How to upgrade Linux Mint 8 RC1 to Linux Mint 8 (stable)

Upgrading from the RC1 release is safe and easy:

  • Open the update manager by clicking on the lock icon in the bottom right hand corner of your screen and apply all level 1 and level 2 updates (If no level 1/2 updates appear that means you’re already up-to-date).
  • Right click on mintMenu’s main button and select “Preferences”. In the “Applications” tab, change the hover value from 150 to 50 milliseconds.

Keep an eye on the Update Manager for future low level updates that might become available. In particular, the mint-translations package will be updated frequently to bring you up-to-date translations.

105 comments

  1. ty for this!! I have been using the RC1 and love it. As a newb and trying other versions, it is awesome to know something as easy and ready to go as mint is here. Kudo’s!!

  2. Congratulations to the Mint Team for a job well done.

    This has been the “fastest” update ever ๐Ÿ™‚

    This is MINT SUCCESS!

    npap

  3. Awesome, just installed it and it’s working flawlessly. Thanks a lot for all your hard work with this release Mint Team. ๐Ÿ™‚

  4. So, are we going to roll over like openSUSE from now on and not have to worry about downloading more *.iso files? Cool.

  5. LinuxMint was the first distro I tried a couple of months ago when i first decided to leave the windoze teat. I left mint tho after a couple of weeks to try other distros out.
    But i’m back with tail firmly between my legs. The only other fully featured distro i tried that was close to mint in terms of ease of use was PCLOS; most are garbage by comparison. Ubuntu 9.10 was a nightmare.

    Keep up the good work minty team!

  6. Thanks Clem and the Mint Team! This distro is awesome.

    @roshi, I try other distros too, about five, I think; no one is like Mint!

  7. I updated to Helena and can’t watch youtube via Firefox any more. I guess it’s bug couse I could do it until now. I installed 1,2 and 3 level updates

  8. No more choking on downloads in Mint 8. Definitely the best release ever, thank you team for a beautiful operating system….
    Blows everything else out of the water by far…..

  9. Umm… hhhmmm, just wondering, but it didn’t update my apt listings. Still reading jaunty and gloria… but… to be fair I’ve done some major modifications to the apt listings, and it never did prompt me for a replace (call me a loser, but the majority of the modifications involved repos for LXDE… yeah… sorry, but i love it, ^_^) Does anyone think there will be any issues if I alter the distro set in my apt sources.list and try to run a apt-get update/upgrade? Just wondering because that would take my lxde-common from .3.8 to .4.2 ^_^.

  10. IsaoHK wrote: “I wonder when will Mint 8 be officially released as stand-alone version (not just update) on the Main Site?

    I hope a stand-alone ISO is coming soon. I want to burn a CD/DVD and keep it handy for installs on laptop and another computer.

    Hope an ISO will be available soon!

    EXCELLENT JOB Mint team!

  11. i dont want to updat, i want to donwload the last version, because it’s not only for me, more that 10 people r waiting for me to download the last version of mint.

  12. Just to say thxs for this great(est) (unless someone can point me to a more elegant distro) piece of OS distro. Well done, and congrat to the Mint team. Cheers.

  13. my tried rc and the 02 modem would connec then disconnect then connect then disconnet thats kept happening so I left it, Im goin to wait to the full version comes out.

    but from what I can say and see its really nice and runs pretty fast. could do with a fast boot. nice system and runs a dream expect for the modem thing I dont have real broadband yet so thats as far as I got.

  14. I think it’s simply wrong when the users of RC receive full version updates ahead of others. But, I hope, the delay will not be very long… Or is this the way of encouraging people to use a possibly unstable system and use them as beta testers?

  15. friedsonjm Thats problem with ubuntu and sadly the problem was copy pasted to Linux mint. I suggest you to get you’re self usb mouse for the beggining. YOu will find it better then touchpad for shure. But problem remains… dnt know what to say…

    I had same problem when I upgraded eeebuntu on my netbook

  16. Yeah, hope the final version can fly out the door ASAP. Many linux (Mint) user doesn’t have a luxury inet bandwith, so they need a installer, live or alternate C/DVD.

    And congrats for Mint team. Although I haven’t try it yet, I still think it’s a good piece of OS, like their sister ๐Ÿ™‚

  17. OK, this may be part of the problem; I don’t believe Grub is configured properly; my menu selections all refer to kernal 2.6.28.11-generic, not correct, no?

  18. Sir, networking is another issue. I actually moved from ubuntu to mint becouse of those two problem. I simpy couldn’t “fix” them becouse Im inexperianced with linux.

    Ubuntu is bugged and its pitty that mint went to copy pasting from them. If I wanted ubuntu, Id have ubuntu, not mint.

    I suggest you to reinstal previous mint version… sorry bro but thats easyiest!

  19. I have been a long time Mint user and just upgraded the Mint 8 RC1 to final. Love it and it works perfect right off the bat. I installed it on an old IBM R51 laptop with an upgrade in ram and a new hard drive. Man has this old lap top has come to life.
    Great Job Mint Teem……Hands down the best Linux Desktop OS out there:)

  20. I’m trying this distro on my 2nd desktop and I have to admit that this is a really nice one. Especially for beginners.

    I’m curious what you guys will do in the future and what for Linux.

    Good work guys.

  21. if i always update my helena RC1, is it same with the stable/main version that will come? so i have not to install again if the stable/main version release.

  22. Truly my favorite Distro and it’s only getting better. Loved the software manager improvements. God bless you mint people.

  23. i seen alot of comments about how flash does not work for firefox in mint 8, just as with ubuntu 9.10 (which is a nightmare as it is harder on the resources all the way around for some reason), there is a bug in the new version of flash itself, or it could be the new firefox. My wife runs windows 7, my son with xp and vista (two seperate machines) they have firefox and flash player, when i was using M$ i used chrome, and had no issue. From what i can gather at this time there is some coding missing or misplaced in the flash program itself that is buggy with firefox, adobe is from what i hear trying to correct the situation but i doubt it will be soon. i thought i would put my 3/4 cents worth in here and give a heads up for y’all ๐Ÿ˜€

    Again Clem, kudo’s on the new mint, works wonderfully ๐Ÿ˜€

  24. This is just a Ubuntu clone with a pretty face. Any bugs in Ubuntu will be in this. If you want nice graphics and a polished install with easy networking you can’t go past Mandriva 2010. Just try it. You won’t come back.

  25. @ Margarate Hay instuctiones en este blog

    http://www.linuxmint.com/blog/?p=1144

    @ Ando

    your going to be just as “stable” as the main version if not more.

    See the thing about software is that it is constantly evolving and being updated there will never be a stopping point

    “Stable” just means that it is good enought to meet about 90% of users and meet most of the requirements people expect.

    if you install the “stable” version a month from now you will be greeted by mintupdate telling you that you have 100 something updates required. Obviously as people experiment with and use a product they will find faults with it and newer versions will come out. So software will never truly be “stable:

    Stable is yesterdays unstable with a few patches

    I hope that makes sense and clears up a few things for anyone else wondering the same thing

  26. As a 16 years Windows user, I’ve tried many different Linux flavours, Linux Mint is by far the sweetest I’ve used. Running it full time on my laptop now

    Keep up the good work guys, I’ll send you a few ยฃยฃ come pay day

  27. It works great! Does one have to wait with installing all kind of programs and configure them for the ‘Final Mint 8’? Or can Final be done by the same kind of update?

  28. We appreciate very much Linux Mint in Brazil. We are waiting the package Linux Mint 8 Helena Universal Edition. entirety in Portuguese-BR
    thanks!

    Brazil, 2010 World Cup Invite you!!!:-)

  29. What a lot of replies some good some bad some mildly derranged.

    People really need to understand that this is not windows and does not have several thousand employees tasked with fixing bugs. This i sa group of individuals who liked ubuntu but thought it could be improved, I think they have done a wonderful job of that.

    Linux Mint is to my mind a very good effort at improving ubuntu, obviously it won’t be to everyones tastes but it suits mine.

    so replies that suggest other OS’s are better really do not belong here. wait patientlty for the stable release, don’t push for it to be released before the bugs are fixed.

    and congratulaions to Clem and the Mint team for a job well done with so few resources, it just shows what a few individual are capable of.

  30. I am typing this from my Helena RC1. Man, this smokes. Great job. I am up and running.

    p.s. I had a problem regarding something about zero values and kernel not loading. I am sorry that I did not note down the problem which occurred after installation. But it was solved when I reinstalled the OS.

  31. I’m typing from a Live USB with Helena RC1 because I couldn’t wait for the stable release. Everything is working fine!

  32. If Linux Mint wants to make a huge dent, just make sure the broadcom wireless drivers work out of the box, unlike with Ubuntu which regressed on that problem. I am running Mint 7 now, it’s good although I had to install the ubuntu download manager to get the sound to work on this hp mini, for some reason, Mintupdate did not take care of this. No biggie.

    To the person who said Mint is nothing more than a pretty looking Ubuntu…. the one thing Mint does have over it you don’t have to fool around with downloading flash, java, ms core fonts etc….

  33. I update, everything woks swimmingly except for dual monitor turns everything black. I have an eeepc1000H so it’s an integrated graphic chip, weird thing is that it worked fine in ubuntu karmic

  34. So Disappointed! …. I’ve been happily running RC1 and along sneaks ‘Final’ and I didn’t even realise !!!
    Best upgrade I have seen and certainly the best version of Mint ‘yet’ .. I’m sure there is more to come in the future.

    Thanks, a GREAT job!

  35. I have simple question. In WIN OS you can use alt + F4 to shut down computer. Is there simmilar way to shut down Linux Mint?

  36. May have found a bug or security problem.
    now it also may be in previous mints.
    when you install a program you need a password.
    But when you uninstall a program you are not asked for a password, so what if you had your kids/other people on your computer and decided just to uninstall programs as they like.
    does anyone else think that this feature should have your root password asked for before uninstalling programs for you.
    someone could stuff up your system

  37. sorry should have been more specific in program removal.
    it regarding removal of a program directly (not through synaptic) from the menu when you right mouse click on the program and you can either launch/show in my favs/launch at logon/uninstall.

  38. What a rock solid distro…my other distro is Suse but there are some things about Mint that are unique. In the past other distros have been booted off my machine but Linux Mint has stood my test of time.

  39. Still waiting for the x64 iso :-). I started my “Mint experience” with Gloria x64, it was a great surprise : everything worked out of the box. I hope the next version will also be so good. Would it be possible to have an Helena x64 iso for Christmas?

  40. Magnifica disribuciรณn de linux, la mejor de todas. Seguimos esperando a Helena. Saludos desde Mรฉxico.

  41. I’m a linux newbie. I want to try ubuntu 9.04 but it’s getting bad reviews. Linux Mint 7, on the other hand, has better reviews. So I tried the live usb of both distro to see which is better for a newbie. You know what, ubuntu 9.04 disappoints me. I cannot play vids and mp3s with it. I have to do some updates and installs. it sucks. Linux Mint 7 is not perfect but its easier to go around for a newbie. In Mint 7, I have to do some tweaking with the ALSA driver so that I can use my headphones. I hope Mint 8 fixes this problem. I will wait for a few months after the final release when big bugs are fixed already.

  42. Hi. Any idea when either 32- or 64-bit XCFE Mint 8 will be ready?
    My graphics card is pretty sad, so I’d really like to stick with XCFE ๐Ÿ™‚

    This will be my first actual Linux hard install. ๐Ÿ˜€
    (I’ve been VPCing for a long time)

  43. You could download and install the RC1 – it’s still available and then use these insturcitions and you have the stable helena relase.

  44. Great work. Very impressive. My respect and gratitude to the Mint team. All my familly is hooked on linux, one a distro or another, but Mint will help me convince some of my coworkers to give linux another try. You did an excelent job with WIFI it was always an issue for my coworkers before, a difficult issue to solve at a distance for me. Many of them giving up on me. Now I am better equiped to make more converts. Thanks, Linus for a great gift to humanity,

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  46. Been dual booting RC1 & XP on a Toshiba Satelite laptop & Mint 8 working very well. Just “upgraded” to stable; never been easier, no matter what OS.

  47. Of all the Linux distributions, the Linux Mint is the best I’ve worked, mount ntfs drives smoothly, plays music without having problems with codecs. best, impossible. thanks to all the Mint team…

  48. And you gets do it again , FANTASTIC. iv been showing all my friends my pc and even installed LM8 on a couple no need for windows7

    Thanks again guys

  49. well, i have had a very long update process. this is primarily because i have so many apps installed that it has downloaded more than 1000 updates so far and is still not done. mint is a great distro, in fact i am so confident in it that i installed it on a client’s pc for him. he had been running ubuntu and was having trouble. i am confident that he will be much better off with mint. great work guys, keep it up.

  50. Linux Mint Helena- Enjoy The Freshest Flavoured Distro Ever. Available From Servers All Around The World …. Today!

  51. hi all, – first off, VERY NICE work on the LM8, works as a charm out of the box. Although, I am a bit new to Linux. Is the stable version the same as the FINAL version of LM8? If not, can someone please advise me on where to find the FINAL version of LM8?

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