After Linux Mint update, numerous problems ...

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 03 Sep 2020 09:19:42 -0600
joe--- via PLUG-discuss <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:

> So I ran: sudo apt dist-upgrade again and got this result:
> 
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> Calculating upgrade... Done
> 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> 
> 197 additional updates are available with UA Infrastructure ESM.
> To see these additional updates run: apt list --upgradable
> See https://ubuntu.com/advantage or run: sudo ua status
> 
> Then I ran sudo apt list --upgradable
> and got the long list of options that one sees when
> running sudo apt full-upgrade
> 
> But I don't know which of those options I should try to use
> or how to use them (in what sequence).

Hi Joe,

If I were in your situation, I'd first try Chromium instead of Chrome,
and if the symptom remains, I'd just wait a couple months until
Chrome/Chromium fixes itself. This stuff happens all the time with
browsers: Several are always broken. What I'd avoid right now is these
extreme package manager maneuvers that might bork a lot of stuff.

Here are some alternatives to Chromium and Firefox:

dillo
edbrowse
eolie
epiphany
falkon
flinks
icecat
links
luakit
midori
netsurf
otter-browser
qutebrowser
surf
vimb 

One other observation. Earlier in the thread you expressed concerns
about speed, number of processes running, and resources in general. You
seem quite proficient at Linux. Maybe it's time you move away from
coddling type distros like  Mint, Ubuntu, and to a lesser extent
Debian. If you were to switch to the Void Linux distro
(https://voidlinux.org/), there would be far fewer levels of
abstraction on your machine. If you switch to Void, I think all your
resource problems would go away or at least have obvious root causes.

This isn't to say you wouldn't have other problems with Void. A few
marginal programs aren't packaged in Void: You'd use a Mint VM to run
those. And Void's not going to have the "we work with all hardware"
kind of capability that Mint and Ubuntu have, but if your hardware is
more than a year old, that shouldn't be a problem on any distro.

I've been using Void Linux since early 2015 (switched from Debian in
2014 and Ubuntu 2008-2013) and I still love using Void. You might want
to consider it.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
Autumn 2020 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive