Linux Mint Debian 1st edition is awesome!

[iGas]

A nice departure from the powerful but bloated Ubuntu distro.

I played around with Ubuntu for a while, but keeps on reverted back to Debian till Mint 4. I tend to stay back 1 generation in Mint because it seems as if there always some little Ubuntu bugs that stop it from being a perfect distro out of the box, and I also like to use XFCE as the default manager because it is much quicker than the boated KDE & Gnome eyes candies.

Today for the first time I installed Linux Mint Debian edition and I'm loving it. It worked right out of the box but lack Chromium support due to some security issue, but DL and install Google Chrome & Opera didn't take long and was painless. I'm currently using Gnome as the default manager and it seems to be just as quick as XFCE (maybe I don't need XFCE this time around).

Anyhow, 2 thumbs way up for the Mint & Debian team!

[add]

Shame less link to Linux Mint Debian (201009) released! page.

 

[Kirby]

No 64 bit.

 

[iGas]

No 64 bit.

Yeah, that is a draw back, but I can live with that because this is not a production machine. I don't think LMDE intention to be use as server or stable enough to be one, hence 64bit isn't necessary.

 

[zokudu]

Well its in its early stages of development. I bet 64bit will be released soon. Anyway I think this is a neat idea from the makers of Mint. Rolling releases and updated software on Mint? Awesome.

Two issues though its pulling from the Debian Squeeze repos right now. Debian's testing branch generally gets no security updates or slow security updates. Are they doing their own security updates in some fashion or will it be vulnerable similar to a Squeeze system. Also this may not be the best time to have released it because Squeeze was recently frozen. It's not getting rolling feature updates the way testing normally does. Its only getting critical bug and security updates (Go figure xD) in preperation of going stable.

I think once Squeeze goes stable and LMDE jumps on the next testing branch it will really take off.

 

[daniel49]

Yeah was thinking about trying this, but I think i'll wait till the next time I have to upgrade mint.

I really like the thought of a rolling distro tho.

 

[KeypoX]

whats the advantage of debian again? Everything updates, like kernels?

 

[Nothinman]

whats the advantage of debian again? Everything updates, like kernels?

My 2 main reasons for using it are the clear distinction about what's free and non-free and the sid rolling release. I do an update every few days and am constantly using the newest versions of everything so I never have to do a full upgrade.

 

[KeypoX]

My 2 main reasons for using it are the clear distinction about what's free and non-free and the sid rolling release. I do an update every few days and am constantly using the newest versions of everything so I never have to do a full upgrade.

What do you mean newest of everything? Ubuntu updates software too.

Someone said, on ubuntuforums, one difference between 10.04 and 10.10. Is that 10.10 will have the newest software versions? But 10.04 updates when new versions of software comes out.

What am I missing, not understanding?

 

[lxskllr]

Ubuntu will only update for security releases. For example, you won't get Firefox 4 until next April at the earliest. Open Office gets frozen... Pretty much anything, other than security.

 

[Nothinman]

What do you mean newest of everything? Ubuntu updates software too.

Someone said, on ubuntuforums, one difference between 10.04 and 10.10. Is that 10.10 will have the newest software versions? But 10.04 updates when new versions of software comes out.

What am I missing, not understanding?

Unless something's changed, which is possible since I haven't been following things like I used to, you don't get new versions of packages in a "stable" distribution of Ubuntu and I know you don't in Debian. You get security updates which are usually the same version of software with the appropriate patches back ported to whatever version the distro was released with. For example, in a release with Gnome 2.8 you may get packages versioned with 2.8-1, 2.8-12, etc in order to fix security problems but there should be no functionality changes and you'll never get 2.10 or 2.12 without upgrading to the newest release of the distro.

When Debian releases a stable release they mean the versions are pretty much locked in stone and the only way to get a new version is to install it manually or to get it from "volatile" if it's one of the few packages getting that special treatment.

With Debian sid/unstable you get new versions regularly as the packages are created because there's no version restrictions.

 

[zokudu]

Though Debian Squeeze is currently frozen in preparation of going Stable. But this is once every 3 years or so for 6 months or so. Once Squeeze goes stable though a new testing branch will be opened and you get rolling updates if you join that branch.

 

[Nothinman]

Though Debian Squeeze is currently frozen in preparation of going Stable. But this is once every 3 years or so for 6 months or so. Once Squeeze goes stable though a new testing branch will be opened and you get rolling updates if you join that branch.

Testing doesn't get proper security support and updated packages sit in unstable for a while before migrating to testing so it's not recommended for regular users.

http://www.debian.org/releases/testing/

Please note that security updates for "testing" distribution are not yet managed by the security team. Hence, "testing" does not get security updates in a timely manner. For more information please see the announcement of the Testing Security Team. You are encouraged to switch your sources.list entries from testing to lenny for the time being if you need security support. See also the entry in the Security Team's FAQ for the "testing" distribution.

 

[zokudu]

Mint Debian is based on Debian Testing which is why I mentioned it. Nothinman whats your experience with Sid? I use Squeeze right now but have heard that if I wanted updated packages to go with Sid but I'm not an extremely skilled Linux user. I know how to search and fix some common issues but if things end up going horribly wrong I don't trust myself to be able to fix it without help.

I had heard that Sid is much more stable since the release of experimental but have you run across difficult problems you had to find a unique solution for?

 

[Nothinman]

Mint Debian is based on Debian Testing which is why I mentioned it. Nothinman whats your experience with Sid? I use Squeeze right now but have heard that if I wanted updated packages to go with Sid but I'm not an extremely skilled Linux user. I know how to search and fix some common issues but if things end up going horribly wrong I don't trust myself to be able to fix it without help.

I had heard that Sid is much more stable since the release of experimental but have you run across difficult problems you had to find a unique solution for?

I would say not really, but I'm probably not the best person to ask since I've been running sid for like 8+ years now so when I do run into issues I usually fix them without much thought. If you do decide to try sid I'd highly recommend installing apt-listbugs, it'll list any currently open bugs for packages apt/aptitude is upgrading so you can plug the bug numbers into bugs.debian.org to see if they'll affect you. If you see anything you're not sure about, cancel the upgrade and wait a few days to see if it's been fixed. The best way to fix a problem is not to have it in the first place.

Probably the biggest thing that might get you is upgrades the consist of a lot of packages like Gnome. Whenever a Gnome update hits sid it can take several days for all of the packages to make it from the initial upload into sid so you can end up with some of Gnome's packages being one version and some being another. I run Enlightenment so it's not usually a problem for me.