How To Upgrade Linux Mint Debian Edition

Upgrade

I recently had to perform upgrades for multiple machines from Update Pack 4 to Update Pack 5. It was really rather easy to do as the following instructions show.

Thanks to this blog for correcting some of my mistakes.

Update the Update Manager

The update manager will indicate when updates are available. For a distribution upgrade like Update Pack 5, I revert to command line. Use CTL-ALT-F1 to switch to a native console session. Then update the update manager with the commands

sudo apt-get install mint-debian-mirrorssudo apt-get install mintupdate-debiansudo apt-get --fix-missing --list-cleanup updatesudo apt-get install mintupdate-debian

Run Distribution Upgrade

So, now we are ready to perform the upgrade with

sudo apt-get --fix-missing --list-cleanup updatesudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Questions Asked During Upgrade

Questions will be asked during the upgrade. If you have a default installation you can normally use the package maintainers version. If unsure check the differences.

With kernel updates you will be asked where to install Grub.
Answer with the location of your current Grub menu, which on most systems is /dev/sda.

Post Upgrade Tasks

Get Best mint-debian Mirror

After installation refresh mirrors with

sudo dpkg-reconfigure mint-debian-mirrors

When I did this I got the following error.

How to Solve NO_PUBKEY 07DC563D1F41B907

Thanks to this blog for this solution.

If we add the repository http://www.debian-multimedia.org  on Debian testing
it can happen that when we try to execute the comand apt-get update, we see a GPG error:

W: GPG error: http://www.debian-multimedia.org squeeze Release:The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not availableNO_PUBKEY 07DC563D1F41B907

To solve this problem we need to install the debian-keyring package

apt-get install debian-keyring

And then execute this command:

gpg --keyring /usr/share/keyrings/debian-keyring.gpg -a --export 07DC563D1F41B907 | apt-key add -

After that, when we try to execute apt-get update, there will be no the GPG error anymore.

Google Chrome

The repositories for Google Chrome (I use the beta releases) are no longer valid. Google recommends downloading the Debian package and re-installing. This updates the Debian repositories.

Thunar Slow to Start

This is due to Thunar trying to auto-mount network drives. It is easy to fix with,

vi /usr/shares/gvfs/mounts/network.mount

And set 

AutoMount=false

Using True Type Fonts in XTerm

I’ve not had to use TrueType fonts before as my desktop display resolution never warranted it. Now with eyesight failing and much better monitors, I decided to give them a go. Fonts are globally managed by settings in /etc/X11/app-defaults. However, TrueType fonts can be locally set using ~/.Xresources.
To browse the list of fonts use

fc-list :fontformat=TrueType -f "%{family}\n" | sort -u | less

Test a font by specifyng in the xterm command -fa option

xterm -fa 'Luxi Mono' -fs 10

Where fa refers to the fonts face name, and fs, the font size.

Once happy with your font, apply to your application in ~/.Xresources
For example to apply for XTerm

! my customisations
XTerm*faceName: DejaVu Sans Mono
XTerm*faceSize: 11

The final step is to set these resource changes using xrdb

xrdb -merge .Xresources

So, next time you invoke a plain xterm command you will be greeted with your new font.

Linux Mint on HP Mini 110

I have a little experimental machine for playing with different distributions. Lately, the HP Mini 110-1081TU has been running MeeGo. Now it has been commissioned to run Linux Mint. This comes in a variety of flavours. The one reviewed here is Linx Mint Debian 201109. While the download was a monstrous 1.1G, the installation is the fastest I've ever seen. It literally took 10 minutes! 

Post Installation - Wireless
This is where the fun begins. First off, I had trouble getting wireless to work.  Reading dmesg gave very helpful instructions.  Read the recommendations carefully! Doing so can save you much time and effort. The HP Mini 110 uses a Broadcom 4312 WLAN. Install the packages b43-fwcutter and firmware-b43-lpphy-installer. I recommend the Linux Wireless page as it has exceptionally good documentation.

Post Installation - Sound

Sound quality is actually better than under previous Linux distributions I've tried. So I was very happy that I need no special post installation tasks. This is more a reflection on the hardware than the software.

The settings for the HP Mini 110 are HDA Intel (Alsa mixer) with Master, Headphone and Beep controls active. Use the last control to silence that nasty boot-up PC beep. The beep is issued from GDM. If you get errors about not being able to open shared library libasound_module_ctl_pulse, then try using the device parameter, alsamizer -c 0  For more, see the related posts on LinuxQuestions.
Post Installation - TrackPad

Most posts I've read about this are asking how to turn it off, not on!

The instructions that worked for my machine are here.

This has been one of the easier installations I've done. The system starts up quickly, and is responsive. The Xfce interface is clean and adaptable for the smaller screen size.  And, I really like the idea of a rolling release! I think Linux Mint and I will be friends ...