I’ve been wondering why Mint doesn’t seem to have an automatic major version upgrade built in? For those that have an opinion, do you agree with not having this? Why/why not?
I’ve been running Mint 21 for over a year now. I started using it not long before Mint 22 came out and have been dragging my feet on upgrading in fear of breaking something and having to reinstall (and losing something in the process). I’m in the process of setting up proper backups so I’ll probably do it after those are set up (or maybe wait until Mint 23).
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Why not https://gameoftrees.org/ ?
Interesting. If you’ve used this on Linux, could you share your experience with and thoughts on it?
That would make Mint unstable. That is exactly what unstable means in Linux context. There are debian based rolling-release distros, including Debian Sid. This is one of the reasons people choose Arch, because it’s a rolling release you never have to worry about version.
There’s a good chance you might break stuff by upgrading major version like you fear, and that’s why it doesn’t happen automatically. That being said it should be safe, but good on you to prepare backups.
You answer your question yourself with
in fear of breaking something and having to reinstall (and losing something in the process)
Version upgrades are a big thing and unexpected things can happen. Would you be a happy user if the system auto updated to the next version and something truly broke? By forcing manual upgrade they can better inform users about possible unexpected things, and e.g. advice to do backups first. Thus users would be more prepared for this. Also version upgrades take a lot longer time than normal updates since it has update all packages, do other changes to the system etc.
I don’t think there’s any versioned Linux distros that do automatic major version updates. Only rolling release distros like Arch.
FWIW, some (perhaps even most/all) uBlue derivatives actually do automatic major version updates. Though, thanks to the bootc-model, they’re dealing with a whole lot less state(/moving parts); hence smooth updates are somewhat expected. The built-in rollback functionality doesn’t hurt either.
The built-in rollback functionality doesn’t hurt either.
More than that I think it’s a prerequisite for doing this.
You might be absolutely correct on that.
Though, I do wonder what would prevent a stateless system accompanied by a healthy dose of integrity tests from pulling this off.
Or rolling like Tumbleweed
Not sure why the downvote, other than that they specified “versioned” (not rolling).
All rolling distros obviously auto-upgrade by definition.
Yeah not sure, and tumbleweed is “versioned” in a way you get a discrete/prescribed set of updates when the dated build is ready…you can always update packages out of sync with the distribution upgrade I guess
I don’t think I’ve ever had a debian major upgrade go well. always easier to reinstall, but the stakes are so low on my own devices
Funny that’s how my Slackware upgrades always went, but I’ve had a great experience with Debian every time.
version upgrades might change major things so its not pushed onto everybody. if you want a single thing based in rolling updates, thats basically the Arch model. the thing with rolling updates of course is being on the bleeding edge means things also break easier.
