On Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 07:14:35 UTC, Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
> Doesn't Linux Mint provide an upgrade facility for you?

No idea.

> Upgrading by using apt is doable, but from what you've demonstrated
> about your knowledge, I wouldn't recommend it to you.

How software's operation depends on me?

On Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 07:00:38 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
> On Wednesday, 1 October 2014 at 20:03:11 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
>> This a very unpleasant experience you get compared to sticking to LTS or up to date distro
>
> Erm, upgrading to the latest version is exactly what I want, old version is of no interest to me. I read, one can reorient aptitude to latest repository and update everything, but I was told it won't work. So the question is how to update kernel and everything else?

update-manager -d

It works.

> How software's operation depends on me?
Ah, ok, I see the explanation in tutorial.

On Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 07:43:54 UTC, eles wrote:
> update-manager -d
>
> It works.

Does it perform package upgrade? The comments are rather scary:
---
Hi, I have installed Linux mint 15 with Mint4Win as Dual boot with Windows 7.
Then upgraded it to Mint 16 and it was running fine.
But when I upgrade to Mint 17 (Qiana), after restarting the partition loop0 (or loopback0 or something like that) fails to load.
It shows an error like, Press I to ignore, S to skip or M for manual recovery.

Please tell me a way to fix this.
Or let me know if it is not possible.
---

Looks like my case. Are fstab and mtab replaced during upgrade?

On Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 11:12:12 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
> On Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 07:43:54 UTC, eles wrote:
>> update-manager -d
>>
>> It works.
>
> Does it perform package upgrade? The comments are rather scary:
> ---
> Hi, I have installed Linux mint 15 with Mint4Win as Dual boot with Windows 7.
> Then upgraded it to Mint 16 and it was running fine.
> But when I upgrade to Mint 17 (Qiana), after restarting the partition loop0 (or loopback0 or something like that) fails to load.
> It shows an error like, Press I to ignore, S to skip or M for manual recovery.
>
> Please tell me a way to fix this.
> Or let me know if it is not possible.
> ---
>
> Looks like my case. Are fstab and mtab replaced during upgrade?

You should drop Mint, they have a quite disruptive policy, but they are kinda unique in the Linux world. Better choice in the Mint world would be LMDE:

http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

You simply made the wrong choice in the beginning.

On Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 11:40:31 UTC, eles wrote:
> You simply made the wrong choice in the beginning.

Well, it looked popular and easy. Can I upgrade my mint to lmde?

On Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 12:06:16 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
> On Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 11:40:31 UTC, eles wrote:

> Well, it looked popular and easy.

Sorry. It's just that everything that glitters...

> Can I upgrade my mint to lmde?

I doubt. At least, not easily. However, installing LMDE should be a one-time process (it's a rolling distribution).

Alternatives are: Arch Linux, Debian Testing and a couple of others. Anyway, most of the release-based distribution (Mint is a special case) support upgrading, even if not rolling distributions (for example, Ubuntu).

I have not much experience with Mint (none, in fact), but even in the case of a full and disruptive upgrade they should preserve your settings and documents. However, I disclaim responsibility as I don't know how it works.

On Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 12:44:08 UTC, eles wrote:
> I doubt. At least, not easily. However, installing LMDE should be a one-time process (it's a rolling distribution).

Do rolling distributions guarantee to not overwrite fstab? How mint package update differs from a rolling distro package update?

On Friday, 3 October 2014 at 07:16:14 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
> On Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 12:44:08 UTC, eles wrote:
>> I doubt. At least, not easily. However, installing LMDE should be a one-time process (it's a rolling distribution).
>
> Do rolling distributions guarantee to not overwrite fstab? How mint package update differs from a rolling distro package update?

Arch Linux warns you about the conflict and installs the new files as e.g. /etc/fstab.pacnew.

David

On Friday, 3 October 2014 at 07:16:14 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
> On Thursday, 2 October 2014 at 12:44:08 UTC, eles wrote:
>> I doubt. At least, not easily. However, installing LMDE should be a one-time process (it's a rolling distribution).
>
> Do rolling distributions guarantee to not overwrite fstab? How mint package update differs from a rolling distro package update?

Debian and Debian-based asks you to confirm file overwrite (usually, the diff is displayed too).