Upgrading Linux Mint Cinnamon from version 16 to 17.

Linux Mint 17 was recently released and so I had one laptop and my main desktop to upgrade from Mint 16 to 17, both of which I use the Cinnamon desktop on. Since Mint have decided to base the next few releases on the 14.04 LTS version of Ubuntu, it will make the next few upgrades much simpler, and should mean less reinstalls. I prefer to upgrade in place as I'm not keen on reinstalling as it can take a lot of time to configure and reinstall apps, etc.

Ubuntu has a proper way to upgrade between releases and you can upgrade from LTS to LTS with the update manager. With Mint, there is no official upgrade method, but you can just 'cheat' and change the source lists to the new release. it's not guaranteed to work but I upgraded from Mint 15 to 16 with this method and I just upgraded to 17 using this how-to.

First I upgraded my main desktop, a Dell Precision 390, it took a long time to download all the updates but it went fairly well. For some reason the English (UK) settings seemed to be missing after the upgrade, so my keyboard was set to English (US). Pretty easy to sort out in the Settings Manager. One thing that's slightly annoying is that Gmusicbrowser's icon will not show up in the Notification area anymore, despite that setting being enabled. There are also some spurious errors on boot but they do not hold up the boot process or cause any problems. The settings manager has been improved, Nemo file manager seems to have some refinements, and the system as a whole does feel a little quicker. There's a full list of new features on the Linux Mint website.

My HP nc6320 laptop upgrade went well too without any problems what-so-ever and, unlike on my desktop, the keyboard settings remained as English (UK). As you can see from the screenshots, my preferred configuration on laptops and desktops is to have a top panel and a dock instead of a lower panel, with Conky for system info to one side of the desktop.

 

Mint 16 Cinnamon on a HP nc6320

 

I have just bought a HP nc6320 very cheaply, and it came with 1GB RAM and Windows XP Pro, which of course I immediately wiped out and installed Mint 16, Cinnamon version, (MATE desktop is also available) after upgrading the RAM to 3GB by adding a 2GB stick. It will take 2x 2GB sticks but I don't have another spare at the moment. I chose Mint 16 because Cinnamon desktop stopped working properly on Ubuntu on my old desktop, and I also bought a Dell Precision 390 workstation and Mint 16 installed and works very well on that, so I decided to give it a go on this, especially since I already had it ready to go on a USB stick.

Installation took around 10 minutes and almost everything seems to work nicely out the box. The only thing I cannot get working at the moment is the fingerprint reader, though I'm not trying too hard, it's not exactly that important to have for me. Wireless works out the box, as does Bluetooth, just make sure to press the Wireless button on the top row above the keyboard to turn it on. Suspend/Resume works perfectly and the 15" screen gives a 1400 x 1050 pixel resolution. Not surprising it all works I suppose since HP originally certified it to run Suse Enterprise Linux Desktop 10. The nc6320 feels fairly sturdy and has a reasonable keyboard and screen. I also appreciate the internal DVD writer it comes with. I do hope it lasts longer than the nc6120 I had awhile back though, which developed a motherboard fault. I've not tested the battery but since it's probably had a hard life the 1hr 37mins estimated is probably correct.

Mint 16 has a great out-of-the-box experience overall, the login screen looks swish and of course various codecs are already installed and the main theme is sensible. Well, except I don't really like green that much! I have installed Humanities-Zukitwo icons and Radiance gtk theme (from the repos), which I think look good with Adwaita Classic Cinnamon theme. I have also set it up in a similar fashion to my main desktop with inverted panel at the top and Cairo Dock at the bottom of the screen. Here's some more screenshots (click to enlarge):