Distro support cycle and upgrading.

[ssfc72]

I suppose that in order to upgrade from Mint 19 to Mint 20, that you have to install Mint 20 and start fresh, rather than just do an upgrade??  I am currently at Mint 19.1, so I suppose I would have to do a fresh install, if I needed to move to Mint 20?

I see that Mint 18 support ends in 2021.

As long as a Distro is working well for me, I don't see any need to do a Distro upgrade, for my purposes, so I tend to use a Distro until it's support ends.

[buster]

Hi Bill. I've been upgrading the same Mint for years, and sometimes a 'fresh install' is needed. But I have a menu link to my Win10 laptop going way back in the Mint's history that I don't think I can replicate and don't want to lose. In my Mint menu is a Win10 button that I click and a big page opens, no password needed, to everything on my upstairs laptop.

If there is no easy upgrade available, I do a very special 'reinstall'. I assume you would have to do one step at a time. BUT I

1. Use the Mint tools to produce a bootable usb stick
2. Use the same partitions exactly, in my case /, /home/, /swap.
3. Use the exact same passwords,
3. I DO NOT FORMAT /home.

Program software needs to be reinstalled but the data for these programs will be sitting comfortably in /home.

Besides regular upgrades I have done this install-upgrade combo twice.

[ssfc72]

Thanks Buster, for your tip.  I have copied the info and saved it as a txt file, for future reference.

[gmiller1977]

You can apparently do an upgrade from 19.3 to 20.

[Jason]

I'm moved this to Support as it feels like a support question. Just an easily answered one.