# sudo -i
# apt-get update
# apt-get dist-upgrade

The above would normally do an upgrade for Ubuntu Linux but Mint will just do a regular

# apt-get upgrade

So what needs to be done is modify the source lists to point to nadia instead of lisa and quantal (ubuntu 12.10) instead of oneiric (ubuntu 11.10) where applicable. So I did:

# cd /etc
# tar zcf apt.lisa.tar.gz apt #take a backup before messing :)
# find apt/ | xargs -n 1 sed -i -e 's|lisa|nadia|g'
# find apt/ | xargs -n 1 sed -i -e 's|oneiric|quantal|g'
# apt-get update
# apt-get dist-upgrade

Lets see what happens 🙂
First attempt I got dependency errors and the upgrade broke.
I decided to use force (never the best option usually but what the heck)… several times…

# apt-get -f dist-upgrade

Ok still some packages like mint-search-addon gir1 and nux resisted the force 😀

# dpkg --remove gir1
# dpkg --install --force-all <full path of gir1 install deb>

Worked sort of but for the other I had to go

# apt-get remove --purge mint-search-addon

And after all this effort and a reboot, I’m still facing Lisa, Nadia not there, as the prompt and kernel version hints me…

To be continued…