A while ago I put Peppermint 4 on to a little netbook for my other half and wondered if it was worth upgrading to P5? (I have to whisper this cos any mention of touching the netbook sends her into a rage! “Don’t you dare - everything is working perfectly!” ::))
Is it a case of ‘upgrade in place’ or a complete wipe/new install? Naturally, I would back everything up first but I don’t think she has much in the way of data on it - more a case of important emails and browser bookmarks etc…
I would say it is worth it Peppermint 4 is no longer supported as far as I believe Ubuntu has taken the repos down so she wouldn’t be able to install any new software etc including security updates, I was in the same dilemma as you a few weeks ago, so I installed Peppermint 5 alongside Peppermint 4 as a dual boot (which I’m glad I did as it turned out) so if you have the space it might be a good idea to do that then remove Peppermint 4 once your satisfied she’s happy,
There’s no upgrade path to Peppermint 5 (although I believe it is theoretically possible) it has to be a fresh install which personally I prefer anyway
It’s definitely worth doing, as Emegra says, P4 is no longer supported, so won’t receive security patches or bugfixes. From that perspective, it’s no better than Windows XP (although the other features make it more secure by design)
The good news is, it’s the last time you’ll have to have to do it for nearly 5 years, as Peppermint 5 is based on Ubuntu 14.04, which means it will receive security fixes until April 2019!
You can just copy across the email and browser hidden folders (which should keeps ALL settings) … can’t give more info than that unless you say which email client and web browser we’re talking about.
I’ve downloaded P5 and created a bootable usb using UNetbootin. The MD5 checks out ok.
I’ve set the boot order on the Compaq Mini to boot from usb and it is recognised by the BIOS.
On boot, a UNetbootin screen appears with options - Default, Try P, Install P, Check Disk, Test Mem, Boot from 1st HDD.
Selecting Default or Install gives this error -
(initramfs) Can not mount /dev/loop0 (/cdrom/casper/filesystem.squashfs) on //filesystem.squashfs
which suggests it’s looking for a cdrom which this machine doesn’t have? ??? I put P4 on this comp a while ago without issue (AFAIR) so I’m a bit stumped!
Have I created the usb incorrectly or is there another step to take in the Mini’s BIOS? I’ve looked but there’s nothing obvious…
I’ve always found Unebootin a bit problematic, but I would select “Try Peppermint” and see if it loads into a live session and if so install from there, it that doesn’t work you can try Startup Disk creator, you’ll find it in the repos I think it’s called usb-creator-gtk I find that application works better
Firstly - the instructions above wouldn’t work on the Mini - no idea why - so I tried again on the main pc with Mint. This seemed to go ok and the files were written as expected.
Secondly - the installer crashed at the ‘who are you’ stage and now the Mini won’t boot to anything, it just sits at a blank screen with the cursor blinking… I suspect that the Grub files might have been modified?
I’ll try the usb stick again in ‘Try Peppermint’ mode and see if that reveals anything!
Firstly - the instructions above wouldn’t work on the Mini - no idea why - so I tried again on the main pc with Mint. This seemed to go ok and the files were written as expected.
Secondly - the installer crashed at the ‘who are you’ stage and now the Mini won’t boot to anything, it just sits at a blank screen with the cursor blinking… I suspect that the Grub files might have been modified?
I’ll try the usb stick again in ‘Try Peppermint’ mode and see if that reveals anything!
Rich
EDIT: I’m getting a login screen with ‘other’ and a request for username and password! Nothing has been set yet so I can’t run it in trial mode… ???
OK, let’s try creating the LiveUSB stick in Mint using startup disk creator.
First you’re going to need to format the USB stick, so install gparted in Mint:
sudo apt-get install gparted usb-creator-gtk
Now fire up GParted … ignore any messages about an incorrect file system on the USB stick … and make sure you select the USB stick in the top right drop menu.
When you’re SURE you’re working on the USB stick, select Device > Create Partition Table > msdos
When that’s done, create a single FAT32 partition on the USB stick.
Once you’ve done that … close GParted.
Fire up Startup Disk Creator … and follow the instructions (For users creating the LiveUSB stick in another version of Peppermint (or other Ubuntu based distro)) at the bottom of this posting: http://linuxforums.org.uk/index.php?topic=11987.msg96520#msg96520
ignoreing the bit about installing usb-creator-gtk and the “erase disk” option.
Hi Mark - thank you, the last set of instructions worked perfectly and P5 is now up and running!
One issue - wireless is non-existant! Clicking on the symbol brings up only ‘wired connection, disconnect,VPN connections’. I remember there was a similar problem in P4 - I think it’s to do with the Broadcom wireless card in the Compaq Mini? You gave instructions here
