Bad news for Linux Mint 19 and other news

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Critical regression in Linux Mint 19

We’ll start with the bad news. A critical issue was found in the base-file 19.0.2 update which was sent towards Linux Mint 19 this week. Not only did this update break the boot sequence but Timeshift could also not fix it…The update was pulled a day after it was sent and a solution was made available on the forums to fix the issue: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=143&t=331605.

Chromium

We’re happy to confirm we will be packaging Chromium going forward and providing updates through the official repositories….Remove any version of Chromium or ungoogled-chromium you might have prior to installing this one.

Linux Mint 20.1

The codename for Linux Mint 20.1 will be “Ulyssa”. The release is planned to arrive just before Christmas.

Hardware Video Acceleration

In Linux Mint 20.1, the Celluloid video player will ship with hardware video acceleration enabled by default…

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3969

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_lightshow, TaskForce141, jburk07, firemind, DrBonzo

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Note that the issue in the base file 19.0.2 update “…only affects Linux Mint 19 Tara. If you are running any other release (18.x, 19.1, 19.2, 19.3, 20, LMDE) please ignore this topic.”

The quote is from the above linux forum link: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=143&t=331605

4 users thanked author for this post.

Charlie, _lightshow, OscarCP, jburk07

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This only affects Linux Mint 19 Tara.

Subsequent and previous editions are fine. Otherwise ‘please ignore this topic.’ as Clem posted

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Thanks for posting this. The LM19 issue doesn’t effect me as i started with 19.3 and moved to LM20. The part of the blog post I find most interesting is the discussion about the Driver Manager.

A while ago The Nvidia 450 drivers were offered and I blacklisted them temporarily because I had security updates to install and like to take care of those before software updates. A few days later I went to see if the 450 drivers were recommended in the Driver Manager but the app would go through building its cache and then show a blank page saying “no propriety drivers in use. I am using the Nvidia 440 drivers and they are listed in System Reports and other places and i still can play games, etc.

The only info I got from the Mint forums is that outdated source download  hosts could mess with Driver manager so I fiddled with my sources but still get a blank page.Hopefully the coming updates mentioned in the blog will fix this issue

Oh well. i will stick with the 440 drivers for now.

 

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You can install them from Synaptic by searching for and installing nvidia-driver-450, which will automatically uninstall 440. The driver manager isn’t necessary, as it is just another package. Fedora (the distro I am using now for as long as KDE Connect does not work on Ubuntu 20.x and derivatives) doesn’t even have an equivalent, and neither does the Ubuntu derivative I use(d), KDE Neon, if I recall.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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I really wish that they would include a full date/timestamp on when that package update was first pushed out by Mint’s update manager and that’s been reported on as having such a non easily fixed regression. But I’ve moved on to Linux Mint 20(4 laptops) so I’m safe there for this issue.

But if more reports of any issues with released updates and discovered regressions it would nice if by default the reports would have a full date/timestamp for that update’s release then that would help matters greatly for figuring out if one has actually installed the faulty update/patch in the first place.

I’m maintaining 4 laptops with Mint 20/Windows 7(EOL) dual boot configurations and 3 out of 4 of those laptops do not get online but once a week to get the latest Mint updates installed while one laptop is in daily usage mostly and gets updated as the patches arrive, sometimes 4+ times during the week, as the updates arrive, on that one daily usage laptop that’s also the Guinea Pig for update regression testing.

As problems go that’s a difficult one with even Timeshift unable to resolve the issue and really I’ve got to look for some nice Linux Based Disk Imaging/Re-Imaging software and stop relying on Timeshift so fully.

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anonymous wrote:

As problems go that’s a difficult one with even Timeshift unable to resolve the issue and really I’ve got to look for some nice Linux Based Disk Imaging/Re-Imaging software and stop relying on Timeshift so fully.

That was a surprise for me too, and from the blog post, it sounds like it was to Clem also.

In addition to Timeshift, I also use Veeam Agent (free edition) for my Linux backups. It’s the only Linux imaging software I know of that works like Windows backup programs (allowing you to run the backup while the system is online, with Ext4 or any other filesystem). It’s not open source (other than the kernel driver ‘veeamsnap,’ which is open source), but it is free to use for non-enterprise customers, and I wrote a tutorial on how to use it in this forum if you need it. It does not have a GUI, but it’s GUI-like within the command window, with the main difference being that it does not use the mouse (it uses TAB, space, and enter to move between menu options and to select them). It’s fast and reliable, with its only real limitation being that it only has one backup job that can be defined at a time. Veeam reserved multiple jobs for their highest tier of enterprise backup licenses, and they have no consumer edition of that.

I do wish they would reconsider the decision, as multiple jobs are a feature that have relevance to home users like myself too, but at least they have a consumer edition (compared to, say, Acronis, which has enterprise Linux backup programs similar to what Veeam offers, and no consumer edition at all). It’s an added plus that the consumer edition is free to use.

Note that Veeam is not currently compatible with the Linux kernel 5.8+. Veeam says that the kernel devs removed something when moving from 5.7 to 5.8 that veeamsnap needed, and that they are not able to make it work unless the kernel people agree to fix it. They’ve been trying to get the veeamsnap driver into the kernel package, which would supposedly alleviate the issue (I have no idea how), but they have not yet been successful. Several people who work with the kernel say that Veeam doesn’t understand how the kernel development process works and that they are missing something… I dunno, I just hope it gets resolved soon. I’m using Fedora Linux now, and it uses the 5.8 kernel, but I’ve locked it at the last release of 5.7 until Veeam works again.

Mint 20, FWIW, uses the 5.4 kernel, which works fine with Veeam.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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I’m on Mint 20 (updated from 19.3) and I just got a Kernel update 5.4.0-51 offered by the Mint Update manager so I’ve installed that Kernel but I’m noticing when I open the Update manager and go to view Linux Kernels that there’s now a Kernel 5.8 update  5.8.0-23 listed but that’s not being offered automatically by the Mint Update Manager’s normal Kernel update recommendation process just yet. But Kernel 5.8 is listed and I can opt to install that if I wish.

I’ve got a Laptop waiting for a Mint Install but that’s needing the Kernel 5.6/later but I thought that 5.8 will not come by default until Mint 20.1 but that Veeam backup package is needing a Kernel Driver update to work properly with Kernel 5.8. I know how you feel waiting for Kernel Fixes as I’ve been waiting for Kernel 5.6/above for my newest laptop that will overheat if not running Kernel 5.6 or later(Fan Driver/Fan Speed Profile fix patched in Kernel 5.6/later Kernels). But the Linux Kernel submission process is the process and waiting for Kernel Maintainers’ approval appears to be the norm on some newer hardware as the Kernel Drivers have to catch up there and I see that also includes software as well that has specific kernel drivers needed to function properly.

So Linux Mint is packaging Chromium have they fixed the issue with Canonical and  SNAP or is this a non SNAP version.

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The upcoming release of Ubuntu, 20.10 Groovy Gorilla, is set for release in about a week. It will come with the 5.8 kernel, which would mean that the 5.8 kernel will be offered by Ubuntu for other versions of Ubuntu (and therefore Mint and other Ubuntu derivatives) in the hardware enablement stack after that… or, apparently, maybe before that.

anonymous wrote:

I’ve got a Laptop waiting for a Mint Install but that’s needing the Kernel 5.6/later but I thought that 5.8 will not come by default until Mint 20.1

Yes, that’s correct. Mint 20 came with 5.4, while 20.1 will probably come with 5.8 (though I haven’t seen any comments to that effect to be able to say what the plans are for sure). Newer kernel versions that Ubuntu packages for the newest releases (like the upcoming 20.10 Groovy Gorilla) are made available to older LTS releases (and maybe non-LTS versions, though I have no experience with them) under the HWE or HWE edge stacks. That’s what you’re seeing in the available kernels for Mint. The 20.04 HWE kernel stack now delivers 5.8.

For the purposes of kernels, “Ubuntu” includes Mint and all the other Ubuntu derivatives.

Of course, I’ve also mentioned a bunch of times that any kernel version you want is available for Ubuntu and derivatives through the Ubuntu mainline repo. You can grab the .debs and install them manually or use a program like Mainline (a fork of UKUU) to make it quick and easy with a graphical interface. These kernel packages don’t have all of the Ubuntu modifications… they’re more or less as the kernel team (including Linus Torvalds himself) released them.

but that Veeam backup package is needing a Kernel Driver update to work properly with Kernel 5.8.

Not just to work properly… Veeam doesn’t work at all to create (online) backups with 5.8, with Ext4 at least. I’m still waiting for that to be resolved. Fedora (which I now use) moved to 5.8 some time ago, and I had to finagle the 5.7 kernel back in there to get Veeam to work. Fedora isn’t as good with supporting older kernel versions as Ubuntu and derivatives… when the second 5.8 release came out, 5.7 was wiped from the Fedora 32 repo, and when the third 5.8 release came out, 5.7 would (if the default settings had not been changed) automatically be uninstalled at the time the newest 5.8 release was installed.

Ubuntu, by contrast, keeps all the kernel releases in the repo for the life of that repo (which is 5 years for LTS versions), and never uninstalls older ones unless you tell it to.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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That’s good to Know but I’m still not confident enough to mess with the Kernel Edition that I’m automatically offered by the Mint Maintainers’ regular update manager channel. I’m still New to Linux and I’d like to wait until Mint 20.1 has an final release ISO available but I do have questions about the update process for the laptops that are already been updated to Mint 20 from Mint 19.3 some months back. I keep about 2 or 3 Older Kernels and remove the remainder so I’ve already removed any Kernels that came when I was on Mint 19.3. But I’m not really in a hurry with the older laptops as I am with the Newest one get Mint 20.1 installed and begin using that laptop on a daily basis mostly booted into Mint 20.1.

But the one laptop(New Laptop) that needs Kernel 5.6 /Later(5.8’s good to go in Mint 20.1) is getting a Mint 20.1 fresh install(Dual Boot alongside 10/1909 Home) and I’m thinking about doing a fresh install of Mint 20.1 over the top of the 4 older laptops that are currently dual booting Mint 20/7(EOL) but can that be done without hurting the Old Windows 7(EOL) partitions on the 4 older laptops.

On laptop’s running with Secure Boot disabled/set to legacy boot mode the Mint Installer will not work if there are already 4 disk partitions allocated so on one of the Older Laptops, I had to get rid of a partition to free up that process, the 3 other old laptops did not have so many partitions allocated by their OEMs  so Mint Installed alongside Windows 7(EOL) with no issues.

I have got to research installing a new version of Linux Mint from a live Flash/Thumb Drive or DVD over the top of an older Mint Install as I have done new installs using both methods but I’ve not seen much online instructional material that shows one how to Nuke the old Mint Install by installing a New Mint version over that old Mint Install.  I already keep backups of the User Directories using Mint’s backup but there is nothing like a fresh install once in a while to clean out the cobwebs.

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firemind wrote:

Thanks for posting this. The LM19 issue doesn’t effect me as i started with 19.3 and moved to LM20. The part of the blog post I find most interesting is the discussion about the Driver Manager.

A while ago The Nvidia 450 drivers were offered and I blacklisted them temporarily because I had security updates to install and like to take care of those before software updates. A few days later I went to see if the 450 drivers were recommended in the Driver Manager but the app would go through building its cache and then show a blank page saying “no propriety drivers in use. I am using the Nvidia 440 drivers and they are listed in System Reports and other places and i still can play games, etc.

The only info I got from the Mint forums is that outdated source download  hosts could mess with Driver manager so I fiddled with my sources but still get a blank page.Hopefully the coming updates mentioned in the blog will fix this issue

Oh well. i will stick with the 440 drivers for now.

 

I am running Linux Mint Cinnamon 19.3 “Tricia” using 5.4.x Kernal and was running the nVidia 440 series driver. A while into the 440 series they offered in the Driver Manager the 440.100 Driver Metapackage and the 440.95 nVidia Server Driver metapackage marked as “recommended.”

I selected the “recommended” Server Driver package and it installed without an issue, however when I tried to launch Steam (with the newest Proton) it would not launch. I then used Driver Manager to go back to 440.100.

When 450 series showed up with the 450.51 nVidia Server Driver metapackage (recommended) and the 450.66 Driver Metapackage, I waited and finding no warnings tried the nVidia Server package. This time is worked great and appeared to be smoother and was 1-3 FPS faster.

Just FYI and FWIW.

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