Upgrade rant

[Monsieur]

Since I didn't experience any problems in a live session of Mint 22.1, I
dediced to upgrade too. It turned out I was still on 21.1 (thought it
was 21.3), so I had to upgrade in several steps in order to arrive at
22.1 Xia, allowing me to see how my usual programs and stuff would
behave in a non-live session.

First thing that struck me was the "more modern slimmer version of the
Ubuntu font family", which – apart from being too thin for my liking –
completely messed up the newsreader in Seamonkey by no longer
differentiating between regular and bold for read and unread messages.
Tried a couple of settings but found no way to fix this. There's clearly
something wrong with those "thinner Ubuntu fonts", seeing as everything
worked fine before.

I know going back to the old fonts is possible, but after fiddling with
the settings for too long I lost my appetite and decided to timeshift
back to 21.3.

Of course that brought about some other issues, like Thunderbird that
suddenly refused to open because "a newer version had changed my
profiles". Okay, so I all I had to do was update Thunderbird. Nope,
couldn't do it because "Thunderbird is already the latest version".
!@?#!! At this point I got really frustrated...

Spent the rest of afternoon fixing this and other stuff and finally
everything works fine again. I'm back on 21.3 now and I'm sticking with
it until its EOL date. I'm sure that by then a "more modern thicker
version of the Ubuntu font family" will be the new thing.

[Alan K.]

Since I didn't experience any problems in a live session of Mint 22.1, I dediced to
upgrade too. It turned out I was still on 21.1 (thought it was 21.3), so I had to upgrade
in several steps in order to arrive at 22.1 Xia, allowing me to see how my usual programs
and stuff would behave in a non-live session.
First thing that struck me was the "more modern slimmer version of the Ubuntu font
family", which – apart from being too thin for my liking – completely messed up the
newsreader in Seamonkey by no longer differentiating between regular and bold for read and
unread messages. Tried a couple of settings but found no way to fix this. There's clearly
something wrong with those "thinner Ubuntu fonts", seeing as everything worked fine before.
I know going back to the old fonts is possible, but after fiddling with the settings for
too long I lost my appetite and decided to timeshift back to 21.3.
Of course that brought about some other issues, like Thunderbird that suddenly refused to
open because "a newer version had changed my profiles". Okay, so I all I had to do was
update Thunderbird. Nope, couldn't do it because "Thunderbird is already the latest
Spent the rest of afternoon fixing this and other stuff and finally everything works fine
again. I'm back on 21.3 now and I'm sticking with it until its EOL date. I'm sure that by
then a "more modern thicker version of the Ubuntu font family" will be the new thing.

Sounds like you should have done a complete backup of your system. Image or dd or something.

I did a virgin load of 22 (because I wanted to clean house) and was on that for 7 weeks
and they came out with 22.1. So the update was minimal. But mine went bonkers on me
and I had to drop the image back in and start over. 3 times. Finally found the issue
and I'm up and running. Was bugs in my custom themes. I fixed the one that hit me that
day but forgot what I fixed. The bug hit me again when I tested one of my other popular
themes yesterday and it went bonkers too. But I knew now why, just had to find the few
lines of code.

But that image cured a world of hurt for me.

[azigni]

I thought this was a normal upgrade.... I like to play around with
other .iso's and I find sometimes what I carry over works fine, and
sometimes it may as well come from an old DOS program.

I use impa for email, and my other stuff is now pretty fast as I have had
lots of practice. Of course, my needs may be simpler than yours, fwiw.

[RonB]

Post by Monsieur
Since I didn't experience any problems in a live session of Mint 22.1, I
dediced to upgrade too. It turned out I was still on 21.1 (thought it
was 21.3), so I had to upgrade in several steps in order to arrive at
22.1 Xia, allowing me to see how my usual programs and stuff would
behave in a non-live session.
First thing that struck me was the "more modern slimmer version of the
Ubuntu font family", which – apart from being too thin for my liking –
completely messed up the newsreader in Seamonkey by no longer
differentiating between regular and bold for read and unread messages.
Tried a couple of settings but found no way to fix this. There's clearly
something wrong with those "thinner Ubuntu fonts", seeing as everything
worked fine before.
I know going back to the old fonts is possible, but after fiddling with
the settings for too long I lost my appetite and decided to timeshift
back to 21.3.
Of course that brought about some other issues, like Thunderbird that
suddenly refused to open because "a newer version had changed my
profiles". Okay, so I all I had to do was update Thunderbird. Nope,
couldn't do it because "Thunderbird is already the latest version".
Spent the rest of afternoon fixing this and other stuff and finally
everything works fine again. I'm back on 21.3 now and I'm sticking with
it until its EOL date. I'm sure that by then a "more modern thicker
version of the Ubuntu font family" will be the new thing.

I'm not particularly thrilled with 22.1 either. It seems like it's taken a
few steps back. (At least the Live USB version.) No Synaptic by default
(already mentioned) and Software Sources no longer allow you to unclick the
CD repository (which gets in the way when updating) — you have to do it
manually. Also the right-click desktop menu half the time only shows some of
the Menu. I think I had noticed the font change as well, but I hadn't really
that (at least not on my Desktop computer — on the laptop it might be a
different story). There's a couple other things (like repository not
allowing the update because Security concerns can't be met, but I think that
probably an issue with syncing servers. I can't remember everything now.
This is the USB Version (without updates) so it's probably not a fair test.

22.0 seems pretty solid. I think I'll stick with it (and 21.3) for now (or
maybe until EOL).

[Alan K.]

Post by RonB

Post by Monsieur
Since I didn't experience any problems in a live session of Mint 22.1, I
dediced to upgrade too. It turned out I was still on 21.1 (thought it
was 21.3), so I had to upgrade in several steps in order to arrive at
22.1 Xia, allowing me to see how my usual programs and stuff would
behave in a non-live session.
First thing that struck me was the "more modern slimmer version of the
Ubuntu font family", which – apart from being too thin for my liking –
completely messed up the newsreader in Seamonkey by no longer
differentiating between regular and bold for read and unread messages.
Tried a couple of settings but found no way to fix this. There's clearly
something wrong with those "thinner Ubuntu fonts", seeing as everything
worked fine before.
I know going back to the old fonts is possible, but after fiddling with
the settings for too long I lost my appetite and decided to timeshift
back to 21.3.
Of course that brought about some other issues, like Thunderbird that
suddenly refused to open because "a newer version had changed my
profiles". Okay, so I all I had to do was update Thunderbird. Nope,
couldn't do it because "Thunderbird is already the latest version".
Spent the rest of afternoon fixing this and other stuff and finally
everything works fine again. I'm back on 21.3 now and I'm sticking with
it until its EOL date. I'm sure that by then a "more modern thicker
version of the Ubuntu font family" will be the new thing.

I'm not particularly thrilled with 22.1 either. It seems like it's taken a
few steps back. (At least the Live USB version.) No Synaptic by default
(already mentioned) and Software Sources no longer allow you to unclick the
CD repository (which gets in the way when updating) — you have to do it
manually. Also the right-click desktop menu half the time only shows some of
the Menu. I think I had noticed the font change as well, but I hadn't really
that (at least not on my Desktop computer — on the laptop it might be a
different story). There's a couple other things (like repository not
allowing the update because Security concerns can't be met, but I think that
probably an issue with syncing servers. I can't remember everything now.
This is the USB Version (without updates) so it's probably not a fair test.
22.0 seems pretty solid. I think I'll stick with it (and 21.3) for now (or
maybe until EOL).

I wonder if the font issue could be adjusted in the 'font selection'. I don't use a lot
of Ubuntu fonts in mine, Verdana, Tahoma, DejaVu Sans. Window font is the only Ubuntu.

[Monsieur]

I wonder if the font issue could be adjusted in the 'font selection'.  I
don't use a lot of Ubuntu fonts in mine, Verdana, Tahoma, DejaVu Sans.
Window font is the only Ubuntu.

It's in the Release Notes:

---
Thinner Ubuntu fonts

A more modern slimmer version of the Ubuntu font family is now shipped
as standard.

Going back to the old fonts is possible by downloading the old fonts
package and refusing updates for it. For more information read
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1465216/install-the-old-version-of-the-ubuntu-font.

---

Don't forget to refuse the new fonts and its future updates, otherwise
they'll keep popping up the Update Manager.

[Monsieur]

Post by RonB
I'm not particularly thrilled with 22.1 either. It seems like it's taken a
few steps back. (At least the Live USB version.) No Synaptic by default
(already mentioned) and Software Sources no longer allow you to unclick the
CD repository (which gets in the way when updating) — you have to do it
manually. Also the right-click desktop menu half the time only shows some of
the Menu. I think I had noticed the font change as well, but I hadn't really
that (at least not on my Desktop computer — on the laptop it might be a
different story). There's a couple other things (like repository not
allowing the update because Security concerns can't be met, but I think that
probably an issue with syncing servers. I can't remember everything now.
This is the USB Version (without updates) so it's probably not a fair test.
22.0 seems pretty solid. I think I'll stick with it (and 21.3) for now (or
maybe until EOL).

I've timeshifted back to 21.3 now, but unfortunately it has "inherited"
some of the annoyances of 22.1, like a missing "paste" option in the
right-click menu when copying a file, and Thunderbird that's still not
fully functional (no more notifications when a mail arrives). Timeshift
really does not restore everything to its previous state it seems.

[Alan K.]

Post by RonB
I'm not particularly thrilled with 22.1 either. It seems like it's taken a
few steps back. (At least the Live USB version.) No Synaptic by default
(already mentioned) and Software Sources no longer allow you to unclick the
CD repository (which gets in the way when updating) — you have to do it
manually. Also the right-click desktop menu half the time only shows some of
the Menu. I think I had noticed the font change as well, but I hadn't really
that (at least not on my Desktop computer — on the laptop it might be a
different story). There's a couple other things (like repository not
allowing the update because Security concerns can't be met, but I think that
probably an issue with syncing servers. I can't remember everything now.
This is the USB Version (without updates) so it's probably not a fair test.
22.0 seems pretty solid. I think I'll stick with it (and 21.3) for now (or
maybe until EOL).

I've timeshifted back to 21.3 now, but unfortunately it has "inherited" some of the
annoyances of 22.1, like a missing "paste" option in the right-click menu when copying a
file, and Thunderbird that's still not fully functional (no more notifications when a mail
arrives). Timeshift really does not restore everything to its previous state it seems.

Isn't timeshift just system files, not home files?

[Monsieur]

Post by Alan K.

Post by Monsieur
I've timeshifted back to 21.3 now, but unfortunately it has
"inherited" some of the annoyances of 22.1, like a missing "paste"
option in the right-click menu when copying a file, and Thunderbird
that's still not fully functional (no more notifications when a mail
arrives). Timeshift really does not restore everything to its previous state it seems.

Isn't timeshift just system files, not home files?

Yes, but apparently some of the system files have changed enough for
Thunderbird to start acting up. Everything worked fine before my upgrade
experiment.

[Dan Purgert]

Post by Monsieur

Post by Alan K.

Post by Monsieur
I've timeshifted back to 21.3 now, but unfortunately it has
"inherited" some of the annoyances of 22.1, like a missing "paste"
option in the right-click menu when copying a file, and Thunderbird
that's still not fully functional (no more notifications when a mail
arrives). Timeshift really does not restore everything to its previous state it seems.

Isn't timeshift just system files, not home files?

Yes, but apparently some of the system files have changed enough for
Thunderbird to start acting up. Everything worked fine before my upgrade
experiment.

If you opened tbird in 22.1, your tbird profile (~/.thunderbird , as I
recall) has now been tagged with needing whatever version of tbird is in
22.1.

You might be able to "fix" it by renaming the profile directory and
letting Mint 21.x tbird recreate it from scratch. After that, it may be
possible to copy the relevant database(s) from the 22 tbird back into
the new profile so that your saved email services, etc. show up again.
You'll probably be forced into re-syncing all the mail though.

[Monsieur]

Post by Dan Purgert
You might be able to "fix" it by renaming the profile directory and
letting Mint 21.x tbird recreate it from scratch. After that, it may be
possible to copy the relevant database(s) from the 22 tbird back into
the new profile so that your saved email services, etc. show up again.
You'll probably be forced into re-syncing all the mail though.

No, that was not necessary. There is never a risk of losing any mails,
because Thunderbird does not touch the profile folders in your home
directory, even when you remove or reinstall the program.

Meanwhile it works again, but I did remove the extension "Minimize on
Close". Not that it was necessary, but because of all the permissions it
needed:

- Have full, unrestricted access to Thunderbird, and your computer

Extensions requesting this permission might:

- Change every aspect of Thunderbird’s user interface
- Read and modify all your data (messages, contacts, calendars, web
content and passwords)
- Read, modify and execute any file on your computer

That's like installing a backdoor on your computer and giving the key to
a total stranger. If I had known this before, I would have removed it a
long time ago. It is useful and I liked it, but this is really going too
far in my opinion.

How is this even permitted? Why on earth would a simple extension need
all those permissions? I find this totally unacceptable.

[Jeff Layman]

Post by Monsieur

Post by Dan Purgert
You might be able to "fix" it by renaming the profile directory and
letting Mint 21.x tbird recreate it from scratch. After that, it may be
possible to copy the relevant database(s) from the 22 tbird back into
the new profile so that your saved email services, etc. show up again.
You'll probably be forced into re-syncing all the mail though.

No, that was not necessary. There is never a risk of losing any mails,
because Thunderbird does not touch the profile folders in your home
directory, even when you remove or reinstall the program.
Meanwhile it works again, but I did remove the extension "Minimize on
Close". Not that it was necessary, but because of all the permissions it
- Have full, unrestricted access to Thunderbird, and your computer
- Change every aspect of Thunderbird’s user interface
- Read and modify all your data (messages, contacts, calendars, web
content and passwords)
- Read, modify and execute any file on your computer
That's like installing a backdoor on your computer and giving the key to
a total stranger. If I had known this before, I would have removed it a
long time ago. It is useful and I liked it, but this is really going too
far in my opinion.
How is this even permitted? Why on earth would a simple extension need
all those permissions? I find this totally unacceptable.

It seems pretty strange, but the explanation is here:
<https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/permission-request-messages-thunderbird-extensions#w_have-full-unrestricted-access-to-thunderbird-and-your-computer>

FWIW, I have only four extensions and they all state "Have full,
unrestricted access to Thunderbird, and your computer".

[Monsieur]

Post by Jeff Layman

Post by Monsieur
- Change every aspect of Thunderbird’s user interface
- Read and modify all your data (messages, contacts, calendars, web
content and passwords)
- Read, modify and execute any file on your computer
That's like installing a backdoor on your computer and giving the key to
a total stranger. If I had known this before, I would have removed it a
long time ago. It is useful and I liked it, but this is really going too
far in my opinion.
How is this even permitted? Why on earth would a simple extension  need
all those permissions? I find this totally unacceptable.

<https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/permission-request-messages-thunderbird-extensions#w_have-full-unrestricted-access-to-thunderbird-and-your-computer>

That's where I copied the text from. Still it doesn't explain anything.
Why does an extension need all those rights when its job is to just keep
Thunderbird running? That's just not okay, they are backdoors.

Post by Jeff Layman
FWIW, I have only four extensions and they all state "Have full,
unrestricted access to Thunderbird, and your computer".

I moved to Linux to get rid of all the sneaky spying from Microsoft, I
don't want to repeat that on Linux. Read and modify all my data and
execute any file on my computer, without me knowing who's behind it? No
thank you, I will find another way of adding this function to TB - or
find another e-mail program altogether.

[Alan K.]

Post by Jeff Layman

Post by Monsieur
- Change every aspect of Thunderbird’s user interface
- Read and modify all your data (messages, contacts, calendars, web
content and passwords)
- Read, modify and execute any file on your computer
That's like installing a backdoor on your computer and giving the key to
a total stranger. If I had known this before, I would have removed it a
long time ago. It is useful and I liked it, but this is really going too
far in my opinion.
How is this even permitted? Why on earth would a simple extension  need
all those permissions? I find this totally unacceptable.

<https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/permission-request-messages-thunderbird-
extensions#w_have-full-unrestricted-access-to-thunderbird-and-your-computer>

That's where I copied the text from. Still it doesn't explain anything. Why does an
extension need all those rights when its job is to just keep Thunderbird running? That's
just not okay, they are backdoors.

Post by Jeff Layman
FWIW, I have only four extensions and they all state "Have full, unrestricted access to
Thunderbird, and your computer".

I moved to Linux to get rid of all the sneaky spying from Microsoft, I don't want to
repeat that on Linux. Read and modify all my data and execute any file on my computer,
without me knowing who's behind it? No thank you, I will find another way of adding this
function to TB - or find another e-mail program altogether.

I just looked at the code in the xpi file. Other than icons, there is only one java
script. And it's just a few lines to monitor the status of the window.

browser.runtime.onStartup.addListener(async () => {
var winInfo = await browser.windows.getCurrent();
if(winInfo.type != "normal")
return;
await browser.windows.update(winInfo.id, { state: "minimized" });
});

Doesn't look like it doing much to me.

[Alan K.]

Post by Jeff Layman

Post by Monsieur
- Change every aspect of Thunderbird’s user interface
- Read and modify all your data (messages, contacts, calendars, web
content and passwords)
- Read, modify and execute any file on your computer
That's like installing a backdoor on your computer and giving the key to
a total stranger. If I had known this before, I would have removed it a
long time ago. It is useful and I liked it, but this is really going too
far in my opinion.
How is this even permitted? Why on earth would a simple extension  need
all those permissions? I find this totally unacceptable.

<https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/permission-request-messages-thunderbird-
extensions#w_have-full-unrestricted-access-to-thunderbird-and-your-computer>

That's where I copied the text from. Still it doesn't explain anything. Why does an
extension need all those rights when its job is to just keep Thunderbird running? That's
just not okay, they are backdoors.

Post by Jeff Layman
FWIW, I have only four extensions and they all state "Have full, unrestricted access to
Thunderbird, and your computer".

I moved to Linux to get rid of all the sneaky spying from Microsoft, I don't want to
repeat that on Linux. Read and modify all my data and execute any file on my computer,
without me knowing who's behind it? No thank you, I will find another way of adding this
function to TB - or find another e-mail program altogether.
I'll take that back. I just re-installed this "minimize on start" add-on and the add-on

says "This extension doesn’t require any permissions".
https://github.com/aAndrzej-dev/Minimize-on-startup

[Monsieur]

Post by Alan K.

Post by Monsieur

Post by Jeff Layman
FWIW, I have only four extensions and they all state "Have full,
unrestricted access to Thunderbird, and your computer".

I moved to Linux to get rid of all the sneaky spying from Microsoft, I
don't want to repeat that on Linux. Read and modify all my data and
execute any file on my computer, without me knowing who's behind it?
No thank you, I will find another way of adding this function to TB -
or find another e-mail program altogether.
I'll take that back.  I just re-installed this "minimize on start"
add-on and the add-on

says "This extension doesn’t require any permissions".
https://github.com/aAndrzej-dev/Minimize-on-startup

It's "Minimize on Close", not "Minimize on startup" :-)

https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/minimize-on-close/

[Alan K.]

I'll take that back.  I just re-installed this "minimize on start" add-on and the add-on
says "This extension doesn’t require any permissions".
https://github.com/aAndrzej-dev/Minimize-on-startup

It's "Minimize on Close", not "Minimize on startup" 🙂
https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/minimize-on-close/

I don't use any of them, now.

Never noticed it but there are 3 versions (one only works up to v128.*)
minimize_on_close-2.0.1.4-tb
***@aandrzej.com minimize on start
minimize_on_start_and_close-1.3.2-fx+tb+sb

[Gordon]

Post by Alan K.

Post by RonB
I'm not particularly thrilled with 22.1 either. It seems like it's taken a
few steps back. (At least the Live USB version.) No Synaptic by default
(already mentioned) and Software Sources no longer allow you to unclick the
CD repository (which gets in the way when updating) — you have to do it
manually. Also the right-click desktop menu half the time only shows some of
the Menu. I think I had noticed the font change as well, but I hadn't really
that (at least not on my Desktop computer — on the laptop it might be a
different story). There's a couple other things (like repository not
allowing the update because Security concerns can't be met, but I think that
probably an issue with syncing servers. I can't remember everything now.
This is the USB Version (without updates) so it's probably not a fair test.
22.0 seems pretty solid. I think I'll stick with it (and 21.3) for now (or
maybe until EOL).

I've timeshifted back to 21.3 now, but unfortunately it has "inherited" some of the
annoyances of 22.1, like a missing "paste" option in the right-click menu when copying a
file, and Thunderbird that's still not fully functional (no more notifications when a mail
arrives). Timeshift really does not restore everything to its previous state it seems.

Isn't timeshift just system files, not home files?

This is the case for the default option in Mint, but there is an option to
include the home directory. Still the data files should be backed up
elsewhere.

[Gerald H]

Post by Monsieur
Since I didn't experience any problems in a live session of Mint 22.1, I
dediced to upgrade too. It turned out I was still on 21.1 (thought it
was 21.3), so I had to upgrade in several steps in order to arrive at
22.1 Xia, allowing me to see how my usual programs and stuff would
behave in a non-live session.
First thing that struck me was the "more modern slimmer version of the
Ubuntu font family", which – apart from being too thin for my liking –
completely messed up the newsreader in Seamonkey by no longer
differentiating between regular and bold for read and unread messages.
Tried a couple of settings but found no way to fix this. There's clearly
something wrong with those "thinner Ubuntu fonts", seeing as everything
worked fine before.
I know going back to the old fonts is possible, but after fiddling with
the settings for too long I lost my appetite and decided to timeshift
back to 21.3.
Of course that brought about some other issues, like Thunderbird that
suddenly refused to open because "a newer version had changed my
profiles". Okay, so I all I had to do was update Thunderbird. Nope,
couldn't do it because "Thunderbird is already the latest version".
Spent the rest of afternoon fixing this and other stuff and finally
everything works fine again. I'm back on 21.3 now and I'm sticking with
it until its EOL date. I'm sure that by then a "more modern thicker
version of the Ubuntu font family" will be the new thing.

I've had a look at Mint XFCE 22.1 and there seems to be more Header Bars
and Symbolic Icons than in Mint XFCE 22, which of course has more of
that stuff than in Mint XFCE 21.X. If I wanted that I'd using a Gnome
desktop.

My custom theme and replacing a lot of the default applications has got
rid of most of it, but I'm not going to spend ages hacking Mint 21.1
onwards to get things how I like it, so I'm sticking with my customised
Mint XFCE 22 until the end of support now.

Hopefully fashion will then have gone full circle and I can have colour
icons again on my colour screen. I got rid of my black and white
monitor a long time ago when I could afford a colour one! :-) .

[azigni]

It seems T-bird is your biggest issue. Are you using pop3? If you change
to imap you can retrieve your email, then change back. Just a guess.