Linux Mint 17.3 Officially Released (softpedia.com)

prisoninmate sends news that Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa" has been officially released. Following a few technical problems with their website, the Mint developers posted release announcements for both the Cinnamon and MATE flavors of the operating system. "Both Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa" editions ship with the same improvements for some of the operating system's core components and in-house built apps, such as Software Sources, which is now more reliable, responsive, and fast, Update Manager, which can perform more checks, Driver Manager, which is now more robust, and Login Screen." Here are the release notes (Cinnamon, MATE), and the summaries of new features (Cinnamon, MATE).

Comments

Re:How safe?

[inhuman_4]

I started on LinuxMint 17 and rolled into 17.1 and 17.2 without any problems, and I don't expect any problems for 17.3.

The thing to remember is that LinuxMint 17.x series is based off of the Ubuntu 14.04LTS. So the upgrade from 17.2 -> 17.3 is like going from Ubuntu 14.04.2 -> 14.04.3. The major changes are to the parts of the software stack that are added by the LinuxMint team like the Cinnamon DE and the Mint* series of apps. Although this release does include a kernel upgrade from 3.16 -> 3.19, that still isn't exactly bleeding edge. And an upgrade for LibreOffice from 4.4 -> 5. So these are all pretty safe upgrades. These aren't Arch style rolling releases, morel like Windows service pack upgrades. There shouldn't be any major changes to the core of the system like switching to systemd or moving from python2.7 -> python3 or anything like that.

Also note that the upgrade will not install automatically. To do the upgrade you have to open the Update Manger like you do for normal upgrade, and select "Upgrade to 17.3" from the Edit menu, or something like that (sorry it's been a while). Accurate instructions will be posted on the LinuxMint blog in a little while. If you are concerned just wait a week or so and see if people on the forums have had any issues.

Linux Mint is the most Desktop Ready ever Linux.

[MindPrison]

I've been using Linux since 1998. I really wanted to break free back then, it's a need deeply buried into me and I want total control over my own computer - even I can't claim to know enough about that, and I probably never will...but that said...

Usually over the last 16 years or so - I've had Windows installed as a second boot partition because there was always this special software I needed to run under Windows, at times it was games, at times it was 3D proprietary software, at times it was stuff I needed for work, paying my taxes to the gov. etc. All stuff that REQUIRED Windows to be present.

Ever since Mint Linux 17.x those days where absolutely GONE. My windows partition was gathering dust - and became a big liability as it took 30+ minutes to boot every time since I used it so seldom that it had like 10ths of updates that needed installing each time, Mint Linux does this seamlessly and there's no need for 100s of reboots.

It turns out there's literally drivers for anything on the planet on Linux today, so I have drivers for my Card Readers (Needed for gov. work), I have drivers for my weird hardware that doesn't even work under windows - and I enjoy modern software with it. On windows you constantly have to purchase NEW hardware to make the older (but nice expensive stuff) work as the manufacturers simply drop support after a while.

Linux Mint is also one of the most flawless Linux distros I've ever witnessed - it had nearly made me forget about anything Linux (that's how you can tell you've got a good OS...) It simply means ...I just USE it, and don't have to repair stuff under the hood each day of my working life. And I like it that way, I'm not 20 years and loving to fix basic bugs anymore, I'm at that age where I concentrate on MY job and what I like to do, that's when it feels awesome to have something that just works.

Thanks a lot to the Ubuntu and Mint Linux team - you guys have made my life SO much easier over the years. (and btw. The windows partition is gone, don't even miss it).

Re:How safe?

[i.r.id10t]

Just change the release name in your /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list file, apt-get update, apt-get dist-upgrade, and then apt-get autoremove

You can always mount /home as a separate partition, device, or even better as a RAID array (1 or 5, 1 should be sufficient). Then when you want to re-install completely just wipe the OS and after your first boot remount /home where it belongs