Running Mint 17, just ran apt-get upgrade for the first time in a while, with 350MB download. It stops halfway to tell me /etc/issue is not the package maintainers versions. Ditto for issue.net and lsb-release, where the diff looks like:-DISTRIB_ID=LinuxMint-DISTRIB_RELEASE=17-DISTRIB_CODENAME=qiana-DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=Linux Mint 17 Qiana+DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu+DISTRIB_RELEASE=14.04+DISTRIB_CODENAME=trusty+DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTSOK, I've said no to each of those three file updates (i.e. keep it as Mint). Now I'm just wondering if this is a symptom of a more serious problem? Could apt-get be corrupted? Is there some simple check I can do to tell myself everything is OK? Google, so far, tells me no-one else has this problem, which seems strange if it is a mess-up in Mint packaging.Sorry, that is a bit of a wishy-washy question. I guess it boils down to: Is it fine to shrug and think nothing about those three files?UPDATEHere is the output of apt-cache policy base-files:base-files:  Installed: 7.2ubuntu5.2  Candidate: 7.2ubuntu5.2  Version table: *** 7.2ubuntu5.2 0        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates/main amd64 Packages        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status     7.2ubuntu5 0        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 PackagesHowever there are some mint packages still, here is apt-cache policy | grep -i mint: 700 http://extra.linuxmint.com/ qiana/main i386 Packages     release v=17,o=linuxmint,a=qiana,n=qiana,l=linuxmint,c=main     origin extra.linuxmint.com 700 http://extra.linuxmint.com/ qiana/main amd64 Packages     release v=17,o=linuxmint,a=qiana,n=qiana,l=linuxmint,c=main     origin extra.linuxmint.com 700 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ qiana/import i386 Packages     release v=17,o=linuxmint,a=qiana,n=qiana,l=linuxmint,c=import     origin packages.linuxmint.com 700 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ qiana/upstream i386 Packages     release v=17,o=linuxmint,a=qiana,n=qiana,l=linuxmint,c=upstream     origin packages.linuxmint.com 700 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ qiana/main i386 Packages     release v=17,o=linuxmint,a=qiana,n=qiana,l=linuxmint,c=main     origin packages.linuxmint.com 700 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ qiana/import amd64 Packages     release v=17,o=linuxmint,a=qiana,n=qiana,l=linuxmint,c=import     origin packages.linuxmint.com 700 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ qiana/upstream amd64 Packages     release v=17,o=linuxmint,a=qiana,n=qiana,l=linuxmint,c=upstream     origin packages.linuxmint.com 700 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ qiana/main amd64 Packages     release v=17,o=linuxmint,a=qiana,n=qiana,l=linuxmint,c=main     origin packages.linuxmint.com
Any serious risk if Mint 17 thinks it is Ubuntu?
linux mint;apt
From what I've gathered from Mint's repositories, Mint 17 (Qiana) is based on Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr), and instead of hosting everything themselves, Mint rely on the Ubuntu repositories to provide all the packages that haven't been modified by Mint. This includes base-files, which contains /etc/issue etc.; it seems that Mint installs the Ubuntu version of the package, then overwrites the affected files with its own versions without using a package.Now Ubuntu have updated base-files for 14.04.2, and because Mint uses the Ubuntu repositories, that update gets picked up by Mint installations. And since /etc/issue and so on were modified without going through the packaging system, dpkg reckons that the user changed something and asks before overwriting the files.So to answer your question, as Anthon says it's safe enough, if a bit unfortunate (Mint really should have its own version of base-files). You can either keep the Mint versions or use the Ubuntu versions; the only consequence in the latter case is that software which needs to determine what distribution it's running on will find Ubuntu rather than Mint, but Mint is similar enough to Ubuntu for that to have no real impact.