Discovering Linux Mint 14 EOL

A little over a year ago, I converted to Linux Mint 14 for good, leaving Windows (mostly) behind.

Despite some initial bumps (and whining for which I remain deeply embarrassed), I've been quite happy with it and it is an excellent platform for my hobby electronics and robotics as well as for general use.

In the process of reworking my backup strategy, my attempted installation of rdiff-backup with apt complained about unsigned packages. Then bombed out...

Install these packages without verification [y/N]? y 
Err http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/main libjs-underscore all 1.3.3-1ubuntu1
  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.149 80]
Err http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/main libjs-sphinxdoc all 1.1.3+dfsg-4ubuntu3
  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.149 80]
Err http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/main python-pylibacl amd64 0.5.1-1.1
  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.149 80]
Err http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/main python-pyxattr amd64 0.5.1-1.1
  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.149 80]
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/universe rdiff-backup amd64 1.2.8-7 [176 kB]
Fetched 176 kB in 10s (16.4 kB/s)                                                                                                  
Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/u/underscore/libjs-underscore_1.3.3-1ubuntu1_all.deb  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.149 80]
Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/s/sphinx/libjs-sphinxdoc_1.1.3+dfsg-4ubuntu3_all.deb  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.149 80]
Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/p/python-pylibacl/python-pylibacl_0.5.1-1.1_amd64.deb  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.149 80]
Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/p/python-pyxattr/python-pyxattr_0.5.1-1.1_amd64.deb  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.149 80]
E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?

Turns out that Mint 14's underlying base, Ubuntu 12.10 aka Quantal Quetzal, is at EOL as of May 2014. So I have to upgrade.

Because fresh installation is the only supported option, I'd rather not have to upgrade too often. But there is good news.

First, unlike Mint 15 and 16, Mint 17 is based on Trusty Tahr, 14.10, which is a Long Term Support release which gives me until 2019.

Second, Linux Mint offers a backup utility that lets you back up a list of your installed packages, my biggest concern about doing a fresh install.

I've already stuck /home onto a separate partition so it'll survive a fresh install. It's all backed up nightly to a local drive with Backintime.

Next, I need to back up some software that I manually installed into /opt and /usr/local. In the future I'll put that stuff on /opt and move it to a separate partition, also.