Sunday, March 23, 2014

Re: [LINUX_Newbies] Downloading Problem

 

Thanks for the useful info.  It was well written and greatly appreciated.

Justin



On Sunday, March 23, 2014 5:59 AM, "linuxcanuck@yahoo.ca" <linuxcanuck@yahoo.ca> wrote:
 
The lack of an upgrade tool comes into play when you want to upgrade from one version to the next. There are two development cycles in the Ubuntu family, which includes Linux Mint. One is the six month "regular" release cycle and the other is the two year LTS (long term support) cycle. You follow one of the two paths. Do not attempt to upgrade an LTS to regular unless you are prepared to do it every six months.

It used to be tricky to upgrade. Sometimes there would be failures. That usually was just a matter of being stuck and having to re-install manually. Seldom did it mess you up completely. Nowadays it almost always works without a hitch.

The alternative for Mint and some users who choose to start fresh is to to a re-installation. If you have an out of the box installation that means backing up files in your home folder and downloading a fresh ISO and getting onto installation media. If you have a separate home partition which is trickier to set up the first time, re-installation does not need backing up. You simply re-use your home partition (as long as you do not choose to format it in the installation process). This requires that always do a custom installation.

If you are on the six month cycle you MUST upgrade every six months or you run into trouble. Support used to be for 18 months but that has been shortened to 9 months. If your support runs out then you must do a re-installation and cannot get any upgrades and security patches.


The LTS release is a long term support release. It comes out in April on even numbered years and support lasts for 5 years if you are using the desktop version and longer for server edition. That means if you install 14.04 this April then support is guaranteed till April, 2019. No upgrades are needed and you will get periodic updates in that time. You can upgrade from one LTS version to the next after two years without the need to upgrade through the regular six month releases in between.

I follow the six month cycle in Kubuntu because I like the idea of having the latest and greatest applications. A person who craves stability and less work might opt for the LTS cycle. 

Linux Mint follows a similar cycle coming out about a month after the corresponding Ubuntu release (longer for KDE and other desktops) on which it is based. It also has LTS releases. The problem for the user is the lack of an upgrade tool. You get an upgrade by changing a text file in your root file system. You have to do this as root using sudo from the commandline to locate the file, change it and save it. You have to do this carefully by changing each instance of the version name without typos or you can mess things up. That is not an newbie friendly skill. Most are put off by the terminal in the first place. This is my biggest problem with Linux Mint being recommended for newbies. It is a good choice for experienced users.

The thinking on this used to be that upgrade tools were iffy propositions and gave the user false hope. It was more reliable to do a fresh installation. It still is more reliable, but it isn't the best if you are not experienced. Now upgrades mostly work and I think this is an oversight on the part of Linux Mint. Just my opinion.

The other common approach is a rolling release which in in continual development and which upgrades are painless. Debian and Arch are the two most popular rolling releases. Neither is newbie friendly.

Fedora and openSuSE also follow aggressive development cycles, but Ubuntu has the shortest.

Try this for a Windows open source download manager:



There is also Flashget and Free Download Manager. I cannot vouch for them.

Roy


---In LINUX_Newbies@yahoogroups.com, <gfalck@...> wrote :

Hi Ken and All,

I wrote:

> Hi Ken,
>
> You wrote:
>> Getting a large download on a slow connection is the norm ever since downloads became available. Hence download managers. I see several are available both for windows and for linux.
> I haven't even tried to get an iso download on my
> slowest method (dialup, mostly just for email) LOL.
> Getting a download manager is on my list of things
> to look into.

I think I will have to add a download manager to my
toolkit for this and probably future projects. For any
new software from unfamiliar sources, the question
is always which ones are OK? An unknown found by
googling might be just right, might be written by a
fumbler, or (worst of all) by someone with an intent
to do evil things.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

--

Regards,

Gene Falck
gfalck@...


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