Main Area and Open Discussion > Non-Windows Software
LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released
ewemoa:
Also, whenever something did go seriously wonky following an upgrade, it was usually fixed within a few days.
-40hz (March 03, 2014, 07:58 PM)
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That doesn't sound too bad -- though ATM I'm hoping to use it as a host OS from which to run guest OSes via VirtualBox, so if VirtualBox stops working, that doesn't sound so good.
I guess the best way to think about it is to remember you're running Debian rather than Ubuntu with LMDE - with all that implies. If you let that understanding guide your decision and expectations there shouldn't be any bad surprises. If you've had previous experience with Debian you should be fine. If not, you'll possibly need to learn a little more. But learning something new is always a good thing, so no knock there.
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Actually although not so much recently, Debian is what I've had the most experience with so that should be ok. I'd still be using them mostly if I had figured out a satisfactory way to run newer software (for that Arch seems to have worked out -- and Gentoo was ok for that too). Though performance might suffer a little, am currently leaning toward experimental / new things running in a guest OS.
I looked around a bit for a distribution that tries to provide a minimal environment with VirtualBox but though I've seen queries that seem to ask for that sort of thing I haven't found one that looks good yet.
Addenda: regarding approach...
I have the luxury of having several machines at my disposal. So what I do (and would do even if I only had one machine) is throw a new drive into whatever I'm installing on and go from there. I'll keep a new distro up for a week or two, to see how well it works for me, and decide if I like it. (Just because it works doesn't mean I'll want to spend my workday using it. These days I expect more than "just works" from a distro.)
If it makes it past a few weeks with no major disasters or showstoppers - and find myself using the new distro more and more - it's a keeper. If I really love it, I'll install it on everything. If I just like it, I'll keep it on whatever it's running on and leave the other machines as is. (FWIW I'll usually have two or three distros running on my network at any point in time.) Over time. and with day to day use. there's usually one distro I find myself obviously gravitating towards. That becomes my go-to distro until something I "really like" more comes along. It's kind of an organic approach to distro selection and deployment. But it works for me. YMMV.
:Thmbsup:
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Sounds like a decent approach -- I think I'd try that if I had a spare machine. Perhaps I can just run something as a guest OS for a bit as a partial test in the mean time.
Regarding LMDE though, I guess it's not likely one can transition (settings and all) easily from Petra -- reinstall from scratch is probably a better approach, huh?
40hz:
Interesting article from IT World that asks a difficult and worrisome question: Are there enough users for Linux Mint Debian Edition to survive?
This was predicated by a comment made by Mint's leader Clement Lefebvre in the thread following the product announcement:
I really enjoy working with Debian and I’m really happy with the quality of LMDE. I can see a few things which are better on the Ubuntu side, but also things that are better here with Debian. Overall I’d say they’re pretty much on par at this stage, with a little advantage going to Ubuntu because it’s frozen, thus doesn’t require people to read/understand the problematics related to APT upgrades.
The big difference though is popularity and adoption. LMDE started as an R&D project, it was successful and so we continued it. Nowadays it’s as popular as one of our DE editions, but it requires maintaining on a different base, testing UPs and it is declined into two DEs. That’s a lot of extra work compared to a MATE, Xfce or KDE edition.
It would have to become more popular and gather wider adoption from the community for us to put more resources into it. We’re giving it our best shot each time and we hope people will enjoy it, but at the end of the day our focus needs to reflect what the majority of our users want. LMDE is special, it’s extremely exciting to work on, it holds strategic interests (in the eventuality of a complete departure from Ubuntu for instance) and it keeps getting better. But it does need more adoption and we do spend too much resources on it already with the current level of adoption.
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Jim Lynch of IT World had this to say to the above comment:
I admire the Linux Mint developers for doing LMDE, but Clem's comment does make me wonder if a day will come when it has to be cut in favor of the Ubuntu versions. It's a bit disheartening to read that the Linux Mint developers can't put any more resources into it until its popularity increases.
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The Ubuntu developers have alienated some Linux users with their decisions so it seemed reasonable to me to think that a significant number of Linux Mint users might have dumped the Ubuntu versions and moved to LMDE. But I guess that just hasn't happened yet.
It will be very interesting to see if this changes in the future or if Linux Mint Debian Edition either stagnates or ultimately declines in terms of usage. I think it will be a very sad day for users if the Linux Mint developers ever decide to shut down development of LMDE...
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Hopefully LMDE will be forked or independently developed if that ever happens. But only time will tell.
Fingers crossed. :tellme:
Deozaan:
Is there some sort of Linux desktop environment emulator or easy switcher thingy that will allow someone to easily swap DEs and play around with them and see which one they like the best?
Looking at the screenshots of LMDE Cinnamon compared to LMDE MATE, the only real difference I see is in the color scheme of the bar at the bottom of the screen.
It would be nice to be able to play around with them without having to download multiple copies of the 1+ GiB ISO.
40hz:
@Deo - do you mean DE as in "Debian Edition" or do you mean DE as "desktop environment" as in a distro that will let you boot into several windows managers?
ewemoa:
On a side note, concerning resizing windows in Cinnamon, can anyone who has tried the latest LMDE tell whether the commit mentioned at the end of the following made it in?
https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/2682
The corner resize zone, where you have the diagonal resize cursor which allows you to left-click and resize vertically and horizontally at the same time, is extremely small in the upper corners, forcing the user to either use the keyboard modifier or to resize vertical and horizontal separately. Play with the cursor around the upper right corner and you'll see what I mean.
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Comparing the date of that commit, it seems that it didn't make it into Petra unfortunately. I don't notice a difference (in LMDE, that is).
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