We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Linux Mint 21 is out now and you can easily upgrade

By - | Views: 28,155

In case you didn't already know Linux Mint 21 is officially out now with editions that come with the Cinnamon, MATE or Xfce desktop environments.

Safe to use on the desktop for gaming and work for many years, as it's a long-term support release that will keep going until 2027 with updates thanks to it being based upon Ubuntu 22.04. You will get Linux Kernel 5.15 and depending on which edition you go for Cinnamon 5.4, MATE 1.26 or Xfce 4.16.

Pictured - Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition

Largely the same as the Beta I previously covered. With major changes to the display manager in Cinnamon, based on a much more modern version of Mutter that was previously rather outdated. They've also ported over the display settings from Gnome, plus plenty of theme tweaks to make applications match with the GTK theme.

Some of the other major changes includes:

  • A switch from Blueberry to Blueman for Bluetooth
  • New Xapp project called xapp-thumbnailers, providing thumbnails for many more file types
  • Upgrades to the Sticky Notes application
  • A process monitor to inform you when automated tasks are happening that might slow your PC down
  • Webp support was added to xviewer and thumbnailers.
  • The WebApp manager supports additional browsers and custom browser parameters.
  • In Software Sources, the repository list, PPA list and key list support multiple selection. This allows several items to be removed at a time.
  • Mint now uses IPP (Driverless Printing and Scanning)

Plus lots more.

How to upgrade? Linux Mint 20.3 to version 21 is reasonably easy and supported. In terminal run these commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install mintupgrade
sudo mintupgrade

Then you will be greeted by the official UI upgrade tool to follow along. After it's completed you can run these to finish:

sudo apt remove mintupgrade
sudo reboot

You can download from the official site.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
13 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
12 comments
Page: 1/2»
  Go to:

gradyvuckovic Aug 8, 2022
Mint team do excellent work, another great update.
Purple Library Guy Aug 8, 2022
Always good to see more Mint.
I've been using Mint as my main distro since 2016, and this update was harder to install than either of the previous two major version updates. The upgrade script got stuck trying to update the deb package "context," (a dependency of texlive-full). I aborted mintupgrade and tried to run  sudo dpkg --configure -a
But that just got me stuck on the same package. Then after fiddling some more I tried using "sudo dpkg -r" to manually remove context and its reverse dependencies. Then I tried running mintupgrade again, but it got caught with an error saying "there are 1220 packages that need to be upgraded." Rather than upgrade them automatically, the mintupgrade program got stuck in a loop of telling me to upgrade deb packages until I aborted it and ran sudo apt upgrade...

...except my apt configuration had somehow been broken, so I was left with three packages that couldn't be upgraded. I tried mintupgrade again, and this time it got caught in a loop telling me "there are 3 packages that need to be upgraded." So I aborted again, apt purge'd those three packages, and then ran mintupgrade yet again. That time it worked. After rebooting, I reinstalled texlive-full.

The developers said mintupgrade was supposed to be more beginner-friednly than the upgrade process from Mint 18.3->19 or 19.3->20, but for me it was the opposite. It feels so disappointing, because I've liked almost every other mint-specific change in the last six years.

Now that I've actually finished upgrading, I really like it. I'm impressed that they managed to rebase Cinnamon on an almost completely different window manager and still preserve all the features I love, and I look forward to using this operating system base for the next two years. Hopefully they can iron out the bugs in mintupgrade before 2024.


Last edited by RandomizedKirbyTree47 on 8 August 2022 at 8:24 pm UTC
Purple Library Guy Aug 8, 2022
Quoting: RandomizedKirbyTree47I've been using Mint as my main distro since 2016, and this update was harder to install than either of the previous two major version updates. The upgrade script got stuck trying to update the deb package "context," (a dependency of texlive-full). I aborted mintupgrade and tried to run  sudo dpkg --configure -a
But that just got me stuck on the same package. Then after fiddling some more I tried using "sudo dpkg -r" to manually remove context and its reverse dependencies. Then I tried running mintupgrade again, but it got caught with an error saying "there are 1220 packages that need to be upgraded." Rather than upgrade them automatically, the mintupgrade program got stuck in a loop of telling me to upgrade deb packages until I aborted it and ran sudo apt upgrade...

...except my apt configuration had somehow been broken, so I was left with three packages that couldn't be upgraded. I tried mintupgrade again, and this time it got caught in a loop telling me "there are 3 packages that need to be upgraded." So I aborted again, apt purge'd those three packages, and then ran mintupgrade yet again. That time it worked. After rebooting, I reinstalled texlive-full.

The developers said mintupgrade was supposed to be more beginner-friednly than the upgrade process from Mint 18.3->19 or 19.3->20, but for me it was the opposite. It feels so disappointing, because I've liked almost every other mint-specific change in the last six years.

Now that I've actually finished upgrading, I really like it. I'm impressed that they managed to rebase Cinnamon on an almost completely different window manager and still preserve all the features I love, and I look forward to using this operating system base for the next two years. Hopefully they can iron out the bugs in mintupgrade before 2024.

Hrm. Maybe I'll wait a month or two.
scaine Aug 8, 2022
View PC info
  • Contributing Editor
  • Mega Supporter
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: RandomizedKirbyTree47I've been using Mint as my main distro since 2016, and this update was harder to install than either of the previous two major version updates. The upgrade script got stuck trying to update the deb package "context," (a dependency of texlive-full). I aborted mintupgrade and tried to run  sudo dpkg --configure -a
But that just got me stuck on the same package. Then after fiddling some more I tried using "sudo dpkg -r" to manually remove context and its reverse dependencies. Then I tried running mintupgrade again, but it got caught with an error saying "there are 1220 packages that need to be upgraded." Rather than upgrade them automatically, the mintupgrade program got stuck in a loop of telling me to upgrade deb packages until I aborted it and ran sudo apt upgrade...

...except my apt configuration had somehow been broken, so I was left with three packages that couldn't be upgraded. I tried mintupgrade again, and this time it got caught in a loop telling me "there are 3 packages that need to be upgraded." So I aborted again, apt purge'd those three packages, and then ran mintupgrade yet again. That time it worked. After rebooting, I reinstalled texlive-full.

The developers said mintupgrade was supposed to be more beginner-friednly than the upgrade process from Mint 18.3->19 or 19.3->20, but for me it was the opposite. It feels so disappointing, because I've liked almost every other mint-specific change in the last six years.

Now that I've actually finished upgrading, I really like it. I'm impressed that they managed to rebase Cinnamon on an almost completely different window manager and still preserve all the features I love, and I look forward to using this operating system base for the next two years. Hopefully they can iron out the bugs in mintupgrade before 2024.

Hrm. Maybe I'll wait a month or two.

Well, last time I used Mint, it was Mint 19 and I was amazed to discover that there was no upgrade path to Mint 20. It was basically just "re-install". The forum had some unofficial instructions you could follow, but they didn't pan out for me and I ended up re-installing for Mint 20. I jumped to PopOS shortly thereafter, then most recently (and for the past 7 or 8 months or so) to Endevour. Dpanter has recently convinced me to try Siduction, so that'll be my next distro hop.

But it's a shame I'm disto-hopping at all, tbh. I used Ubuntu and only Ubuntu from 2004 right up to 2018, but when Ubuntu 18.04 came out, they'd discontinued Unity and doubled down on snap and I jumped to Mint, feeling pretty disillusioned. It was a great experience though, so every cloud has a silver lining, I suppose.

I'd never have guessed that only 3 years later, I'd be running a rolling release and Plasma, but here I am.

I'll always have a soft spot for Mint though. I'm so glad they have an upgrade script at all!
CountVlad Aug 9, 2022
The upgrade was pretty smooth for me, though I did accidentally uninstall a few things by clicking the wrong button, but nothing vital. Turns out clicking the "Fix" button sometimes just removes the problem rather than, you know, actually fixing it. One thing I did appreciate was the upgrade GUI opening the terminal as well so I could see exactly what it was doing.
vipor29 Aug 9, 2022
i have switched over to mint. this is really rock solid
Quoting: RandomizedKirbyTree47I've been using Mint as my main distro since 2016, and this update was harder to install than either of the previous two major version updates. The upgrade script got stuck trying to update the deb package "context," (a dependency of texlive-full). I aborted mintupgrade and tried to run  sudo dpkg --configure -a
But that just got me stuck on the same package. Then after fiddling some more I tried using "sudo dpkg -r" to manually remove context and its reverse dependencies. Then I tried running mintupgrade again, but it got caught with an error saying "there are 1220 packages that need to be upgraded." Rather than upgrade them automatically, the mintupgrade program got stuck in a loop of telling me to upgrade deb packages until I aborted it and ran sudo apt upgrade...

...except my apt configuration had somehow been broken, so I was left with three packages that couldn't be upgraded. I tried mintupgrade again, and this time it got caught in a loop telling me "there are 3 packages that need to be upgraded." So I aborted again, apt purge'd those three packages, and then ran mintupgrade yet again. That time it worked. After rebooting, I reinstalled texlive-full.

The developers said mintupgrade was supposed to be more beginner-friednly than the upgrade process from Mint 18.3->19 or 19.3->20, but for me it was the opposite. It feels so disappointing, because I've liked almost every other mint-specific change in the last six years.

Now that I've actually finished upgrading, I really like it. I'm impressed that they managed to rebase Cinnamon on an almost completely different window manager and still preserve all the features I love, and I look forward to using this operating system base for the next two years. Hopefully they can iron out the bugs in mintupgrade before 2024.
Update:
The above post was for my laptop. I tried again on my desktop. This time, I started by uninstalling context, texlive-full, sagemath, and everything that was only pulled in as a dependency of those packages. Then I ran mintupgrade, and it worked without issues. I then reinstalled the troublesome packages.
14 Aug 13, 2022
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: scaineDpanter has recently convinced me to try Siduction, so that'll be my next distro hop.

But it's a shame I'm disto-hopping at all, tbh.
What are you looking for?
scaine Aug 13, 2022
View PC info
  • Contributing Editor
  • Mega Supporter
Quoting: 14
Quoting: scaineDpanter has recently convinced me to try Siduction, so that'll be my next distro hop.

But it's a shame I'm disto-hopping at all, tbh.
What are you looking for?

Back then - a stable Linux distro with a strong community. Ubuntu was an amazing experience.

Now? A rolling release on a familiar packaging system. Hence, Siduction. Although EndeavourOS has been okay - but without the AUR, Arch would be way too much pain. And the AUR, it turns out is just a scripted install for various git utilities, which I didn't expect, so it's so slow. And unless you use something like `yay`, it's yet another core packaging system I have to remember to update occasionally. So... not sure Arch is for me, tbh, even with the quality of life improvements Endeavour throws in.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.