13 ms·

My biggest gripe against Elementary OS 6, that I think everyone thinking about using it should consider: There is currently no upgrade path from Elementary OS 5

My biggest gripe against Elementary OS 6, that I think everyone thinking about using it should consider: There is currently no upgrade path from Elementary OS 5 that is officially supported. You heard me right: The official explanation on how to upgrade to Elementary OS 6 is to back up your stuff and do a full reinstall. Considering that Elementary OS is somewhat marketed as being ideal for, say, elderly folks or people less experienced with their PC, as something that a Linux user might install for non-techie friends, this is beyond unacceptable and also shows a certain lack of technical competence for the folks running it. Edit: Also, I've made the tragic mistake of installing previous Elementary OS versions for non-techie friends I rarely see. Not anymore! What am I supposed to do Elementary? Inform my friends I've got to basically rebuild their computer the next time I see them at Thanksgiving to keep them safe? I'm trying to avoid using profanity...

bitigchi 5y ago
Elementary OS is anything but suitable for elderly or non-techie folks.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  I agree now, fully, but that's not what their marketing would say. It's literally called "Elementary OS"!
  - bitigchi 5y ago
    It's DoA for this reason. :)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
agumonkey 5y ago
Maybe i'm not up to par, but I was under the impression that even ubuntu wasn't mature to upgrade between major versions. I never dabbled much but upgrade failure are not unheard of.
- genera1 5y ago
  I did 16.04 to 20.04 through 18.04 and it was a nightmare, it would've been faster to do fresh install.
  - sgc 5y ago
    Did you stabilize 18.04 over a couple days to make sure you had caught all the reconfig required? It should be no different than 18.04 > 20.04 with that step I would think. I am currently at this phase ;).
    - genera1 5y ago
      Well, update process taking couple of days is it's own kind of nightmare. And it wasn't my personal machine so it would've been unreasonable for me to do so.
      - sgc 5y ago
        Not always possible, of course. It's also understandable that you can't just jump through 4 years of updates in one go without some sort of work to catch up to current configs involved. I had to change 2 lines of config from 16.04 to 18.04 (due to my own tweaks to defaults), so it's been pretty pain free so far. And the few days as a precaution are on me, not Ubuntu. I should have updated years ago.
- _joel 5y ago
  You most definitely can. do-release-upgrade handles all of it but you can change sources and do it the old school way. It's always preferable to reinstall using automation but if it's just a hobbyist server then there's no issue. https://ubuntu.com/blog/how-to-upgrade-from-ubuntu-18-04-lts-to-20-04-lts-today https://ubuntu.com/blog/how-to-upgrade-from-ubuntu-18-04-lts...
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Ubuntu has offered distributions upgrades for years in the Software Updater. It just tells you, you click Install, it takes a while and a few reboots, and then you're updated. I've done it on servers, I've done it on desktops, works fine most of the time. However, I've only hopped one version at a time (16.04 -> 18.04, 18.04 -> 20.04), never multiple at once (16.04 -> 20.04). Of course, sometimes failures do occur, but that happens whenever you do a major OS upgrade. I've had Windows fail on upgrade more than I've had Ubuntu fail on upgrade, but that's just my experience. This in comparison to, well, Elementary OS saying scrap it all and reinstall. That wouldn't be so bad if they were, like, a technically-minded distribution - but for their primary market who hardly knows anything about updates, completely unacceptable.
whalesalad 5y ago
I often think that Linux needs to divorce itself from the notion of distributions and instead we need to find a better way to deliver these all-inclusive experiences in some alternate way. Specifically in this case I love everything that Elementary is doing but wish you could "bring your own OS" This is the issue with Linux Desktop - every time you want to try something new you need to effectively reinvent the wheel for yourself. Most things end up being the same though, my browser is my browser, my data is my data. I can compartmentalize some of that to make it portable between distributions but I feel like that is solving the problem from the wrong direction. At some point I would hope this becomes a DE like Gnome or KDE. Inventing your own programming language, app marketplace etc... is admirable but seems like it is being done in vein.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Well, if you ask the folk over at Red Hat, they agree. And they're doing it within their code, which is both working and simultaneously making the old-timers very, very angry. They've been sponsoring GNOME, which has been pushing the simplified, mobile-friendly look for almost a decade now. They've also (I believe) been behind the scenes in GNOME's push to kill theming on the behalf of developers who hate their apps getting themed, which of course distributions hate because that hurts the ability to stand out. If GNOME looks the same on every distribution, your distribution sticks out less. Red Hat has also been behind sponsoring SystemD, which for better or worse brought every distribution kicking and screaming into a more consistent "low level" layout. Again though, this makes management across Linux systems somewhat easier, while making distribution-specific differences smaller. Red Hat has been behind Flatpak, which compartmentalizes applications and means that they can run on any distribution when built against a common runtime. For app developers and new people, this is great as a "Linux app" just runs on any "Linux" distribution, easy. For old-timers and technical folk (even on here)... again it's with kicking and screaming. And if you are a distribution author, every distribution now runs the same apps, so what's so special about your distro again? Red Hat has also been behind PulseAudio and PipeWire, which changed how audio worked on Linux... again with kicking and screaming. The point is, Red Hat keeps working on technology that, I would argue, makes Linux more consistent and approachable to newcomers, but massively changes how it works which angers old-timers and also happens to reduce diversity within distributions as to how things are done. This makes things easier for programmers, but erodes away the proliferation of distributions because the differences between them get smaller and smaller. Because, if Red Hat gets their way, consider: Every desktop that uses GNOME looks the same because there isn't as much theming. Every desktop runs the same apps using Flatpak. Every desktop has similar low-level internals with SystemD. If you are a distribution maker, not much left to stand out now, is there? Again, app developers love this, but if you are a distribution maker, Red Hat is trying to kill your edge.
briffle 5y ago
A few years ago, I used elementary OS for my workstation at work. As part of an upgrade, I ran their backup program to make a backup to a removable disk. It went through the full backup process. Apparently, there was a 'bug' in the software where if you click on it, and then hit select in the folder dialog, instead of double click the destination, (it might have been the other way around, it was a few years ago). the backup would essentially write an empty file. How much fun it is to rebuild all your data from other sources! I submitted a bug report and essentially got a DM from someeone that it was still on their todo list, and had been that way for a while. That was the last time I used them. For easy to use, I really miss CrunchBang Linux.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ravenstine 5y ago
  I haven't used a Linux desktop in quite a while, but Crunchbang was pretty great. No desktop (as far as I remember), right-click menu as the one source find everything, a minimalist taskbar, and a better terminal than what shipped with any Debian distro. It was a sad day when the author abandoned it, although it's really not hard to just download Debian and replace the DE with Openbox and the other things that came with Crunchbang.
  - lproven 5y ago
    Crunchbang has 2 successor distros: BunsenLabs (very conservative, basically just updated CB). CrunchBang++ (modernised a little, with some new features and shiny). AIUI: The BunsenLabs community are aggrieved because they respected Corenomial's rights over it and so didn't use the original name. The CB++ people are bolder: they asked him, got permission, and were a bit more radical. TBH I wish they would either settle their differences and re-unify, or the BunsenLabs folks be a little more radical and (for instance) move to Devuan instead.
- mariusmg 5y ago
  > I really miss CrunchBang Linux. There's a name i haven't heard in a while :) Look up Archcraft, the OpenBox variant might scratch the same itch as CBL.
mlinksva 5y ago
Surprising enough (expectations set by decades of Debian/Ubuntu) that I had to look it up, but it's true https://github.com/elementary/os/wiki/Release-Upgrades#performing-a-release-upgrade https://github.com/elementary/os/wiki/Release-Upgrades#perfo...
thom 5y ago
This is a totally valid complaint given the target market, but for me personally there are few pleasures greater than a fresh OS install. It’s like a blank white page, full of hope and opportunity… soon to be ink-stained and dog eared and with a broken X config, in need of replacing.
mlac 5y ago
It’s really hard to beat chrome OS for this use case. Options from $200-$1000+, with good options around $400 on sale. Issues? Power wash it. Really broken? Go buy another one. Lost or stolen? Buy another one and log in. Need office? Google’s products work well. Need more? O365 subscription. Want more security? Two factor auth with a Yubikey. I recognize that this relies on Google and Microsoft and is not FOSS and has privacy issues and everything else. But I do not have enough time to spend managing my extended family’s IT beyond giving them chromebooks that achieve 99% of what they need to do with very little input on my part. If they want to invest time in learning about Linux and get away from Google and MSFT, that’s fine, but they can do it on their own time with a test machine and keep Chrome OS as their daily driver until they are confident on their own.
- jmnicolas 5y ago
  I put my mom on Ubuntu 3 or 4 years ago. It has been absolutely uneventful since then. This wasn't the case when she was on Windows.
  - petepete 5y ago
    Same for mine but with Fedora. I enabled auto updates and haven't needed to provide any tech support since.
  - mlac 5y ago
    I had my in-laws on Ubuntu around 2011-2012 and they used it well enough, and I agree it was much less eventful than Windows. But that was a home build Frankenstein desktop that eventually had a part fail. By then, chromebooks were available for $200. I got one and they used it until the wheels fell off (screen issues, battery life <10 minutes, charger would only work in certain location) two years ago when I got a free chromebook through a promotion to replace it. I think we got one in 2012, 2015, 2019 (to replace the 2013), and 2021 (to replace the 2015). They are laptops and used daily.
  - tuatoru 5y ago
    Did she stop using her PC? Worth checking.
rbreaves 5y ago
Hmmm I did not know this, but I am also not very surprised really. There are so many customizations they've made in post versions though that I imagine this probably isn't the first time they did not offer an upgrade path. They are also very slow in supporting the latest LTS builds. I think people should move on to something like Ubuntu Budgie when they want a simple and clean experience for themselves or others. Ubuntu Budgie keeps their LTS and interim builds in sync very well with upstream Ubuntu and upstream Budgie & I have never seen fossfreedom shoot down a PR that makes sense. He's often encouraged others to contribute to the distro in very healthy and normal ways.
justin66 5y ago
> You heard me right: The official explanation on how to upgrade to Elementary OS 6 is to back up your stuff and do a full reinstall. You're acting as if this is some kind of massive and unprecedented inconvenience, but this is Linux, where users routinely recommend to one another that they try a different distro to solve application problems. By comparison, what you brought up is pretty tame.
bstar77 5y ago
I recently put my Dad on Linux. Elementary was a disaster- compatibility and app issues did us in. I'm so happy we moved on because I did not realize that we would have had upgrade issues too.
- hammyhavoc 5y ago
  What did you move on to?
  - bstar77 5y ago
    Manjaro, which was another mistake. I'm going to move him to Pop!_OS when I see him over the holidays and hopefully be done with this. He's very competent, but there are small issues with these distros that need extra care that I think should not require so much effort. Pop should be fine.
Wowfunhappy 5y ago
> Also, I've made the tragic mistake of installing previous Elementary OS versions for non-techie friends I rarely see. Not anymore! What am I supposed to do Elementary? Inform my friends I've got to basically rebuild their computer the next time I see them at Thanksgiving to keep them safe? You're not supposed to do anything at all! https://blog.elementary.io/updates-for-june-2020/ https://blog.elementary.io/updates-for-june-2020/ > elementary OS 5 will continue to receive security and stability updates to its underlying libraries until April of 2028.
crossroadsguy 5y ago
Are there other (Elementary like distro¹) Linux distros that does it better? Iirc this was the case for Ubuntu as well. 1. One that looks nice and comes with bells and whistles and is closer in UX and functionality to Mac than Windows
- price 5y ago
  This is not the case for Ubuntu -- it's always supported upgrading from one release to the next, and that is the normal and expected thing to do. The same is true for Debian, Fedora, and... well, every Linux distro I've ever known people using on their desktops/laptops. For good reason, because it is a pretty essential feature in that context.

bitigchi 5y ago

Elementary OS is anything but suitable for elderly or non-techie folks.

gjsman-1000 5y ago
I agree now, fully, but that's not what their marketing would say. It's literally called "Elementary OS"!
- bitigchi 5y ago
  It's DoA for this reason. :)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

agumonkey 5y ago

Maybe i'm not up to par, but I was under the impression that even ubuntu wasn't mature to upgrade between major versions. I never dabbled much but upgrade failure are not unheard of.

genera1 5y ago
I did 16.04 to 20.04 through 18.04 and it was a nightmare, it would've been faster to do fresh install.
- sgc 5y ago
  Did you stabilize 18.04 over a couple days to make sure you had caught all the reconfig required? It should be no different than 18.04 > 20.04 with that step I would think. I am currently at this phase ;).
  - genera1 5y ago
    Well, update process taking couple of days is it's own kind of nightmare. And it wasn't my personal machine so it would've been unreasonable for me to do so.
    - sgc 5y ago
      Not always possible, of course. It's also understandable that you can't just jump through 4 years of updates in one go without some sort of work to catch up to current configs involved. I had to change 2 lines of config from 16.04 to 18.04 (due to my own tweaks to defaults), so it's been pretty pain free so far. And the few days as a precaution are on me, not Ubuntu. I should have updated years ago.
_joel 5y ago
You most definitely can. do-release-upgrade handles all of it but you can change sources and do it the old school way. It's always preferable to reinstall using automation but if it's just a hobbyist server then there's no issue. https://ubuntu.com/blog/how-to-upgrade-from-ubuntu-18-04-lts-to-20-04-lts-today https://ubuntu.com/blog/how-to-upgrade-from-ubuntu-18-04-lts...
gjsman-1000 5y ago
Ubuntu has offered distributions upgrades for years in the Software Updater. It just tells you, you click Install, it takes a while and a few reboots, and then you're updated. I've done it on servers, I've done it on desktops, works fine most of the time. However, I've only hopped one version at a time (16.04 -> 18.04, 18.04 -> 20.04), never multiple at once (16.04 -> 20.04). Of course, sometimes failures do occur, but that happens whenever you do a major OS upgrade. I've had Windows fail on upgrade more than I've had Ubuntu fail on upgrade, but that's just my experience. This in comparison to, well, Elementary OS saying scrap it all and reinstall. That wouldn't be so bad if they were, like, a technically-minded distribution - but for their primary market who hardly knows anything about updates, completely unacceptable.

whalesalad 5y ago

I often think that Linux needs to divorce itself from the notion of distributions and instead we need to find a better way to deliver these all-inclusive experiences in some alternate way. Specifically in this case I love everything that Elementary is doing but wish you could "bring your own OS" This is the issue with Linux Desktop - every time you want to try something new you need to effectively reinvent the wheel for yourself. Most things end up being the same though, my browser is my browser, my data is my data. I can compartmentalize some of that to make it portable between distributions but I feel like that is solving the problem from the wrong direction. At some point I would hope this becomes a DE like Gnome or KDE. Inventing your own programming language, app marketplace etc... is admirable but seems like it is being done in vein.

gjsman-1000 5y ago
Well, if you ask the folk over at Red Hat, they agree. And they're doing it within their code, which is both working and simultaneously making the old-timers very, very angry. They've been sponsoring GNOME, which has been pushing the simplified, mobile-friendly look for almost a decade now. They've also (I believe) been behind the scenes in GNOME's push to kill theming on the behalf of developers who hate their apps getting themed, which of course distributions hate because that hurts the ability to stand out. If GNOME looks the same on every distribution, your distribution sticks out less. Red Hat has also been behind sponsoring SystemD, which for better or worse brought every distribution kicking and screaming into a more consistent "low level" layout. Again though, this makes management across Linux systems somewhat easier, while making distribution-specific differences smaller. Red Hat has been behind Flatpak, which compartmentalizes applications and means that they can run on any distribution when built against a common runtime. For app developers and new people, this is great as a "Linux app" just runs on any "Linux" distribution, easy. For old-timers and technical folk (even on here)... again it's with kicking and screaming. And if you are a distribution author, every distribution now runs the same apps, so what's so special about your distro again? Red Hat has also been behind PulseAudio and PipeWire, which changed how audio worked on Linux... again with kicking and screaming. The point is, Red Hat keeps working on technology that, I would argue, makes Linux more consistent and approachable to newcomers, but massively changes how it works which angers old-timers and also happens to reduce diversity within distributions as to how things are done. This makes things easier for programmers, but erodes away the proliferation of distributions because the differences between them get smaller and smaller. Because, if Red Hat gets their way, consider: Every desktop that uses GNOME looks the same because there isn't as much theming. Every desktop runs the same apps using Flatpak. Every desktop has similar low-level internals with SystemD. If you are a distribution maker, not much left to stand out now, is there? Again, app developers love this, but if you are a distribution maker, Red Hat is trying to kill your edge.

briffle 5y ago

A few years ago, I used elementary OS for my workstation at work. As part of an upgrade, I ran their backup program to make a backup to a removable disk. It went through the full backup process. Apparently, there was a 'bug' in the software where if you click on it, and then hit select in the folder dialog, instead of double click the destination, (it might have been the other way around, it was a few years ago). the backup would essentially write an empty file. How much fun it is to rebuild all your data from other sources! I submitted a bug report and essentially got a DM from someeone that it was still on their todo list, and had been that way for a while. That was the last time I used them. For easy to use, I really miss CrunchBang Linux.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ravenstine 5y ago
I haven't used a Linux desktop in quite a while, but Crunchbang was pretty great. No desktop (as far as I remember), right-click menu as the one source find everything, a minimalist taskbar, and a better terminal than what shipped with any Debian distro. It was a sad day when the author abandoned it, although it's really not hard to just download Debian and replace the DE with Openbox and the other things that came with Crunchbang.
- lproven 5y ago
  Crunchbang has 2 successor distros: BunsenLabs (very conservative, basically just updated CB). CrunchBang++ (modernised a little, with some new features and shiny). AIUI: The BunsenLabs community are aggrieved because they respected Corenomial's rights over it and so didn't use the original name. The CB++ people are bolder: they asked him, got permission, and were a bit more radical. TBH I wish they would either settle their differences and re-unify, or the BunsenLabs folks be a little more radical and (for instance) move to Devuan instead.
mariusmg 5y ago
> I really miss CrunchBang Linux. There's a name i haven't heard in a while :) Look up Archcraft, the OpenBox variant might scratch the same itch as CBL.

mlinksva 5y ago

Surprising enough (expectations set by decades of Debian/Ubuntu) that I had to look it up, but it's true https://github.com/elementary/os/wiki/Release-Upgrades#performing-a-release-upgrade https://github.com/elementary/os/wiki/Release-Upgrades#perfo...

thom 5y ago

This is a totally valid complaint given the target market, but for me personally there are few pleasures greater than a fresh OS install. It’s like a blank white page, full of hope and opportunity… soon to be ink-stained and dog eared and with a broken X config, in need of replacing.

mlac 5y ago

It’s really hard to beat chrome OS for this use case. Options from $200-$1000+, with good options around $400 on sale. Issues? Power wash it. Really broken? Go buy another one. Lost or stolen? Buy another one and log in. Need office? Google’s products work well. Need more? O365 subscription. Want more security? Two factor auth with a Yubikey. I recognize that this relies on Google and Microsoft and is not FOSS and has privacy issues and everything else. But I do not have enough time to spend managing my extended family’s IT beyond giving them chromebooks that achieve 99% of what they need to do with very little input on my part. If they want to invest time in learning about Linux and get away from Google and MSFT, that’s fine, but they can do it on their own time with a test machine and keep Chrome OS as their daily driver until they are confident on their own.

jmnicolas 5y ago
I put my mom on Ubuntu 3 or 4 years ago. It has been absolutely uneventful since then. This wasn't the case when she was on Windows.
- petepete 5y ago
  Same for mine but with Fedora. I enabled auto updates and haven't needed to provide any tech support since.
- mlac 5y ago
  I had my in-laws on Ubuntu around 2011-2012 and they used it well enough, and I agree it was much less eventful than Windows. But that was a home build Frankenstein desktop that eventually had a part fail. By then, chromebooks were available for $200. I got one and they used it until the wheels fell off (screen issues, battery life <10 minutes, charger would only work in certain location) two years ago when I got a free chromebook through a promotion to replace it. I think we got one in 2012, 2015, 2019 (to replace the 2013), and 2021 (to replace the 2015). They are laptops and used daily.
- tuatoru 5y ago
  Did she stop using her PC? Worth checking.

rbreaves 5y ago

Hmmm I did not know this, but I am also not very surprised really. There are so many customizations they've made in post versions though that I imagine this probably isn't the first time they did not offer an upgrade path. They are also very slow in supporting the latest LTS builds. I think people should move on to something like Ubuntu Budgie when they want a simple and clean experience for themselves or others. Ubuntu Budgie keeps their LTS and interim builds in sync very well with upstream Ubuntu and upstream Budgie & I have never seen fossfreedom shoot down a PR that makes sense. He's often encouraged others to contribute to the distro in very healthy and normal ways.

justin66 5y ago

> You heard me right: The official explanation on how to upgrade to Elementary OS 6 is to back up your stuff and do a full reinstall. You're acting as if this is some kind of massive and unprecedented inconvenience, but this is Linux, where users routinely recommend to one another that they try a different distro to solve application problems. By comparison, what you brought up is pretty tame.

bstar77 5y ago

I recently put my Dad on Linux. Elementary was a disaster- compatibility and app issues did us in. I'm so happy we moved on because I did not realize that we would have had upgrade issues too.

hammyhavoc 5y ago
What did you move on to?
- bstar77 5y ago
  Manjaro, which was another mistake. I'm going to move him to Pop!_OS when I see him over the holidays and hopefully be done with this. He's very competent, but there are small issues with these distros that need extra care that I think should not require so much effort. Pop should be fine.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago

> Also, I've made the tragic mistake of installing previous Elementary OS versions for non-techie friends I rarely see. Not anymore! What am I supposed to do Elementary? Inform my friends I've got to basically rebuild their computer the next time I see them at Thanksgiving to keep them safe? You're not supposed to do anything at all! https://blog.elementary.io/updates-for-june-2020/ https://blog.elementary.io/updates-for-june-2020/ > elementary OS 5 will continue to receive security and stability updates to its underlying libraries until April of 2028.

crossroadsguy 5y ago

Are there other (Elementary like distro¹) Linux distros that does it better? Iirc this was the case for Ubuntu as well. 1. One that looks nice and comes with bells and whistles and is closer in UX and functionality to Mac than Windows

price 5y ago
This is not the case for Ubuntu -- it's always supported upgrading from one release to the next, and that is the normal and expected thing to do. The same is true for Debian, Fedora, and... well, every Linux distro I've ever known people using on their desktops/laptops. For good reason, because it is a pretty essential feature in that context.