Time for a major upgrade to my computer’s operating system.

I was quite happily running Linux Mint 20.1 but with the end of long term support (LTS) approaching it became neccessary to upgrade to the latest LTS which is 22.1 codename Xia. It’s not actually that big a deal but I still get anxious, any process that involves writng into disk master boot records (MBR) and involves the word ‘format’ makes me clench. And there is always a spell afterwards of tweeking and reinstalling apps to get things back to how you want.

So first, backups. Well we are all doing those anyway, right? But take some more just in case.

I have multiple disks in my PC (6 actually) and the operating system components are separate from my files and documents. So partition some of the free space on the SSD where the operating system lives as space for a new OS.

Download the ISO from Mint, write to a USB stick, boot and run the install. In the install I specified that the filesystem root / goes onto that nice clean space on the SSD, and that it can reuse and format the existing /home and /var partitions on /dev/sda3 and /dev/sde1 respectively. Overwriting those means all the assorted cruft that accumulates can get wiped and we start clean, but does mean that annoying configuring things back again. At a pinch I can mount the former OS from the SSD and look at the config files for 20.1 as a reference point.

The install gave a small hickup when it stalled - after writing the MBR! That’s why I defer doing these PC surgery for as long as possible!! But a restart and retry went though without problems and we are soon looking at a nice clean Linux desktop.

Run the update manager to get upto date copies of the packages and start the process of reinstalling some frequently used 3rd party apps such as Zoom and VMware workstation. Other frequently used applications such as browsers and an office suite are ready to go in Mint so no difficulties there. The VMware was a nightmare, I don’t think I’ve ever had a company make it soooo difficult and labourious to download some popular and free to use software. A ridiculous faff.

Then remount the drives with all my stuff on (like the virtual machines for that hard to install VMware….) and we are golden.

There is stil a lot of gripes and things to tweek. Spent far too long trying to get the second monitor screen to use it’s maximum res - still not managed that. And resizing windows uses a strange quarter-pie icon I dont like. I want the familiar double arrow. But at least the advantage of Linux is these things can be done.

I’ll reinstall apps as I need or want them, thier configurations will be in the backups if needed. And hopefully I won’t be doing thisagain till the LTS for Xia runs out in April 2029. By which time AI will be doing it anyway.