Today we are looking at how to upgrade from LMDE 3 to LMDE 4.  It is a long process, it took me about 90min and it downloaded about 2GB of data during the installation.

We created this tutorial, all the commands are below, with video guides as well, to help you with the upgrade as it can be a bit daunting.

To summarize the upgrade method.  We start off by updating our system and creating a system snapshot, for in case something goes wrong.  All your data should be saved, but backups are always good, not just for upgrades.  Then we start the upgrade, by removing one repository and removing some packages which are no longer required.  Then we upgrade to LMDE4 with all the commands in step 4 in the instructions.  Then we end the process by removing packages that are no longer required, you would notice that I ran into something at the very end that can look like an error, but it is because I chose to keep my old kernel as well, just for in case.  Lastly, we reboot our system into LMDE 4. 

Please look at our video guides for further assistance.

Instructions:
Prepare your system:
1) Update your system and reboot your system afterward

2) Create a system snapshot

3) Downgrade Unofficial Debian Multimedia packages
3.1)
a) sudo xed /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
"deb https://www.deb-multimedia.org stretch main non-free"

b) sudo apt update

3.2) Downgrade The Multimedia Packages
Go to Update Manager/Edit/Software sources/Maintenance/Downgrade Foreign Packages
Select all packages, if any available and downgrade them.

3.3) Remove The Remaining Multimedia Packages
Go to Update Manager/Edit/Software sources/Maintenance/Remove Foreign Packages
look for all packages with "-dmo" in their "installed version" and remove them.

3.4) Remove several packages from the terminal
sudo apt remove libservlet3.1-java libx264-150 libx264-150

4) Upgrade to LMDE 4:
4.1) Install the upgrade tool
sudo apt install mintupgrade

4.2) Check for available upgrade
mintupgrade check

4.3) Download Updage
mintupgrade download

4.4) Apply Upgrade
nice mintupgrade upgrade

5) Downgrade foreign packages
Go to Update Manager/Edit/Software sources/Maintenance/Downgrade Foreign Packages
Select all packages, if any available and downgrade them.

6) Delete foreign packages
Go to Update Manager/Edit/Software sources/Maintenance/Remove Foreign Packages
select all available packages, if any and remove them.

7) Reboot your system

Instructions are based on this:
https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2475
Release Notes:
https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3867

Official Site:
https://linuxmint.com/

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