Upgrade from Linux Mint 18.3 to Linux Mint 19 with mintupgrade

Using mintupgrade to upgrade from LM 18.3 -> LM 19

Here the instruction to upgrade:

1.) Safety first:

First of all make sure that you install timeshift.

apt install timeshift

Then launch „Menu -> Administration -> Timeshift„.

Follow the wizard to select a destination for your snapshots.

In the toolbar, click on the „Create“ button to make a manual snapshot of your operating system.

If anything goes wrong, you’ll be able to restore your operating to this current state, either from within Linux Mint, or by launching Timeshift from a live Mint session (live DVD or live USB).

2.) LightDM

Make sure that you have installed the LightDM displaymanager.

cat /etc/X11/default-display-manager

If the result is „/usr/sbin/lightdm“, you can skip this step.

If the result is „/usr/sbin/mdm“, you need to switch display managers by installing lightdm and removing mdm. Open a terminal and type:

apt install lightdm lightdm-settings slick-greeter

When asked to choose a display manager between MDM and LightDM, choose LightDM.

Open a terminal and type:

apt remove –purge mdm mint-mdm-themes*

sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm

sudo reboot

3.) Install the upgrade tool Mintupgrade

To install the upgrade tool, open a terminal and type:

apt install mintupgrade

4) Simulate upgrade with mintupgrade

To simulate an upgrade, open a terminal and type:

mintupgrade check

Then follow the instructions on the screen.

This command temporarily points your system to the Linux Mint 19 repositories and calculates the impact of an upgrade.

Note that this command doesn’t affect your system. After the simulation is finished, your original repositories are restored.

The output shows you if the upgrade is possible, and if it is, which packages would be upgraded, installed, removed and kept back.

It is extremely important that you pay close attention to the output of this command.

Do not proceed if there are any errors in the output.

5.) Download upgrade

To download the packages necessary to upgrade to Linux Mint 19, type the following command:

mintupgrade download

Note that this command doesn’t actually perform the upgrade itself, but just downloads the packages.

6.) Apply the upgrades

To apply the upgrades, type the following command:

mintupgrade upgrade

After the upgrade and a reboot you supposed to be upgraded to Linux Mint 19.