An unplanned upgrade to Linux Mint 22.1 Cinnamon
I spoke too soon when I said I was enjoying the stability of Linux.
I have been using Linux Mint Cinnamon on a System76 Merkaat PC with no major issues since July of 2024. But a few days ago a routine system update of Mint 22 dumped me to the text console. A fresh install of Mint 22.1, the latest release, brought the system back online. I had backups and the mishap luckily turned out as just an annoyance that consumed several hours of unplanned maintenance.
It all started when the Mint Update Manager listed several packages for update, including the System76 driver and tools. Oddly, the Update Manager also marked for removal several packages including core ones such as Xorg, Celluloid, and more.
The smooth running of Mint made my paranoid side fall asleep and I applied the recommend changes. At the next reboot the graphics session didn't start and landed me at the text console with no clue what happened.
I don't use Timeshift for system snapshots as I prefer a fresh install and restore of data backups if the system breaks. Therefore, to fix such an issue apparently related to Mint 22 the obvious route was to install Mint 22.1. Besides, this was the right occasion to try the new release.
On my Raspberry Pi 400 I ran dd to flash a bootable USB stick with Mint 22.1. I had no alternatives as GNOME Disks didn't work. The Merkaat failed to boot off the stick, possibly because I messed with the arguments of dd.
I still had around a USB stick with Mint 22 and I used it to freshly install it on the Merkaat. Then I immediately ran the upgrade to Mint 22.1 which completed successfully unlike a prior upgrade attempt. Next, I tried to install the System76 driver with sudo apt install system76-driver but got a package not found error. At that point I had already added the System76 package repository to the APT sources and refreshing the Mint Update Manager yielded this error:
Could not refresh the list of updates
Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages
Aside from the errors the system was up and running on the Merkaat, so with Nemo I reflashed the Mint 22.1 stick. This time the PC did boot off the stick and let me successfully install Mint 22.1. Restoring the data completed the system recovery.
I left out the System76 driver as it's the primary suspect, possibly due to package conflicts. Mint detects and supports all hardware of the Merkaat anyway and it's only prudent to skip the package for the time being.
Besides improvements under the hood, Mint 22.1 features a redesigned default Cinnamon theme. No major changes, I feel at home.
The main takeaway of this adventure is that it's better to have a bootable USB stick ready with the latest Mint release, even if I don't plan to upgrade immediately.
Another takeaway is the Pi 400 makes for a viable backup computer that can support my major tasks, should it take longer to recover the Merkaat. However, using the device for making bootable media is problematic as little flashing software is available and some is unreliable.
Finally, over decades of Linux experience I honed my emergency installation skills so much I can now confidently address most broken system situations.
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