How to Upgrade from Linux Mint 17.3 to Linux Mint 18

Last month, the Linux Mint development team released stable version of Linux Mint 18. Many users of this modern, highly-polished and comfortable Ubuntu-based Linux distributions where eager to try out some of the new features and improvements that it came a long with.

This either required users to upgrade from their older versions or to do a fresh installation of Linux Mint 18, but, by that time, a direct upgrade from Linux Mint 17.3 or 17.X versions was not recommended. This was because, the Linux Mint 17 and 17.x versions are based on Ubuntu 14.04 yet Linux Mint 18 is based on Ubuntu 16.04.

For those users, who want to do a fresh installation, they can follow: Installation of Linux Mint 18

Upgrading from a completely different Ubuntu-base to another would require some special or advanced instruction set, which the developers promised to release this month and they have done just that.

Therefore in this how-to guide, we shall walk through the recommended steps you will have to follow to upgrade from Linux Mint 17.3 to Linux Mint 18, that is if you wish to upgrade.

Some Considerations before Upgrading

1. Is it necessary for you to upgrade? Because Linux Mint 17, 17.X versions will be supported until 2019
2. Have you tried out Linux Mint 18 before planning this upgrade?
3. Have you performed a backup of important data on your machine? If not, then you need to do that before moving forward.

Requirements

1. Good understanding of APT and vast experience in working from the command-line.
2. Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon or MATE editions only, other desktops such as Linux Mint 18 Xcfe and Linux Mint 18 KDE cannot be upgraded as of now.
3. Up-to-date system

How do I Upgrade to Linux Mint 18 from Linux Mint 17

Let us now move into the actual steps to upgrade your system to the latest version of Linux Mint.

1. Your system must be running an up-to-date Linux Mint 17.3 for the upgrade to work perfectly. Therefore, open the Update Manager and perform level 1, 2 and 3 updates by clicking on the Refresh to refresh the APT tool cache.

Alternatively, you can run the following commands from the terminal to upgrade the system:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt dist-upgrade

2. Launch a terminal, then click on Edit → Profile Preferences → Scrolling and select the unlimited checkbox and mark “scroll on output” option and finally click “Close”.

3. Next, install the upgrade tool by issuing the command below:

$ sudo apt install mintupgrade

4. Next do a upgrade check by running following command.

$ mintupgrade check

5. After running the command above, you need to follow the instructions on the screen to proceed, it does not cause any changes in your system yet.

Importantly, you must also pay close attention to the output of this command, as it presents some vital information concerning how you should deal with the upgrade process.

The command will briefly point your system to the Linux Mint 18 repositories and performs an appropriate calculation of the impact of the upgrade.

It helps to you to show whether an upgrade is possible or not, an in case it is possible, which packages would be upgraded, those to be installed and removed plus the ones kept back.

It is also possible that some packages will try to prevent the upgrade process, identify such packages and remove them, then keep running the command after making any changes until it provides a satisfactory output for a perfect upgrade, then move to the next step.

5. Download the packages to be upgraded.

$ mintupgrade download

After running it, this command will download all the available packages to upgrade your system to Linux Mint 18, but, it does not perform any upgrade.

6. Now it’s time to perform a actual upgrade.

Note: This step is irreversible, therefore, make sure you have followed and checked everything necessary up to this state.

After successfully downloading all the necessary packages, proceed to perform the actual upgrade process as follows:

$ mintupgrade upgrade

You will be asked for a second time, to download packages, but, all packages have been downloaded, simply enter yes and proceed.

7. Then, in the next screen, enter yes and continue.

8. Next, also enter yes to proceed to start installation of the downloaded packages.

9. During the installation of packages, you will be prompted to restart certain services, simply select yes and hit [Enter] to proceed.

As the installation of packages progresses, keep watching the whole process, you may prompted several times for yes or no answers or required to provide your password.

When the installation completes, reboot your system and boom! You are good to go, using Linux Mint 18.

That is it, hoping that everything went on well, you can now enjoy Linux Mint 18 on your machine. For any queries or information that you wish to add to this guide, you can give us a feedback through the comment section below.