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Author Topic: LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released  (Read 14449 times)

40hz

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Quick heads up from Distrowatch:

Clement Lefebvre has announced the release of Linux Mint 201403 "Debian", the distribution's rolling-release variant based on Debian's "Testing" branch: "The team is proud to announce the release of LMDE 201403. Highlights: update pack 8; Cinnamon 2.0; MATE 1.6; latest Mint tools and improvements; support for EFI and GPT. If you're new to LMDE, welcome to Linux Mint Debian! LMDE in brief: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is a semi-rolling distribution based on Debian 'Testing'; it is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit variants as a live DVD with Cinnamon or MATE; the purpose of LMDE is to look identical to the main edition and to provide the same functionality while using Debian GNU/Linux as a base." Here is the brief release announcement with screenshots, system requirements and links to known issues and the changelog...

The LMDE info page and download links can be found here.

ewemoa

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Re: LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released
« Reply #1 on: March 03, 2014, 06:42 AM »
I'm thinking to try this before long -- just installed Petra as a replacement host OS though so may be next month :)

Do you already run LMDE?

40hz

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Re: LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released
« Reply #2 on: March 03, 2014, 08:11 AM »
I'm running Mint 16 Cinnamon right now. Primarily because I was anxious to use the newest version of Cinnamon. So I jumped the gun.

But I will be switching over since I think the farther and quicker other distros distance themselves (for several reasons) from Canonical and Ubuntu, the better it is for everyone.

Debian embodies every reason there is for using Linux in the first place.  Ubuntu, on the other hand, hopes to become the next Android - and Canonical the next Apple.

So best git while the gittin's good!

Or so it seems to me.  ;)
« Last Edit: March 03, 2014, 08:18 AM by 40hz »

ewemoa

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Re: LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released
« Reply #3 on: March 03, 2014, 07:31 PM »
But I will be switching over

I'd like to go in that direction too - have you decided on an approach?

I'd like to not have certain programs get pulled out from under though (I have this vague impression that sometimes things leave testing temporarily) -- do you think that could be a potential problem?

40hz

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Re: LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released
« Reply #4 on: March 03, 2014, 07:58 PM »
I'd like to go in that direction too - have you decided on an approach?

I'd like to not have certain programs get pulled out from under though (I have this vague impression that sometimes things leave testing temporarily) -- do you think that could be a potential problem?


It's a distinct possibility although I didn't encounter much of it previously. Also, whenever something did go seriously wonky following an upgrade, it was usually fixed within a few days.

The biggest difference I've seen with LMDE is that it isn't quite as polished as the Ubu-based versions. (And to Ubuntu's credit they do add a great deal to enhance the entire enduser experience. Something you won't always notice until you try something else.) So LMDE sometimes needs a little more tweaking to get everything "just right." That's in contrast to "standard" Mint which needs virtually none.

Previous LMDEs were also noticeably faster than the Ubu-based versions. I don't know if it's still the case, but I'm guessing it probably is. On a fast enough machine it probably won't matter. Regular Mint (on a modern PC with around 4Gb RAM) is plenty fast anyway.

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.

-----

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:

« Last Edit: March 03, 2014, 08:14 PM by 40hz »

ewemoa

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Re: LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released
« Reply #5 on: March 03, 2014, 09:21 PM »
Also, whenever something did go seriously wonky following an upgrade, it was usually fixed within a few days.

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.

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:

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

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Re: LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2014, 05:22 PM »
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.

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.
.
.
.
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...

Hopefully LMDE will be forked or independently developed if that ever happens. But only time will tell.


Fingers crossed. :tellme:

Deozaan

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Re: LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released
« Reply #7 on: March 04, 2014, 07:04 PM »
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

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Re: LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released
« Reply #8 on: March 04, 2014, 10:11 PM »
@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

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Re: LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released
« Reply #9 on: March 05, 2014, 05:51 AM »
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/l...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.

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).
« Last Edit: March 05, 2014, 05:58 AM by ewemoa »

Deozaan

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Re: LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released
« Reply #10 on: March 05, 2014, 03:17 PM »
@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?

I meant desktop environment. Sorry. I tried to avoid ambiguity by spelling it out the first time I said it before abbreviating it to DE when referring to "desktop environment" later in the post. I had also hoped that talking about the differences between MATE and Cinnamon would clarify my intent.

 :D

40hz

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Re: LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released
« Reply #11 on: March 05, 2014, 04:26 PM »
@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?

I meant desktop environment. Sorry. I tried to avoid ambiguity by spelling it out the first time I said it before abbreviating it to DE when referring to "desktop environment" later in the post. I had also hoped that talking about the differences between MATE and Cinnamon would clarify my intent.

 :D

No need to apologize. I've got way too much on my mind lately. And nuance is wasted on me, even at the best of times. Sorry to need it spelled out sometimes.

FWIW you should be able to have MATE and Cinnamon on the same Mint installation without any problems. Just select which one to use at startup.

There was also a distro, which I can't remember the name of(do we detect a pattern here folks?) that was Debian-based and had something like eight or nine windows/desktop managers available right out of the box. All the biggies (i.e. Gnome, KDE, Xfce, Openbox, Fluxbox, Enlightenment, etc.) were included. It was primarily created to evaluate WMs.

Anybody know or remember what it was called?
« Last Edit: March 05, 2014, 04:36 PM by 40hz »

Deozaan

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Re: LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released
« Reply #12 on: April 03, 2014, 07:59 PM »
I think I figured it out... kind of.

Cinnamon seems to be based on KDE Plasma Desktop. Or at least it looks very similar.
MATE is based on Gnome 2, which I'm most familiar with due to usually choosing Gnome as my Ubuntu WM over the years.
XFCE is really lightweight, so would probably be great for an aging netbook. (But there's no Linux Mint Debian Edition that comes with XFCE.)

So for my netbook, which is currently running Windows XP (which is warning me that it's no longer supported by Microsoft), I'll probably switch it over to Linux Mint 16 XFCE.

:Thmbsup:

Edvard

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Re: LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released
« Reply #13 on: April 03, 2014, 08:39 PM »
(But there's no Linux Mint Debian Edition that comes with XFCE.)

Wait for it...

apt-get install xfce4

Done.  :D  And a fine desktop environ it is too, even if it is no longer the petit bureau it once was.  ;)

As far as the concerns about things being pulled from Testing, yes I've been bitten by it twice now.  Once with something trivial that I have forgotten now, but seemed somewhat important at the time.  The other was when they pulled the proprietary AMD accelerated drivers from the Testing repos.  THAT ticked me off.  I was previously running the open-source AMD drivers, and they worked fine.  Some update somewhere caused all my games to look like somebody uploaded random thumbnails to an Atari 2600, so I installed the proprietary drivers and all was well, until...
 >:(

Well, that's what you get for running Testing, I guess.  Apparently it was pulled for good reason, but I was still mad...

40hz

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Re: LINUX: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 201403 ISOs just released
« Reply #14 on: April 04, 2014, 05:51 AM »
I think I figured it out... kind of.

Cinnamon seems to be based on KDE Plasma Desktop. Or at least it looks very similar.
[

It's actually based on GTK+3 and was originally meant to be a fork of the Gnome Shell when Mint's developers (along with pretty much everyone else) didn't like the direction Gnome was taking with the design decisions driving the original Gnome-3 release. Cinnamon has evolved far beyond its Gnome roots and has since become an entirely separate desktop environment.

FWIW I don't think it looks much like KDE. And IMHO it doesn't feel very much like KDE either. But that's me. ;D

MilesAhead

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KDE Plasma
« Reply #15 on: December 14, 2014, 08:18 AM »
I have a VM with Debian 7 using KDE Plasma desktop.  I'd love to run a transparent theme like this



but I've been out of Linux since before anyone ran themes that I remember.  :)  I'm a bit clueless.  The desktop is pretty cool wth a wallpaper and themes that are supposed to be transparent.  But the windows only seem to go see through when being dragged.  I installed a couple of themes using the management tool.  But so far I don't see anything as transparent as Aero on Vista or W7.