couple of days ago. Still absolutely no idea why this years-obsolete junk appears in depends.

  201. manny@205,

    i don’t know if you tried LM-KDE yet, but it is really nice. there are little things like synaptic, and other such familiarities that i prefer about it over Kubuntu. i felt like it was more complete out of the box, but not too much. it still hasn’t reached primary status for me, as i didn’t like the way nvidia drivers were working. 3d graphics were not smooth at all. i tried updating to the very latest drivers, and of course got a black screen. even removed the old version first. not happy!

    nvidia 295 works great with LM9, so i’m still plugging with it. besides, LM9 has always been just a little snappier for me than anything after it. i installed it on an SSD drive and yee-haa!!! i made some memory tweaks to libreoffice and assigned it 256MB of ram, and if you just think about launching it, it snaps up faster than you can say: MS Office stinks!

    anyway, that’s where i’m at right now. might spin up an LMDE respin when it hits the repos. we’ll see.

  202. Downloaded the RC… Never install with a keyboard type other than the english ones – it becomes impossible to switch language at the login screen otherwise, preventing you from typing your password.
    Also the OS does not start if you try to install it on a BTRFS filesystem (fails to boot because it can not do an fsck and demands a manual one).

  203. Hey emmanuel

    I have unistall compiz stuff from gnome clasic sesion so i was abel to boot sesion with cinnamon 🙂

  204. Maybe it’s a good idea to have a scheduled mirror-ing of all primary (mirror) servers prior to pushing out the whole lot as an upgrade to everyone else.

    Just my 2 cent.

  205. @george 265 :

    Pascal (268) gave you the exact answer. Use terminal –> gnome-session-properties & –> uncheck compiz.

    You can now restart cinnamon 😉

  206. I will postpone my upgrade due to the traffic problems and give GNOME2 his “Last Stand” and wait for Cinnamons panel to have the ability to “add new”… on my second monitor. 🙂

  207. If you got more than one computer, be aware that UP4 files (and possibly many more from earlier updates) downloaded get stored at /var/cache/apt. No need to download everything all over again! I have not tried it yet, but according to forum postings transferring files should work nicely.

  208. @Helmut: Downloading once for more than one computer is a really good idea. Just make sure NOT to do sudo apt-get clean after upgrading the first computer (duh). sudo apt-get autoclean should be okay, though, as this would only clear the cache of obsolete packages. I’m not sure exactly how one would tell the subsequent computers’ apt to upgrade from the cache instead of from the repos.

    @Yro: My computer showed an UP4 size of about 1 GB

    I updated on Friday night and the process went very well. Gnome3 was hardly usable, but I only needed to tolerate it long enough to install MATE. There were only 3 issues with MATE that I needed to fix:

    1-Couldn’t remove desktop icons until after I installed mate-conf-editor and unchecked the boxes under caja -> desktop.
    2-My wireless network and other passwords would not be remembered until I disabled all four MATE keyring/secret service apps from the startup applications (leaving all four Gnome ones enabled)
    3-When I would open a folder from “Places” on my menu bar, nautilus was the file manager being used. I’ll post the fix in about 30 minutes once I get home from work and have access to my notes.

  209. Other than the three minor and easily fixable issues with MATE (see above), I am having one “problem” after UP4 that I haven’t been able to fix: Something in UP4 broke my system’s compatibility with e4rat. This is a pity, because e4rat decreased my UP3 boot time from 65 seconds to 30 seconds. With UP4, when I run e4rat-collect I get an error about /etc/mtab and /proc/mounts not being readable. I have no idea how to go about fixing this.

  210. @Pascal and emmanuel

    Thanks a lot for your help,i fixed it.
    I am writing from the wonderful Cinnamon now.

  211. Wondering what this all means for me as I’m tracking Debian testing….

    All of the workarounds to avoid using Gnome 3 are getting pretty ridiculous. As is the whining…. Have been working with Gnome Shell daily to earn my living since it hit testing in Oct/Nov and it has been great.

    Sure there is a learning curve, and a few times I wanted to smash my computer with a hammer… Gnome 2 was nice while it lasted, but so were Commodore 64s….

    It seems ironic, all of these Linux users who want cutting edge software yet want to remain stuck in their old ways.

    Linux Mint is my go to distro for any Debian installation. Thanks to Clem and the team for offering so many options and all of your hard work. CHEERS!

  212. Here’s the fix for making caja the default file manager (including when opening bookmarks or folders in “Places” menu): Add these two lines to your ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list (and, of course, if you have any lines that mention nautilus (I didn’t), then delete them):
    inode/directory=caja-browser.desktop
    x-directory/normal=caja-browser.desktop

    If anybody figures out how to make the e4rat-collect step of e4rat work with LMDE UP4, please post it here. Not that I mind waiting 65 secs for what I think is the best OS ever to boot–but waiting half that long would be that much sweeter 🙂

  213. Today I discovered 2 new problems:

    1) NTFS partitions do not work properly. Files are missing.
    2) My computer can’t receive a file via bluetooth.

    What is the point of update packs and a separate repository from debian if we are supposed to see these bugs!

  214. I dont use mint debian but my update manager shows 1100+ updates. Is that normal? I have always updated before this so its not because its a fresh install of mint12.

  215. @PB…How are you PB? No, I have not tried LM-KDE12, I heard good things about it and I’m happy for that. Sorry to hear you had nvidia drivers problems, I have an nvidia card also and works flawless. Hope LM releases KDE 13 on time and if it does, for sure, I will try it. If KDE doesn’t do a silly thing like Gnome has done, KDE for me is the best environment by far…and getting better.

  216. Anyone able to get notify-osd style notifications in mate? I had to install mate-notification-daemon just to get notifications at all, but this breaks gnome-fallback.

  217. It took the better part of a day (April 7-8) and a few retries to download UP4 (and about 3 hours to install), but it’s my own fault: I should realize by now that it is better to wait a bit with new software/releases. Cinnamon and Gnome Shell don’t work on this very old computer, but I didn’t expect them to–no surprise there. For my other LMDE install, I’ll wait a week or two–no hurry.

    Good news is that MATE is installed and working well on my 13 year old PIII.

    🙂 Clem, your LMDE is *quite* popular. Well done. 🙂

  218. @PB : Hello PB. Its long time. How is everything at your end. Regarding nvidia I also had the problem in installing drivers. It was telling me some dependency problem and something about repos. So I changed the Mint repos to default debian repos and after that the drivers got installed. In my case it worked. Can’nt say it may work with you or not, but you can try if interested. Otherwise, again LM-9 is the best. Even after using UP-4 for some time now I would say that Debian before UP-4 (Gnome-2 original) was best. But what to do. Manny is right.

  219. After installing UP4 I lost the GUI.
    It is in virtualbox, and eats ~250% CPU of the host (4 cores).
    In the guest running top:
    ~50% gdm3
    ~35% dbus-daemon
    continuously.
    Any help would be appreciated.

  220. @Manny : I just come to know about a news (although its one day old) that Blue System which is sponsoring Mint-KDE and Netrunner is also gon’na sponsor the Kubuntu. Let’s Hope for better future for Mint-KDE, Netrunner and Kubuntu. Now the question would be which one to install.

  221. Trying to make a torrent of the full repository: failure. mktorrent and ctorrent don’t like symlinks, transmission-create just skips them.

    Output is a 25 MB torrent file, which is… invalid and can’t be parsed by BitTorrent clients. *sigh*

    Some more work will be necessary but I still think BitTorrent is the right way for LMDE.

  222. Bobby@294 & manny&291\

    hey guys, everything is good here. i haven’t posted too much, just kind of waiting to see things develop. also, lot’s going on at work, so not too much time.

    to clarify, i got the nvidia drivers to install okay, but 3D rendering was just not good for me. they were working but not smoothly like on my current LM9 system. i have a pretty decent card too which is puzzling me even further. when I enabled the nvidia ppa, it brought in the latest version which was 295. i thought maybe it would work better. i removed the old one, restarted, and black screen.

    i like to use the lattice screensaver to test 3D rendering, because if everything is right, it will make you dizzy, especially on a 24 inch screen or bigger.

    desktop effects like compositing, etc., seem to work okay, although not quite as fluid as it should be.

    i thought it might be the xscreensaver app, but lattice works beautifully on a pc i have at work with an onboard ati card. i’ve never had video driver issues with the Mint main edition until now. jockey has always worked well for me.

    oh well.

    on a happier note, clem is really busting it for us. i feel confident that one of the future releases will find it’s home on my primary desktop. until then, LM9 blazes.

    nice to hear from you guys again.

  223. It took 4 hours but it finally updated. Looks good. Gnome shell is pretty good, prefer old Gnome but I still get to run it on Crunchbang and Parsix. 🙂 Just fixed my source.list file and it now shows as green. Good stuff!

  224. Ok, upgraded do UP4 the work machine. Don’t know why, the kernel headers were not installed, so I went to a tty screen once again (also happened to the home machine). Once again, I used the sgfxi script, that installed the headers and then upgraded the nvidia drivers. Fortunately I had already installed the script, but I want to alert clem about this problem with headers!

  225. @Clem: I appreciate you taking the time to troubleshoot all the upgrade issues on this blog.

    Unfortunately the disk space wasn’t the issue. At gdm3 start I get: “No such key ‘show-actions’ in schema ‘org.gnome.power-manager’ as specified in override file ‘/tmp/gdm.szDeWn/xx_upsteam.gsschema.override’: ignoring override for this key.” and a similar message about the “icon-policy” key. The tmp file does not exist.

    I was running my system on a software raid setup so reinstalling is also a pain in the backside since the LMDE installer doesn’t support mdadm and I have to install everything manually.

  226. I can’t wait for the updated ISO! My laptop is sitting dead until I get the new ISO. Even if it’s in testing, I’ll take it! Link that shiz! 🙂

  227. @Eff: +1, I’d also like to see a RC ISO torrent.

    I’m also hoping for a torrent of the ISO, RC or not. Ihmo a lot of the load on the update servers is from people like me with slightly less patience — for a new install they d/l the 201109 ISO and then do a full rev’s worth of update… cranking up the max possible update load.

    The servers getting slammed for days on end because of high demand is a nice problem to have (yay Clem!), but after the release fever subsides, some traffic analysis (correlating d/l of the old ISO with imm following update behavior) would help to inform whether the update and ISO release should be simultaneous or staggered — comparing the shape of the demand versus server capacity/distmode.

  228. ok, right now I am using Cinnamon on the RC Live-CD. Everything seems to be in order and looking great in my laptop (HP G62-340US). Mate was, as far as I could tell, identical to Gnome2. Cinnamon is much better looking. In Live-CD, no problems with video card. If no word about big bugs come out, I will install it by the end of the day – bye bye unity.

  229. @283 bdantas: Taking UP4 files from /cache/apt/archives to a USB stick and transferring them to another computer worked like a charm, just a very few files were needed from the repos, quite some relief! It only works, though, if the repos are up and running and can supply the index lists. I had to temporarily uncheck acroread, as the server would not supply the index needed (or whatever…).
    I will, however download the isos just in case – updating and coping with gnome 3 (not my kettle of fish), installing Mate (nice!), and ironing out inconsistencies is not my idea of a pastime, but certainly educative, I have learned a lot. Updating without the need to go through the gnome 3 stage would have been nice, thogh!

  230. Sadly after a normal update and failing, than tried a clean reinstall and update again, and still doesn’t work.

    I’m using the xfce 32 bits. The gui stops booting, only starting it manually “startx” but network card stops working. Language pack goes crazy, and i am using the default english language.

    Seems to be maybe a hardware issue, its a old laptop, maybe its the kernel.

    I have no idea how to fix it. Is there a way to update but not the kernel?

  231. @Lol Phirae: What make you sure about my NTFS problem is nothing to do with update pack? I really want to know?

    I downloaded notepad++ in my LMDE and then copied that to the my windows partition and then I rebooted to windows. It was not there. I did a chkdsk /f to fix the problem. Windows found a journal index to that file but could not find the file itself and as a result deleted the index file. Consequently, notepad++ file deleted entirely from my partition. However, in the LMDE side everything seemed to be fine. I mean, before doing the chkdsk although windows was not able to see the file but I could sea and use my file in the LMDE.

    So this was my story. I’m still eager to know that if you know more about this problem or not.

  232. OK This UPDATE does NOT work.

    Had LMDE XFCE update pack 3 working smoothly in a VirtualBox Machine on a Win7 host.
    Last week I tried to update to the pre update pack 4. FAILED. ran all the process and when restarting I had “no screens” (I AM a NOOB so I dont know what that means), restored a backup and went on. I thought well, me, don’t mix up with pre release soft.

    OK, now update pack 4 is final. SAME RESULT, but update downloads 800+ megas of i dont know what and starts installing, install fails halfway and freezes system. On reboot: NO F:::::: SCREENS be that what it may…

    SO!!!, Going to try with the FINAL ISO when it comes out.
    SO MUCH FOR A ROLLING DISTRO. MORE LIKE A CRASHING DISTRO FOR ME.

  233. Hi,

    @clem
    This is my favorite distribution and the one I think is in the forefront when it comes to user focus! I also think most of us appreciate that this fork is not as stable as the main one and use it because we also like to be part of the future. When I help other non technical users I always use the main distribution.

    @MR. P
    I made two upgrades – one for a portable Aspire one that apart from the problems with downloading went without problems – it runs like a dream with Cinnamon now!

    The other one was for my workstation and I got a similar log that you presented here. I spent several hours trying to understand the underlying problem…. as a last resort I un-installed Compiz (complete removal) as well as my Desklets (ok, I know that I only should make one change at a time…) and that made the trick! Now it runs like a dream as well! It could be worth a try?

    ;o)

    /LenUlven

  234. @ElQuia :

    Yeahhh mint is suppose to be noob friendly for the main edition.

    If you read mint site, it’s written that LDME is not for noob and may likely break and need some knowledge. 😉

    And you running it in a VirtualBox Machine. Did you allow 3D ?

  235. To Rui Castro @312:
    I had a similar issue in VirtualBox. apt-get update, apt-get upgrade then a reboot helped me out. It maybe worth trying…

  236. Hello, I did update the new version of LMDE, but was looking like this:

    http://tinypic.com/r/34t6fwg/5

    It was only with the new look of Gnome. Is it normal?

    Edit by Clem: Yes, that’s Gnome Shell. If you don’t like it, try to install “mate-desktop-environment” for MATE, or “cinnamon” for Cinnamon. After that, you can switch between desktops from the login screen itself.

  237. Now that I’ve done the update, I need to keep these repositories to receive updates?

    deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import
    deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest testing main contrib non-free
    deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security testing/updates main contrib non-free
    deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia testing main non-free

    Edit by Clem: Yes, not only for updates but also to install additional software.

  238. To my cost I´ve just realised that Update 4 does not apply to Lisa.
    In my opinion, “If you’re not using Linux Mint Debian, please ignore this post” is not a strong enough statement as even Ubuntu’s based on Debian.
    I know now that there was an earlier version of Mint based on Debian, but not before I tried to install over Lisa.
    I’m prepared to bet that other new users to Mint will make the same mistake.
    But at least Mint 12 Lisa is very easy to (re)install!

    Edit by Clem: Sorry about this. You’re right, it ought to be stressed a little more. I put in bold red fonts, hopefully this will save others from making the same mistake.

  239. @zoho

    the second time didn’t try that. The first time said all was broken.

    Anyway i installed everything from the lastest RC. Thx anyways

  240. @Emmanuel:
    Yes, did allow 3D, was allowed before. I had (in fact still have after recovering a full acronis backup) LMDE XFCE Update Pack 3 running correctly in a VBox (4.1.12) machine on windows 7 x64 since quite a time ago.
    In fact I ALSO have in VM’s other distros: CrunchBang (also a debian “rolling”), fedora 16, MINT 12 Gnome Main (has some problems with gnome 3 that ferdora does not have in vbox) Xubuntu, MINT 12 KDE, MINT 12 LXD, PC-BSD 9.0, Salix, Windows 8, Windows XP & Windows 2000.

    I have been using vbox for testing since first version…

    And yes, on production machines I keep a SEPARTE home partition.

    And yes, on windows as on linux when a new version of OS comes out it is mostly better doing a FRESH install. But AL THE IDEA (for me at least) of a ROLLING distro is avoiding installs, re installs, all again installing your fave apps, bla, bla, bla.

    WHAT USE IS A ROLLING DISTRO IF YOU HAVE TO DO A FRESH INSTALL ANYWAY.

    Will do fresh install when the isos are final

    AH: my LMDE XFCE was/is standard out of the box, NO EXTRA APPS, only a nice wallpaper and the VBox Guest Additions.

  241. Thanks Clem

    for this LMDE gnome3 distro. I tried many many different distros after Unity. Sad to say but I thought I was stuck with them.

    I ‘discovered’ Mint12 and it was a step in the right direction. It gave me the chance to relearn. Was relieved to see LMDE get gnome3. It feels less like a toy than ubuntu and fedora.

    Keep up the good work

  242. I know me, and me says to keep working with Mint Julia. Old, but works fine. Other than being out of the loop, (not supported anymore), I have no problems that a little minor tinkering hasn’t fixed. It’s taken me months to get this platform to the level of performance I want, and me says it would take months to get any new distros up to the same level. I must be so used to working with XP, that old is good. Change is difficult. Gnome3, LMDE, Cinamon, Compiz, MATE, KDE 4.74, etc…, really, what I have is fine, even though I don’t know what I have or what I’m missing. What advantages to update, update, update?

  243. Looks good so far. A few oddities after installing UP4 and Cinnamon:

    My update manager behaves strange: says that transmission is not installed when it is.

    And when setting the default browser, firefox doesn’t show up. And I found it strange that the update pack installed chromium and set it to default.

    Last I miss the right-click -> uninstall option in the menu.

  244. Of course, after attempting to update for the past few hours and finally making note of it, it appears everything is working fine.
    It must be a conspiracy! 😉

  245. @RTS INFORMATIQUE: When I read your initial comments about it, I kind of expected the .torrent file to get too large to be practical, and your last comment (300) basically confirmed it – and also says it wasn’t even readable in BT clients, so even worse than I thought. 😛

    I agree that use of BitTorrent will probably work, there’s just some details to work out first…

    I skimmed the apt-p2p paper @Schoelje linked to in comment 179, and it has some good ideas – but from the description I could see some problems with the actual implementation, that I figured would lead to it not being as good as it could be, hence your less than stellar experience with it.

    (I’ll note here that I haven’t actually looked at it in detail, including the implemented code – there might be details in there that mitigate what I noticed.)

    Worth noting is that apt-p2p is not actually a BitTorrent implementation – it uses a DHT like modern BT clients do, but doesn’t seem to use the BT protocol for transferring the files, instead using plain HTTP for that part. (at least I don’t think BT uses HTTP, other than for the trackers…)

    It also explicitly avoids requiring any changes to the existing infrastructure, which is probably one of the reasons it uses a DHT at all – for LMDE’s purposes, it might be better (and easier) to go with a classic tracker approach, since the infrastructure can be set up for it. That may also help with NAT traversal, which I’m not quite sure how works TBH. (And might not be necessary, see below.)

    In its introduction, where it talks about using BT, the paper says that the piece size of BT is 512KB, which is larger than many of the files, and basically implies that this is one of the reasons BT is not practical here. However, it thus apparently fails to realize that the piece size in BT is not fixed – while 512KB is common, it can be much smaller, and can be chosen to best fit the individual torrent.

    One of the first things I noticed was that apt-p2p acts like a proxy, which basically means it fetches one file at a time – most likely due to not wanting to require infrastructure changes. I figure this could be improved quite a bit by integrating it more (e.g. into the MintUpdate program), so that it can group the files it wants to fetch into grouped torrents, or at least run several at the same time.

    In fact, I figure it’s probably best to generate not one torrent per file, nor one for the whole archive – but some set of torrents that group the files into reasonably-sized chunks.

    Since I don’t think there’s any real logical grouping that fits well, I’d like to suggest one based on update time instead – e.g. one torrent per week of updates, that includes the files that were updated during that week (but not all the other files). (The exact period would probably need adjustment based on real data.)

    This should also work fairly well for update packs, I believe – generating a torrent that includes all the changes since the last UP, but not the things that haven’t changed. Or maybe just since the previous torrent. (This assumes that the set of updated packages in each UP is far smaller than the entire archive – if that is not correct, this exact approach probably won’t work very well.)

    … Hm, now that I think about it, the UP concept probably means that the week-based torrents won’t be very useful, since there won’t be all that many updates between UPs.

    By the way, unlike apt-p2p, I’m presupposing a bit of integration with the update tool here, so that it can download only those pieces of the torrents that it actually needs for the particular system the update is being run on.

    Another related idea (which I think might have been part of the original idea… but I’ll state it explicitly anyway, just in case) is for the mirrors to join the torrents as seeds – in that case it might not be necessary for all that many users to upload to others, since the load would be spread out across all the mirrors by default. And if the mirrors even use it to grab the files in the first place, the main server doesn’t even have to take all of that initial load. (They should probably still run rsync regularly though, to catch anything the torrents may have missed.)

    Yet another idea, that might enable use of individual-file torrents, is to modify the clients and tracker a bit from the standard, so that they can reuse peer connections for multiple torrents (and hence package files). With suitable modifications, they might not even need the pregenerated .torrent files, but be able to autogenerate the necessary information on the fly…

    All in all, I think doing this is quite plausible, but will have to be considered a full-fledged project that requires a bit of effort to get right.

  246. Hm, another idea for grouping, if the per-UP torrents get to big, might be to reuse the popcon data – make a few torrents based on package popularity, but leave the rarely used packages for direct download.

    If there are any large groups of packages that are usually updated at the same time (e.g. KDE maybe?) it might be worth it to handle those specially and keep individual torrents for each such group.

    To find which torrent to use for any given package, the server could keep that information in an index file (maybe in the same ones we use already? Would it be difficult to add a custom header field to the entries in the Packages files?) – or maybe have a webservice for it…

    I could suggest an alphabetical grouping, but I suspect that would be no better than a randomly ordered one. 🙂

    In short – lots of ideas to test and details to work out, but it should be doable. … Dammit, I want to prototype this now… If only I had the time to actually work on it… *sigh*

  247. Apologies if this has been reported as a bug. In cinnamon, in “edit menu”, the “New item” button does not work. I am trying to get Chrome into the menu – at the moment, I have to launch it from the terminal.

  248. UP4 is excellent! I ran into issues with the updater on the first go round but just went into root terminal and everything went beautifully. I kept leaving LMDE because I always managed to break something or got bored with it or whatever but right now it’s looking rock solid! Plus, KDE looks better here than with KDE centric releases which seems odd but I’m excited. Thanks Clem and Team for all the hard work! I’m sure to duckduckgo everywhere! lol

  249. Well… this was an interesting experience.

    Just got UP4 installed, rebooted computer and applied a bit of “sgfxi magic”… and now I finally understand why people complain about the new gnome shell or whatever it is called – that “crap” (my opinion, nothing else) that we get by default with the fancy stuff on top and huge application icons (once I found them) under activities.

    The only remaining question after this 1 minute of horror is:
    Cinnamon or mate?

    – Installing both to see which one feels best.

    Anyway – thanks for the Update Pack. Been waiting for this one (especially kernel 3.2) Only wish it could’ve defaulted to one of the environments that the LM team actually believes in (Cinnamon or Mate). Doesn’t really make sense to have people boot into something that in the end isn’t “supported”.

  250. Following suggestions for changes sources.list file preparatory to installing Cinnamon or MATE, I see my sources list is very different from the example.

    deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ lisa main upstream import backport
    deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ lisa-kde main upstream import
    deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric main restricted universe multiverse
    deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric-security main restricted universe multiverse
    deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ oneiric partner
    deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ oneiric free non-free

    # deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu oneiric-getdeb apps
    # deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu oneiric-getdeb games

    Could you help me out here? My main intention was to change the tooltips from black on black.
    I am running LMDE 12.

    Thanks, Geoffrey

    Edit by Clem: It looks like you’re running Mint 12. Your edition is based on Ubuntu and is NOT compatible with LMDE. Please don’t try to upgrade it to Update Pack 4.

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