I just changed my second of three PCs to LMDE, and I wanted to upgrade everything. I set up MU to all 5 levels, but it comes back and tells me to "fix broken packages first." (I checked for these broken packages in Synaptic and on the command line, and nothing is broken...)
So I did as advised earlier in the thread and installed update-manager, and this is what I get:
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dana@jadis:~$ update-manager
/usr/share/themes/Shiki-Wise/gtk-2.0/gtkrc:126: Murrine configuration option "gradients" is no longer supported and will be ignored.
[CRITICAL:UpdateManager.Application] Invalid implementation name LinuxMint
dana@jadis:~$ sudo update-manager
[CRITICAL:UpdateManager.Application] Invalid implementation name LinuxMint
dana@jadis:~$ ps aux | grep -i upda
dana 11173 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 16:34 0:00 [update-manager] <defunct>
I am not sure why this is happening, but clearly something isn't ready for Mint in update-manager.
I thought Synaptic would work. It could be more user-friendly, as it hasn't really changed a whole lot since the first time I tried it (though I thought the last time I tried it, there was a button for updating - that's gone on LMDE? or maybe a config file or something in my /home that's tripping it out?). In any case, I tried to do a system upgrade with it next, so as far as I can tell, I need to go to Status > Installed (upgradeable), then click on a package, then press Ctrl+A to select all, then right-click and go to Mark For Upgrade, then I am presented with a list of additional changes, so I have to click Mark, and then it breaks:
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gstreamer0.10-plugins-really-bad:
Depends: libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0 (>=0.10.32) but 0.10.30-1 is to be installed
*sigh*
apt-get dist-upgrade on the command line is smarter:
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The following packages have been kept back:
gstreamer0.10-plugins-really-bad
I have run Linux exclusively for nearly a decade (I'm counting), and I've spent most of that time running Debian, and then Ubuntu, and now I'm here (wanting to get away from Ubuntu's brand-happy stupid decisions - they can't even make their Dropbox clone work properly, and here they want to make their own desktop? No thanks..).
I don't have a problem with the command line whatsoever myself, but it'd be nice to have something that works as well as apt-get dist-upgrade for those users who are not as seasoned (and just for general usability - i.e.: I'd use a GUI tool if it worked). I don't know what it would take to get update-manager working with LMDE, but it mostly seemed to work well on Ubuntu for me. I think that'd maybe be the solution here, but if it can't/won't be done, and MU is not going to cut it as is, why not just have an even simpler app for these rolling versions (call it MintRoll? MintRollOn? I don't know) that just monitors for updates as MU does, and then when there are updates, the tray icon indicates as such? When the user clicks, it just lists all the changes the exact same way that apt-get does (formatted how Synaptic does it, or prettier/better), and then allows the user to cancel or accept, and then it just does it. There could be a handful of options or warnings as well, like a safety to only allow upgrades (or warn when upgrading) if nothing is held back, a kernel is being updated, conflicts, or whatever. I don't know python at all, which is unfortunate, and I already have my hands full with PHP for my home projects and Perl at work, or I'd try to whip this up myself. It doesn't seem too difficult.