Linux Mint 20.n End Of Life (April 2025) - Upgrading to LM 21 In-Place

[connda]

I just did an "in-place" upgrade of my Linux Mint 20.3 installation which has an End Of Life on April 1st of this year.  I don't normally do in-place upgrades (in fact I've never done one for major upgrades) but I tried it in this case.

You can use Update Manager to perform a minor upgrade from LM 20, 20.1, 20.2 to LM 20.3 - you need to be at Linux Mint 20.3 in order to perform a major upgrade.
From terminal:
sudo apt install mintupgrade
and follow the instructions.

The only problems I encountered was that mintupgrade found "foreign packages" that it marks as in error and would not proceed.  I fixed that by going to Synaptic App Manager and deleting the packages which in this case were Libreoffice packages.

Other than that, the download of the new major update package took about 10 minutes and the upgrade took about 30 minute.  I ran into the same error regarding Libreoffice again during the upgrade and fixed it the same way - go to Synaptic App Manager and deleted all Libreoffice package.  Easy enough to reinstall.  Other than that, I'm not upgraded to Linux Mint 21 which has an End Of Life of April 2027, but I will be doing a clean install to Linux Mint 22 after April.  Don't want to do in now as I need my computer to accomplish some work before I risk the upgrade.

One other thing to note - the upgrade takes up a lot of temporary space.  I've got a 30 GB partition for / root and I almost filled it.  Be aware.

[howto]

BTW, Linux Mint 22.1 Xia was released on 2025-01-17  Just Saying,,,

 

[connda]

 

2 hours ago, howto said:

BTW, Linux Mint 22.1 Xia was released on 2025-01-17  Just Saying,,,

 

You can upgrade to LM 22 but it is a more involved process.  The upgrade process from LM 20.n to LM 21 is not that difficult to accomplish in-place via the Upgrade Manager and it buys you two years until the next End Of Life.

I wrote this post specifically because many of us don't upgrade just because a new release comes out.  Even the folks at Linux Mint state on their site that if your experience is stable and you don't need or want any of the new features, then there is no reason to upgrade. A quote from the Linux Mint website regarding upgrades:
"As a general rule... unless you need to, or unless you really want to, there's no reason for you to upgrade."

 

I've already upgraded one of my computers to Linux Mint 22 using a clean install and completely rebuilding my OS, but it's time consuming and not without some minimal risks.  I don't want to touch my primary computer as I need it for some software tasks and I don't plan to upgrade it until this May, which is a month after the LM 20.n EOL. And that is why I opted for an in-place upgrade to LM 21 - less risk.  I could roll it back in 10 minutes.

 

So yeah, I do know what has been released.  I live LM 22 and upgrading to that version fixed issues I had with Bluetooth not working.  As far as upgrading to LM 22.1?  I'll have to see if there are any features that I want, otherwise - maybe, maybe not.  I'll see when I get there.