Upgrade path from 17 to 17.1 now open for all editions

The upgrade path from Linux Mint 17 to Linux Mint 17.1 is now open for all editions (Cinnamon, MATE, KDE and Xfce).

Instructions on how to perform this upgrade are available at http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2725

60 comments

  1. Thank you, I’m updating KDE edition right now. Hopefully KDE 4.14 gets rid of some minor but annoying bugs I have experienced.

  2. Sorry if I am posting this in the wrong thread. I could not post in LMDE thread.

    Greetings to Linux Mint community. Thank you all for the wonderful LMDE.

    I have been using a HP Pavilion 15-a026 laptop with LMDE (not dual boot) for the last one year. I could successfully update Linux Mint Debian using the update packs without difficulties when it was released. The processor is AMD A10 APU and has 8Gb RAM. Wi-fi is provided by Ralink RT3290 card. There are two GPUs. AMD Radeon 7660 (integrated) and AMD Radeon 8670 (discrete). I had got the switchable graphics card option working with fglrx drivers.

    But, I face a strange problem when i use the discrete GPU. When I select the discrete GPU and restart the system, i am not able to use wi-fi. The network monitor applet shows “Device not ready” under wireless option. When I restart with integrated GPU, the wifi works. I am clueless about this. Also when I try to switch on when the GPU is set to discrete, the boot process stops just before the login page and then starts again. The system reaches login screen only after two or more restarts.

    Could anyone please help me? How can I solve this issue?

    Sreenath

  3. Clem, When is the upgrade to the next release going to be as simple as it used to be with Ubuntu? Having to completely install a new release and all the other programs and data files takes at least several hours. Thanks for yours and the team’s hard work! Mint has been at the top of the charts now for 4 years running!

    Edit by Clem: 17.x will be supported until 2019 and you can upgrade it from one release to the next with just a few clicks on the mouse (as explained in this blog post).

  4. Thanks for working so hard! Just started using Linux, and in particular, Linux Mint, but I am loving it so far! Just wish Linux had more games. hehe… I’m sure many people do though. Anyway, really love Mint, and can’t wait to watch Mint continue to grow and evolve! Your Facebook page is getting a lot of “likes” these days too! Great times to be a fan of Linux!

  5. @James

    Welcome to the community. 🙂

    To the Mint team…well done. Mint goes from strength to strength. Looking forward to 17.2. 🙂

    Gabriel

  6. I got this error on KDE:

    Failed to run /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpdate/rel_upgrade_root.py ‘qiana’ ‘119537766’ as user root.

    Unable to copy the user’s Xauthorization file.

    Edit by Clem: It’s weird that you got in that situation. In any case, to solve it, open a terminal and type “cd” (to go to your home dir), “touch .Xauthority” (to create the authority file in case it’s not already there), and “sudo chown username:username ~/.Xauthority” (replace username with your actual user name… to give yourself ownership of that file).

  7. Dear Linux Mint Team,

    thanks for your continuous quality work!
    Is there a chance 17.x will get the fresh player plugin package (PPAPI pepper flash plugin) for firefox? I dont want to switch to chrome but use flash plenty…

    all the best for 2015
    langley

  8. Just threw Windoze 7 to the way side and now have a fully Linux Mint 17 system .
    Wonderful OS . Thanks to all involved .

  9. I’am rocky for many years i have work on linux,i ask you if you can give me this program as free you say. Thanks very much. Rocky from Italy

  10. After upgrading from 17 KDE to 17.1 KDE, my desktop background is now completely black. KDM (I replaced MDM with KDM) shows the standard Linux Mint 17 (the old one!) background, after logging in the new standard Linux Mint 17.1 background is shown, but as soon as KDE finishes to load the desktop, the background switches to solid black.

    Edit by Clem: Hi, this is simply because the default background changed path in 17.1. We thought it was acceptable considering the same would happen between releases with users pointing to any wallpaper that was no longer provided. You can right-click the desktop and enter the desktop settings. You’ll see all the wallpapers there, including the one for 17.1.

  11. I’m running 17 KDE version. When I try to get mintupdate to update itself to 4.8.1 it asks for my password and then, after a pause, gives me exactly the same window, saying that there is a new version of mintupdate (4.8.1).

    Having upated mintupdate manually, via apt-get, I do indeed get the option to update to 17.1, but that fails also with the message “The upgrade did not succeed. Make sure you are connected to the internet and try again.”

    Which is not very helpful, as it leaves me nowhere to go (if I wasn’t connected to the net I couldn’t be typing this now).

    Does the upgrade insist on a wired connection? If so, it should say so, otherwise a more helpful error message would really be nice.

    Edit by Clem: It looks like there’s something wrong with your APT cache. I’d suggest opening a terminal and troubleshooting with “apt update”, “apt install -f”..etc. The message you’re seeing simply means your mint-info isn’t up to date (that’s what the upgrader is testing), it’s a sign that you didn’t manage to upgrade all level 1 packages after the upgrader switched your APT sources to Rebecca.

  12. Thanks! I´m very happy with Linux Mint Rebecca with Cinnamon & now even with the KDE Desktop @ Apple MacBook4,1 (2008). Feeling free & my future is with Linux!

  13. Thanks a lot Mint Teams!

    Flawless update Mint KDE 17 to 17.1. 🙂

    And looks like my other desktop (XFCE) updated too. 🙂

  14. I agree with comment #6 by Rick, upgrading the Mint system from within using the command line/GUI is far more practical than doing a fresh install as recommended by the Mint team.
    I request Clem and team to make this possible.
    I’ve been using Mint KDE since version 17 and am very satisfied with the stability and performance.
    Great work and congratulations on the new release!

    Edit by Clem: If we’re talking about 16->17, then maybe… but only for experienced users. Recommending this to everybody irrelevant of their level of experience with APT wouldn’t be very smart and it would put some people in situations they can’t solve. If we’re talking about 17->17.1, then using the Update Manager not only is easier but it doesn’t do the same thing, i.e. it upgrades 17 to 17.1 without applying all trusty updates (which aren’t all recommended, at least not blindly).

  15. Just upgraded to LM XFCE 17.1 and everything looks fine so far.

    One bug still remains; LM still installs the ancient and BROKEN mint-stylish-addon for Firefox. Please Remove this package or Fix it if it is still needed. Stylish 2.0.0 is current and allows my needed FF theme to work.

    Clem and team, please remind us of the official bug reporting process if it is not Launchpad. I opened a bug report on the above issue eons ago and it was never responded to.

    TIA, Mike

    Edit by Clem: Thanks Mike, I’m adding this to the roadmap.

  16. linux-kernel-generic conflicts with linux-headers-generic, so I cannot update the kernel: 🙁

    > sudo aptitude install linux-kernel-generic
    The following NEW packages will be installed:
    linux-image-3.13.0-37-generic{a} linux-image-extra-3.13.0-37-generic{a} linux-kernel-generic{b}
    0 packages upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
    Need to get 51,9 MB of archives. After unpacking 194 MB will be used.
    The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    linux-kernel-generic : Conflicts: linux-headers-generic but 3.13.0.43.50 is installed.
    Breaks: linux-headers-generic but 3.13.0.43.50 is installed.
    The following actions will resolve these dependencies:

    Remove the following packages:
    1) linux-headers-generic

    Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?]

    Edit by Clem: linux-kernel-generic points to the recommended Linux Mint kernel whereas linux-generic (linux-headers-generic and linux-image-generic) point to the latest available kernel. You can’t install both at the same time, by design. If you want the recommended kernel, simply reply “Y”. Otherwise remove linux-kernel-generic and install linux-generic.

  17. I have now upgraded two laptops and two desktops from LM XFCE 17 to 17.1 and installed LM XFCE 17.1 on a Pentium M laptop (using the Force PAE option). No problems at all. Laptop WiFi works fine.
    Great job! Well done!

    (Not sure why Compiz is provided as an XFCE option, as XFCE is designed to bring new life to older, less powerful computers). ??

    Many thanks for all your good work.

  18. works fine, great job. We use mint for people that can not upgrade there windows xp because of expense or technical issue. and they are happy with it

  19. Linux Mint 17.1 Xfce

    I tried to remove some keyboard shortcuts
    but on returning to the Keyboard settings
    they remain set to the defaults.

    + Settings > Window Manager > Keyboard
    + select an action
    + click Clear (the action looks to be cleared)
    + close Window Manager
    + Settings > Window Manager > Keyboard
    + the action is NOT cleared

  20. @Clem regarding the background image issue.
    I understand, in fact it was easy to restore the background on (unfortunately all…) my desktop/activities.
    However, please consider this is not a nice experience: I was using Linux Mint 17 KDE default background, upgrading to 17.1 I simply expected to have the 17.1 default background… having my background completely black (on all activities) was not nice to see and might have frightened an unexperienced user.

    Edit by Clem: I understand and it won’t happen again, that’s the reason we changed the filename, to make it generic.

  21. How is the 17.1 install any different than other versions of LM? I issue Edit>Upgrade to Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca in Update Manager (4.8.1) which opens a Firefox browser session which in turn forces me to look at Release Notes. Then the only thing I see to do is download the ISO for 64-bit KDE from a mirror site. I have done that and created the live USB stick. From there the install is just like any other Mint install. Requires rebuilding partitions, etc. Clem said no downloads were required. Am I missing something?

    Edit by Clem: After you’re done reading the release notes, go back to the Upgrade tool and click Next.

  22. @Clem/Mint developers:

    I was excited for the release of Mint 17.1, but I use Xfce on my old, slow netbook, so I had to wait. Ooh! The anticipation! I was really excited to learn that Mint 17.1 Xfce was released the other day.

    I found the upgrade process to be very annoying.

    I already did all the research, reading the release notes and known issues, etc., before clicking the upgrade button. Why are you forcing me to open those links in my browser a second time before allowing me to upgrade? Why not let me click a button that says “I understand the risks involved in updating” and let me upgrade?

    At that point I was annoyed, but the upgrade was installing and I figured it was over and done with, but things soon got worse when a package failed to download. I was given a choice of canceling the upgrade or ignoring the failed package and trying to install anyway. I didn’t want to risk things being broken due to missing a necessary package, so I canceled the upgrade. Only after I cancelled the upgrade was I informed what the missing package was (it was just some wallpapers), so I think it would have been fine to install without them. I wish I had been told which package failed to download before having to choose whether or not to proceed without it.

    So I tried the upgrade again and was forced to click the link to open my browser to read the release notes *again*, and then I was forced to click the link to open my browser to read the other thing *again* before I could upgrade. This was even more frustrating the second time around because I was already annoyed with being required to click these links the first time. It just reinforced to me how utterly pointless it was to make me click those links before allowing me to continue. Yes, it’s nice that you provided those links to make it easy to find the release notes pertinent information regarding the upgrade, but forcing people to click them doesn’t guarantee they’ll read them.

    I understand your position that upgrades are potentially dangerous and unnecessary unless they fix an issue that you’re having. I did the due diligence and researched all the things you forced me to read and more, before you forced me to read them. i.e., I researched it of my own choosing and volition rather than because you forced me to click the links.

    Please trust your users to be intelligent enough to make decisions on their own and do the research before making important changes to their system.

    All that said, thanks for all the work that went into the new version.

    Edit by Clem: Hi, I understand it can be annoying but I also know for a fact many people will not actually click the link if they can just press Next, in fact many won’t even look at the page containing the link… With that said, we can probably improve the experience by trying to detect if you already read these pages. On a scale of 1 to 10 we’re close to 10 here in “getting in the way” and that goes against what Mint is, as an OS.. so I agree with you. We do want people to read these, but we’re certainly not doing this the right way. We’ll go back to the drawing board and try to make this better for the next cycle.

  23. I’m still stuck with mintUpdate 4.6.7…..the mintUpdate update never comes.
    I’m getting other updates though

    Any ideas? Running Linux Mint 17 XFCE

  24. I’m trying to run the update to 17.1 KDE and when I click on the install mint-meta-kde it comes back with a message saying, “Could not apply changes, fix broken packages first. I’m running the 64bit 17 KDE trying to update it to 17.1 KDE.

    Edit by Clem: Hi Jason, try “apt install -f” in a terminal.

  25. I use mint rebecca cinnamon and sometimes chromium get freezing dunno why.. but It’s normal on mint maya cinnamon.

  26. After two days of testing and playing around after the update I can confirm that everything, to my great surprise knowing how linux likes to break up, works just flawlessly. Great job guys and thank you for an OS that is exactly what I expect of it 😉

  27. Hi Jason K. [#34], I’m encountering the same issue when updating from 64bit 17 KDE. apt install -f and, subsequently, ‘sudo apt-get autoremove’ did not help.

    Edit by Clem: Paste your APT output for apt install -f and apt update, maybe we can help.

  28. Clem, I got it figured out and did what you said. Install went fine.
    Thanks to you and your team for all your work. Mint just keeps getting better.

  29. Hi,

    I experienced complete machine lock-ups under Qiana and Rebecca vanilla, under certain circumstances (some people say this never happens under MATE or KDE versions, so Cinnammon is the obvious culprit). The problem arises several times in a week and is a royal PAIN in the ARSE since I lose all my working documents.

    Does anyone know if this update will solve the problem ? Thanks

  30. Am instalat de cateva zile mint 17 este superb in comparatie cu windows 7 si cand am vazut ca functioneaza jocurile pe facebook pentru copil am decis sa arunc windows 7 la gunoi.Bun venit linux !!!

  31. I had some issues with Cinammon also, in version 17 of the Mint distro, meaning the system booted, but the only black screen. This happend adfter installing some opengl themes or after installing some proprietary drivers. I’ve installed the same 17 version, but KDE flavor. No issues whatsoever. Also updated to 17.1 also KDE, installed a new kernel. Altough KDE have more RAM consumption, it seems, it haves fewer issue also. It’s good that Linux Mint have so many flavors, there are so many configurations out there, so give it a try to KDE flavor also, for me it works without any issues

  32. Upgrade of the 64bit Xfce flavour absolutely painless – many thanks!
    Note: If your upgrade procedure updates VirtualBox as well, don’t forget to (manually) update the related extension pack. Otherwise your virtual machines won’t start.
    cheers
    Georg

  33. updated my acer one M17 xfce …great even seems a bit faster
    BUT
    when i updated the desktop it has done something to the USB/wireless donge, I have 4 different ones and not one now holds a signal, to get it to work i have to switch off and back on [from the tool bar icon] but if i try to download anything of sizes it just drops out again,

    and my dell laptop seems fine except i cannot get it to check for updates it keeps telling me web site not found

  34. i was reviewing the release notes and read of the swap issue when using encrypted home dirs and i’m really not clear as to what is going on here.

    “Misconfigured Swap when using home directory encryption

    When using the option to encrypt the home directory, an upstream issue in the installer results in the Swap partition not being configured properly.

    Click here and here for more information on this bug.”

    should i or shouldn’t i? this sounds suspiciously show-stopperish but has apparently been around since 2012. is there something i should do before attempting the 17.1 update to ensure its successful? does this render the system unbootable? i’ve gone over the two bug reports and there seems to be no concise answer.

    thanx in advance …

    Edit by Clem: Hi, this doesn’t concern upgrades, only new installations. If your SWAP is already working it will continue to work. If it’s already misconfigured, it will continue to be misconfigured. This is a bug in the ubiquity installer basically 🙂

  35. Hello Clem,
    First off, I would like to say thank you so much for providing us with a great free OS with the ability to now upgrade without needing a Live installer or a reformat every time. I have been using Mint since I found out about 13/Maya in 2012 and been loving it ever since. I have two questions for you:
    1) I ran into one issue that I am not sure is even an issue, per se. I upgraded my kernel and then ran the 17.1 update on my laptop, and it gave me a prompt to restart (normal). However, on my desktop, I never got a prompt, and the installer disappeared. I was instead redirected to a login prompt with a black background. Did the installer crash midway through? Or, do I need to be worried about a corrupted upgrade? I restarted after logging in and checked in the terminal, and it says I’m running 17.1 Rebecca. No GUI errors seen. Hopefully the upgrade finished okay…
    2) Ever since being off of Mint 13, my laptop does not resume from suspend or hibernate properly. Whenever I wake the computer, it turns on, and the monitor is on but black. The keyboard and mouse don’t work, and it seems totally unresponsive (same on Xubuntu 14.04). I read that it might have something to do with xscreensaver, light-locker (Xubuntu), and/or xfce power manager. Using proprietary AMD/ATI drivers works, but the screensaver is still glitchy (no prompt, have to type password blind). I was hoping 17.1 would fix it, but it sounds like an issue that is impacting multiple distros. Any ideas? Sorry for the long post, and thanks for everything you do!

    Edit by Clem: 1) It sounds like it went ok. Assuming it didn’t, you can simply use the update manager to check for level 1 updates. If the upgrader didn’t upgrade them all, you can continue from there. 2) I’d suggest trying Mint 17.1 MATE Edition and Xubuntu 14.04 to see if that happens there as well. If it happens only in Mint Xfce then it’s likely to be xscreensaver, if it happens in both Xubuntu and Mint Xfce then it’s likely to be related to Xfce, if it happens in MATE as well then it’s likely to be power-session-related.. Note also that one item on our roadmap is to attempt the implementation of a GTK interface for xscreensaver.

  36. Well done – I installed the KDE 64 17 version a while back, and it was running nicely, but after a boot issue I moved back over to Cinnamon.

    I upgraded to 17.1 painlessly after waiting for the upgrade to arrive.

    Thanks and thanks! Linux Mint gave me back my computer!

  37. Clem,
    I have also had an intermittent problem with resume on Mint 17.1 MATE. Especially if it is in the Suspend mode for several hours. Thanks again for all yours and the team’s hard work and for actually listening to Mint users!

  38. Just upgraded an old ASUS laptop from Mint XFCE 17 to XFCE 17.1 and it still boots fine. But since when it has been automatically mounting drives even if gparted is running? (I really don’t want it to mount partitions by default if USB stick has corrupted partition, I want to be able to fsck it first without it being mounted at all. It is fine to mount a drive if double clicked on the desktop icon to open it).

  39. No more memory leak or whatever that was from running chrome and then firefox. Thank you Clem for taking notice and fixing it for all of us. Not in 10 years time did I ever receive such individual attention when I contacted MS. This is why Mint Cinnamon and Mint Mate are my OS of choice and everyone within earshot knows it!

    Bill in NC – USA

  40. After updating XFCE 17 -> 17.1 the Base(trusty) mirror got stuck on archive.ubuntu.com, i can’t change it anymore. Is this as intended to be?

    Edit by Clem: No it’s not. We heard of that bug already, it’s a known bug, but we’re not yet able to reproduce it.

  41. I installed Mint 17.1 and it will not mount my dvd drive. Has anyone else had this problem? Please help!

  42. I like to have my home directory on a separate partition from my root directory and found the upgrade went with absolutely no problems. Many thanks!

  43. To answer my own question: the machine hangs still occur with the 17.1 update unfortunately. I will try using MATE instead of cinnammon as a stopgap measure.

  44. Ten years ago Linux was not complete and strong enough. Now I am so happy with Linux Mint Cinammon. Whenever I use windows I’m just annoyed.

  45. Hi Clem and team.
    Interesting to note an increasing number of comments about dispensing with windows as a result of your great efforts.
    A couple of things – CUPS does a generally good job for printers until you get to the commercial level – then functionality is often compromised.
    Again in the SME business arena, accounting packages seem to be hard to replicate in Linux.
    It’s about time the commercial producers acknowledged the increasing influence of Linux users and started writing Linux code for their products. It would have benefits to the voluntary sector as well.
    Much of what can be done in Windows can be done in Linux with these two areas a big exception. Does anyone talk to Accounts Software or Printer producers to encourage them to bite the bullet?
    In the meantime, I’ve moved away from LMDE to 17.1 (MATE) because of LTS.
    Great work from your team – thanks again

  46. Great stuff everyone and thanks for the hard work.

    Similar to a few others’ comments here, I ran into issues with Cinnamon and after upgrades and re-installing etc, I switched to MATE. Thus far, outside of doing some tweaking and getting used to things, The issues I was experiencing seem to be history. One additional benefit is I now have a SCREENSAVER again. One that allows me to use my own photos and not a pre-packaged thing I didn’t want. Gawd, almost sounds like I’m talking about Windows. Anyway, MATE seems to be the more reliable and less quirky performer for the time being.

    Again, Thanks to all who work on this.

  47. I’m having a similar problem to some other people who have posted here, using Mint 17 Cinnamon; when I run the upgrade from the Update Manager, I get the popup saying it’s downloading packages, but it eventually finishes with the message “The upgrade did not succeed. Make sure you are connected to the internet and try again.”

    I thought it might have been because my Preferences were set to only install level 1 & 2 updates, so I tried enabling all levels as well as trying different source mirrors, but to no avail.

    Looking at Clem’s comments here, it seems to be an issue with the APT cache. When I run “apt install -f” in a terminal I get the message “Segmentation faultsts… 33%”, but I have no idea what’s causing this or how to fix it. Incidentally, using apt-get commands instead seems to work fine and doesn’t give this error (don’t know if that’s relevant).

    Any ideas?

    Edit by Clem: “sudo apt-get install -f” doesn’t give you the same as “apt install -f”?

  48. I also have thrown windows out in favour of Linux Mint Cinnamon and have found it to be an easy OS to learn . The only problem I have is with google Earth . I cannot open the photos – Don

  49. @Clem: Here’s what I get when I type the two commands:

    andrew@andrew-LinuxMint ~ $ sudo apt install -f
    Segmentation faultsts… 33%
    andrew@andrew-LinuxMint ~ $ sudo apt-get install -f
    andrew@andrew-LinuxMint ~ $

    “sudo apt-get install -f” doesn’t give any output once it’s finished reading the package lists

    Edit by Clem: And “apt help install -f”?

  50. I am a Newbie to Linux. I was looking for a Windows XP Pro substitution that is installed on a Thinkpad T43p. After studying and comparing different Linux distributions, I decided to install Linux Mint 17.1 . And it was the right decission. I’m very impressed about Linux Mint. It fulfills all my expectations. Many thanks to the Team for the great job.

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