Linux Mint upgrade

Hi, I’m Geoff, a happy Mint 18.3 Cinnamon 64 user for some years, but technologically almost illiterate. When a literate friend guided me on the installation of 18.3 he created 4 partitions: 1 - BIOS Boot, 1 mb, 2 - L filesystem, 100gb, 3 - Linux Swap, 20 gb, and 4 - Linux filesystem 880 gb. I’d like to upgrade to Linux Mint 19.

My question is this: would the upgrade fall naturally into partition 4, or would it erase my present setup
., And would that matter?

First you need to explain what resides on the mentioned file systems. You should make a chart with your partition layout or make a screenshot of the gParted output.

Hi Geoff
To answer your question simply no, it would not erase anything. You do not really have to upgrade 18.3 as it is still fully supported until 2021. If you really want to do it then head here, and follow the instructions carefully. They are well written by Clem and it was how I did so I know it works and is the best and safest way of doing it. Linux Mint - Community - Any upgrade in Mint if done through Mint will be safe if you follow instructions as they set out and don’t go to other places.
You may also be interested to know that once you have successfully upgraded to 19, then you upgrade again, this time through the Software Manager, to 19.1. which is very easy as all you have to do then is open edit after you have all the updates and you’ll find it there.
However don’t do anything until you have a TimeShift which is explained in the tutorial, And don’t worry about other things like partitions. let Mint do the work for you it is what it is designed to do. Later you can work on them, but as you just want to upgrade, follow the tutorial and let Mint do the rest - if you don’t then you may encounter unnecessary problems -

I have moved you post to Mint rather than the General tag as it belongs in there, which you probably didn’t know as this is you first post on here :grinning:

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Thanks very much for your comprehensive reply. I’ll think again about the advantages - or not - of upgrading, and will follow your advice with care!

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Good Geoff
By coincidence I had just done it on another disk, so I know it works, but can’t stress enough to follow the steps exactly as stated in the tutorial.

responding to your post in the nemo thread here: this post is what got me interested in trying a mint upgrade. bodhi doesn’t do in place upgrades. the suggested practice to get from 4.5 to 5 was a fresh install. i wanted to take a look at what the process was like after installing an ssd and rebuilding my system. i appreciate you sharing the link :slight_smile:

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That’s fine thanks for letting me know, just move my post if you want to - I am a bit brain fogged this morning so might have placed it in the wrong place