You can now upgrade to Linux Mint 21.2 "Victoria". this is the way

Linux Mint 21.2 "Victoria" can be downloaded since last Sunday. To be true to the truth, it can be done a few days before, but the 16th is when its availability was made public. When Clem Lefebvre or someone on his team says that a new version of Linux Mint is available, what is happening is that the new ISOs can already be downloaded, but it cannot be updated yet. That moment comes days later.

When I started writing this article, it had not been even an hour since the official Linux Mint Twitter account had published the article with the necessary instructions for to update to Linux Mint 21.2 "Victoria" from previous versions. the link is this, but we are going to publish the guide in our own way and with screenshots and text in Spanish; WordPress will do its thing and, as always, will translate the article into many other languages.

How to upgrade to Linux Mint 21.2

The following guide is but a reflection of the original. There are steps that can be skipped, but everything explained here is recommended.

1. Create a backup. The project recommends using Timeshift, a tool that they adopted a few years ago and that is used precisely to take "snapshots" of our operating system. For those who do not understand the word in English, they are snapshots or backup copies, although if they do not use "backup" it is because "snapshot" is not exactly the same as a simple "backup". In this link We explain how to make copies with Timeshift.
2. We prepare the update. This step is basically to apply all the updates that we have pending. It can be done from the software center or from the terminal. Being an Ubuntu based distro, you can use sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade. Finished the process, we restart.
3. We update the operating system. This part, which is the important one, consists of some of its own steps.
   1. If it does not jump automatically, we go to the start menu, look for "update manager" and click on its icon in the start menu.

1. 2. Within the Update Manager, click on "Reload". If the same thing appears as in the following screenshot, it is because the manager had never been opened; just click accept. There should be nothing to update. If any package appears, we update it.

1. 3. We go to the "Edit" menu and inside to "Update to Linux Mint 21.2 Victoria".

1. 4. We follow the instructions that appear on the screen: in the first window we will see an introductory message and we just have to click "Next"; in the second we will see the notes of this version; in the third there is a link to see the news; in the room there is a check box or checkbox that must be marked in order to continue. It is the typical that we accept the risks. When you click on "Apply" you have to put the password. It will download the packages and install them; Finally we will see what appears in the list as "Summary", which basically means that the process has finished successfully.

1. 5. We reboot for everything to take effect.

Available for 21 and 21.1

The first sentence of the guide indicates that «it is now possible to upgrade Linux Mint 21 and 21.1 to 21.2", therefore, only versions starting with the number 21 are supported. Users who are on Linux Mint 20 or earlier should go through the process as many times as necessary. For example, those of Linux Mint 20 who want to upgrade to 21.2 must first upgrade to the 21 version that shows the update manager and then to 21.2.

It would be advisable to go up in the smallest possible jumps, or in other words, update every six months. In the event that someone prefers to stay longer in an older version, possible because they are all LTS, the only thing to do is update only the new packages, forgetting about the option to Edit/Upgrade to Linux Mint X.

For new installations, in our article About the availability of Linux Mint 21.2 "Victoria" we have the links to download the ISO, which we remember that there are Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce options.