On Friday, 3 October 2014 at 11:31:07 UTC, eles wrote:
On Friday, 3 October 2014 at 07:16:14 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
On Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 12:44:08 UTC, eles wrote:
I doubt. At least, not easily. However, installing LMDE
should be a one-time process (it's a rolling distribution).
Do rolling distributions guarantee to not overwrite fstab? How
mint package update differs from a rolling distro package
update?
Mint is release-based. All packages are updated in a large
group that is called "a release", unlike rolling distributions,
where packages are updated package-by-package, sometimes even
on daily basis.
The former attempt stability (because all packages are tested
together, along with their interactions), while the latter
attempt cutting-edge software (you update software as it gets
produced).
No matter the distribution, security packages usually comes in
in rolling-manner (because very important).
Unlike other release-style distribution, Mint simply does not
support hot-upgrades, they recommend full reinstall (back-up
your files, clean harddisk, install, restore files).
Anyway, the fact that they do not support it does not mean is
not possible. It's just that they disclaim responsibility and
they do not want to invest support into that.
So, it is possible, but you must be a bit of geek. And you
cannot request their official helps/guides for that. Think of
it as "undocumented feature" from their POV.
I recently upgraded a mint install by changing any and all
references to repositories to the corresponding ones for the new
release and then running apt-get dist-upgrade
It worked, but I wouldn't recommend it.
Clean reinstalls or rolling release are better approaches to the
problem of updating an OS. Ubuntu, Windows and OS X have all
subtlely or not-so-subtley let me down with automated upgrades at
one point or another.
