Linux Mint 17 was just released. It is a Long Term Support (LTS) release and will be supported until 2019. I would love to upgrade to it. I’ve tried, but on my system its simply too buggy. My network board, a TP-Link TL-WN951N, which was supported by Linux Mint 16 simply does not work in LM 17. So, if I use a different network interface I can get LM 17 installed, but if I apply any updates then my system will refuse to boot. I’ve tried LM 17 x64 with Xfce, MATE, and Connamon destops. All to no avail.

On July 1 Linux Mint 16 (and Ubuntu 13.10) support ends. What does this mean, and what can I do about it? What I did was install Linux Mint 13 over Linux Mint 16 since LM 13 is supported until 2017.

What end of support means is:

• the repositories such as archive.ubuntu.com and security.ubuntu.com will stop getting any updates for the old release
• repository tools (apt-get, update manager, etc..) will start showing errors
• after a time (weeks, months?) the repositories will get moved to http://old-releases.ubuntu.com.

If you wish to keep LM 16 (or any other unsupported version) what you can do is edit the repository list. The one to edit depends on your Linux Mint version:

• /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list (Linux Mint 15+)
• /etc/apt/sources.list (Linux Mint < 15)

Its the Ubuntu repositories that change. The Linux Mint ones do not.

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#  comment these lines after the release is abandoned
deb http://packages.linuxmint.com petra main upstream import  #id:linuxmint_main
deb http://extra.linuxmint.com petra main #id:linuxmint_extra

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu saucy main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu saucy-updates main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ saucy partner

#  uncomment these lines after the release is abandoned
# deb http://packages.linuxmint.com petra main upstream import  #id:linuxmint_main
# deb http://extra.linuxmint.com petra main #id:linuxmint_extra

# deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu saucy main restricted universe multiverse
# deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu saucy-updates main restricted universe multiverse

# deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-security main restricted universe multiverse
# deb http://old-releases.canonical.com/ubuntu/ saucy partner

# Optional
#deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-backports main restricted universe multiverse