Upgrading Linux Mint 13 (Maya) to 14 (Nadia)

It was not announced, but I have actually moved away from Fedora to Linux Mint, because Fedora 15 uses Gnome 3 and I really can't get myself into that. Linux Mint comes with MATE, which is based on Gnome 2, something that I am used to. I started out with Linux Mint 13 (Maya) and recently, upgraded to Linux Mint 14 (Nadia).

The recommended way to upgrade from Maya to Nadia is actually by backing up your files, doing a clean install of Nadia, and then copying the files back. But I am kind of used to Fedora's way of upgrade, so I tried something else.

I used apt to upgrade from Maya to Nadia. This is NOT the recommended method, but so far, it works. Got the instructions from here.

First, you have to edit the source list to point to Nadia repositories.

sudo gedit /etc/apt/source.list

Using the text editor, replace all instances of maya with nadia, and all instances of precise with quantal. Then save the file.

Then, update the database and do the upgrade itself.

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

If you are asked about overwriting of configuration files, I usually answered 'Y' but you may want to decide which files to overwrite and which to keep. I chose to keep the old grub configuration file, so I had to use Start-up Manager after the upgrade to point to the new kernel.

When the upgrade is done, run apt again to make sure that all the packages are updated.

sudo apt-get upgrade

Then, reboot the computer. 

When logging in, remember to choose a session (I used MATE). I heard that if you don't and try to log in using "last session", you will end up with a blank screen.

For me, the DNS list was messed up somehow during the upgrade, so I had to fix it. If you have the same problem (cannot connect to Internet), try this.

sudo dns-fix

That worked for me.

Good luck!