14 DAY TRIAL // In the latest monthly newsletter, the leader of the Linux Mint project reminded the community that the Linux Mint 17.x series has reached end of life and will no longer be supported with security or software updates.
Released on May 31st, 2014, the Linux Mint 17 operating system series was an LTS (Long Term Support) version that received security patches and software updates for five long years. It comprised of a total of four releases, including Linux Mint 17 "Qiana", Linux Mint 17.1 "Rebecca", Linux Mint 17.2 "Rafaela", and Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa".
The Linux Mint 17 series was based on the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) operating system series, which recently reached end of life. While Canonical is continuing to support Ubuntu 14.04 installations through its commercial ESM (Extended Security Maintenance) offering, Linux Mint 17 will no longer be supported with security or software updates.
"After 5 good years of service, Linux Mint 17.x (i.e. 17, 17.1, 17.2 and 17.3) reached “End Of Life”. Although the repositories will continue to work they will no longer receive security updates," said Clement Lefebvre. "If you are running Mint 17.x, you can install Timeshift from the repositories, prepare system snapshots and plan to upgrade to Mint 18."
Linux Mint 17 users must upgrade to Linux Mint 18 or Linux Mint 19
As expected, all users of the Linux Mint 17.x operating system series are urged to upgrade their installations to the latest Linux Mint release. Clement Lefebvre recommends users to upgrade to the Linux Mint 18 series, which is based on the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system series. Linux Mint 18 will be supported for five years as well, until 2021.
However, considering the fact that the Linux Mint 19 series is already here, based on the latest Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) operating system, we recommend upgrading to it as soon as possible after you successfully upgraded to Linux Mint 18 following the instructions provided by the developers at https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2316.