it is just one bad experience and people do often come here to troubleshoot instead of say how easily an upgrade went. of course you can be as careful with your machine and time as you need or choose to be i think making the timeshift snapshot before trying it (i make one before most software updates) makes it easier to do so knowing you have something to revert to if the process doesnāt go well.
I realize that this is one problem out of many good installs, but I do tend to wait a while before installing something new, just to allow for bug fixes. I think Iāve always done it, but it is really tempting to just jump on the bandwagon. I do have Timeshift running, and yesterday, in preparation, I decided it needed to be done on a thumb drive, or external hard drive, just in case. I also do backups once a week, or just before doing any major change. Iām down to 2 machines running, Linux, now, so I have to decide which one to experiment on first. Iām using the laptop the most, so Iām thinking the desktop will get the first attempt of 20.1. Thanks for the link for the āhow toā.
i have read similar accounts of others who wait for the first point release and that definitely makes sense to me. the main distro i use (bodhi 5.1) doesnāt do in place upgrades like ubuntu and mint so i have never had to worry about/weigh the pros and cons of that. i also make full drive images on an external with clonezilla as a backup for even timeshiftās watchful eye. since i recently got a new (to me) system, i donāt mind running the newest version on my older machine when the developers ask for beta testers. previously i did so in a separate partition, but i also reserve my main system for what i know works without issue
Cliff-Iāve been down this same route, same problems. Iāve been using Mint-MATE for about 12 years, as my daily driver. Always, in the past, did a āclean installā, never a problem. This time, I tried the āupgradeā-NEVER AGAIN! I got so disgusted, did a āclean installā of 19.3. Please let me suggest you do the same.
Yes @tosim91, a āclean installā is always preferred. It is even stated on the upgrade guide.
āA fresh installation is always better than a major version upgradeā
And as @01101111 said. Having multi backup types takes the fear out of making a mistake that leaves your system cripple or unusable. Having that backup allows you to go back to a good check point.
A few remarks:
About clean vs upgrade. Unless there is something compellingly better about Mint 20, I see no reason to even try. I moved from Ubuntu Mate to Mint Cinnamon because Version 19.3 was so good. Why risk it? There does not seem to be anything about 20 that would make even a clean install worth it, unless I have missed something. @bikrgran may want to know that, from the first opening of the upgrade instructions to the point of giving up and running Timeshift, that was at least 3 hours. If you have the time, most upgrades seem to go well. And returning via Timeshift takes all of 15 minutes.
the major changes i saw in the release notes were the addition of warpinator (which seems to have been backported to 19.3 i think) and the removal of snapd which mostly affects chromium browser users (and possibly others). of course some changes are inherited from ubuntu. i think i read something about theirs making fractional scaling (for larger or hidpi monitors) better or more accessible.
beyond that i believe it is mostly just behind the scenes stuff that general users wonāt much notice. for the way i use linux (though iām not a mint user) that is the beauty of the long term support 5 year life cycle model. no need to update right away for the fancy new stuff if the old(er) tried and true stuff still works just fine.
i think making the timeshift snapshot before trying it (i make one before most software updates) makes it easier to do so knowing you have something to revert to if the process doesnāt go well.
I do have Timeshift running, and yesterday, in preparation, I decided it needed to be done on a thumb drive, or external hard drive, just in case. I also do backups once a week, or just before doing any major change. Iām down to 2 machines running, Linux, now, so I have to decide which one to experiment on first. Iām using the laptop the most, so Iām thinking the desktop will get the first attempt of 20.1. Thanks for the link for the āhow toā.