Mastodawn

Linux Mint Debian Edition officially released

https://lemmy.world/post/6026960

Linux Mint Debian Edition officially released - Lemmy.world

LMDE 6 has been officially released. The big deal about this is that it’s based on the recently released Debian 12 and also that being based on Debian LMDE is 100% community based. If you’ve been disappointed by what the Linux corporations have been doing lately or don’t like the all-snap future that Ubuntu has opened, then this is the distro for you. I’m running it as my daily driver and it works exactly like the regular Mint so you don’t lose anything. Clem and team have done a great job, even newbies could use Debian now. Personally I think LMDE is the future of Linux as Ubuntu goes it’s own way, and this is a good thing for Mint and the Linux community. Let’s get back to community distros and move away from the corps.

Julian Sep 30, 2023

Been using mint for a while on my main machine and I’m not keen on doing a reinstall, but the next time I do I’ll definitely be looking at Debian edition.

Certainity45 Sep 30, 2023

If you don’t have Nvidia gpu, then LMDE is better. It is slightly snappier and boots slightly faster.

WetBeardHairs Sep 30, 2023

Oh dang. It sucks to hear that my 10 year old GPU is still poorly supported.

palordrolap Sep 30, 2023

I have a very old Nvidia GPU and am on LMDE5. The official legacy driver works fine for me. Can't speak for the open-source one.

Going to assume that LMDE6 will be similar when I get around to upgrading.

Certainity45 Sep 30, 2023

Well, the thing is I don’t have Nvidia gpu but it is a general rule since LMDE doesn’t ship with the driver manager as the “regular” Mint does.

merthyr1831 Sep 30, 2023

That’s because it doesn’t need to use the Ubuntu drivers. I’m pretty sure it’s intentional (if a bit less user friendly). I wish distros could come up with a universal(ish) driver app.

King Oct 1, 2023

Why would anyone support an end of life gpu lmfao

merthyr1831 Sep 30, 2023

LMDE has proprietary driver repos afaik.

Certainity45 Oct 3, 2023

Yes, for NoVideo.

phanto Sep 30, 2023

I just installed it in a VM to check it out, as I’m not a Cinnamon guy usually, and I really like it! I need to try it out on metal and see how it handles games, but so far I’m really happy.

MajorHavoc Sep 30, 2023

I’m excited to give it a try.

Gutless2615 Sep 30, 2023

So I’m showi my my extreme age but I remember when Mint was born as a sort of windows-like Ubuntu for easy migration. Has it carved out a reason for existing for folks that don’t want a windows like experience?

Fecundpossum Sep 30, 2023

It’s just a generally solid, stable, and easy to use distro. I use EndeavourOS nowadays, but when I was first getting started Mint was what I always returned to after spats of distro hopping. As far as it’s primary DE, Cinnamon, it’s less “windows like” and more “not gnome like”. Every DE that isn’t gnome could be called “windows like” in my experience.

Granixo Sep 30, 2023

More like Cinnamon being GNOME 2.5

Since GNOME 3 changed everything for better or worse.

Captain Aggravated Sep 30, 2023

Mostly worse.

NaN Sep 30, 2023

Their interface is familiar to Windows users but so is KDE and many things that aren’t GNOME. Primarily it is the flagship distro for Cinnamon, they put a lot of work into making the user experience seamless and their implementation of Cinnamon especially is much better than other distros that ship it as an option. They also co-founded MATE when GNOME 3 came out and have supported that forever.

Main thing for me is extremely sane defaults, just enough automation to simplify some things without it getting in the way, just enough customization without it being overwhelming or an eyesore (I hate KDE context menus). It’s been very good for getting out of the way so I can focus, I appreciate that it doesn’t have a ton of flying, shiny objects all over the place but still looks good, and I don’t have to add a ton of extensions to get it the way I like.

entropicdrift Sep 30, 2023

This. Mint is the only distro I’ve found where I’ve truly never needed the CLI if I didn’t feel like using it.

alwaysconfused Sep 30, 2023

I tried the beta and liked it. The only issue I ran into was that the MozillaVPN app wasn’t working on debian.

I also had not seen much progress on the Debian version of the app from what I found. I could be wrong as that was my first dip into Debian.

Mullvad is available and I might switch to that at a later time when the motivation strikes me.

I prefer the idea of community driven projects though.

abrasiveteapot Sep 30, 2023

Mullvad works fine on both LMDE and stock mint fwiw

bahmanm Sep 30, 2023

Which Debian version is it based on?

Sentau Sep 30, 2023

Debian 12. Mentioned in the article

starman Sep 30, 2023

And in the post

bahmanm Sep 30, 2023

Thanks! So much for my reading skills/attention span 😂

makeasnek Sep 30, 2023

Very excited to see this. After having been through the last few Ubuntu versions, they have made some very frustrating decisions that have made the system management side a real pain.

thayer Sep 30, 2023

I’ve never had a use for Linux Mint myself, but I’m still happy to see them cut out the middle man and base it directly off of Debian. Hopefully being closer to the source will result in even more upstream contributions.

selokichtli Sep 30, 2023

Oh, no. They consider Ubuntu the best APT base out there, and even after some trouble with Canonical, they insist on basing Mint on Ubuntu. This is a plan B, it came precisely after the differences between Mint and Ubuntu were public, but I can’t find any source of that episode between Canonical and Clemente Lefebvre.

thayer Sep 30, 2023

Ah, my bad. I thought LM was going all in on Debian. Well, I’m glad they’re at least providing the option then.

neo (he/him)Sep 30, 2023

They want to be able to provide the option should Ubuntu go off the reservation

herr Oct 1, 2023

Big thing about being based on Ubuntu is that the community support is the biggest. Any issue you find, you can google, and there’s a 99% chance there’ll be an answer for Ubuntu which can be applied as-is to Mint.

selokichtli Oct 1, 2023

True, but it’s not like Ubuntu is this unique distribution with very peculiar software. Most of the time, no matter which distro I use, the best reference for any problem is the Arch wiki.

banazir Sep 30, 2023

I wonder if they’ll ever ditch Ubuntu and release a version based on Debian Sid.

dinckel Oct 1, 2023

Not Sid, but that’s exactly that Mint LMDE is. Rather than being built on top of Ubuntu, it’s built on top of Debian

palordrolap Sep 30, 2023

Copypasting: (source)

The cautious approach for LMDE5 users: If your system is working fine and there are no especially must-have features in LMDE6, there is almost certainly no rush to upgrade. Take your time.

Make backups. Test backups. Play games. Work. Do things entirely unrelated to the distro.

You could even almost (aaalmost) completely forget about LMDE6 (but do keep an eye on the LM blog).

The Mint team haven't announced an EOL date for LMDE5 yet, but if past dates are anything to go by, it'll be at least 18 months before they pull the plug. Even then, LTS updates might still filter through from Debian proper.

[How many people will actually see this message and how many it actually applies to out of them might well include me and literally one other guy somewhere else on the planet, but if you're that one guy, breathe friend. No rush.]

LMDE 6 “Faye” released! – The Linux Mint Blog - linux - kbin.social

[How to upgrade to LMDE 6](https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4571)

NaN Oct 1, 2023

Debian 11 and thus LMDE 5 have a libvirt bug where libvirt doesn’t properly create config files for apparmor for virtual machines that are imported instead of created on the specific host. You have to recreate the vm definition from scratch, or disable apparmor to start it. Not fixed in Debian backports either.

It’s a niche issue but I’ve been chomping at the bit for LMDE6 for some time.

palordrolap Oct 1, 2023

That sounds like one of the "especially must-have" features I was talking about. Maybe I was thinking about less serious things when I said it (gotta have that shiny new program that only works in 6 or whatever), but it still fits.

Sparking Oct 1, 2023

I’m not super familiar with the goals of the mint project. But this is generally a bad approach to take with project development. Even if you plan on offering LTS, it is always preferable to have users on the most up to date version. Going through the pain of supporting multiple versions of commercial software at work has taught me that lesson the (very) hard way.

palordrolap Oct 1, 2023

To some extent I think they're thinking of people who are in the Windows/Mac situation of wanting a stable OS that doesn't require getting hands dirty (so to speak) every 5 minutes to do basic things, and who generally call in a relative or friend who knows what they're doing (and is almost certainly the person who installed Mint in the first place) when things really need changing.

There's never more than two LMDEs active at any one time, so while they are giving themselves a little extra work, they're also managing the main Ubuntu-based Mint derivatives at the same time so they're bound to have some kind of streamlining at their side.

As for 5-to-6 upgrades, they've provided an official tool that will work for most people and will require very little admin user interaction once it's off and running. A sensible sysadmin would like to have a backup anyway, just in case.

My initial comment was aimed at the odd rare case like myself who isn't always up for sysadmin work (it's why I'm on Mint after all), or doesn't have the time. There's no immediate rush to use that official tool. Take your time. Make your backups, etc.

If you want bleeding-edge rolling updates, Mint is not the distro for you.

Do they keep up with security updates and patches, though? Yes. Very much so.

TunaCowboy Sep 30, 2023

Just fucking use debian lmao.

danielfgom Sep 30, 2023

😂 yeah I hear you but I want the up to date Cinnamon desktop and I like how Mint has configured the system.

onlinepersona Sep 30, 2023

They’re beating around the bush at this point 😅

snowraven Sep 30, 2023

You might as well tell others to just use windows at this point.

cygnus Sep 30, 2023

Still no Wayland, right?

levi Sep 30, 2023

Sadly, no :(

library_napper Oct 1, 2023

Why is this important?

levi Oct 1, 2023

Security and Wayland compositors run better for me. YMMV, of course.

merthyr1831 Sep 30, 2023

Mint/Cinnamon will probably be the last adopters of Wayland but surely at this point they should be starting to test it?

Unkend Oct 1, 2023

Mate has some Wayland support just the development died down.

pathief Sep 30, 2023

I wonder if I can install this on my late 2011 macbook pro…

phar Oct 1, 2023

Pretty sure you can install it on any Intel based MacBook.

danielfgom Oct 1, 2023

Definitely. I’m assuming that it’s a 64bit CPU, but even if it’s 32bit they’ll have that too

👁️👄👁️Sep 30, 2023

Can anyone tell me if the Debian Testing branch has been stable? I like Debian, and I like rolling release to be more up to date, so I was considering swapping from Fedora.

superkret Sep 30, 2023

Either use stable or unstable. Testing is actually the most unstable of the three branches, due to how Debian works:

Updated packages are first introduced into experimental, then into unstable when they actually build and run. So unstable is equivalent to Arch’s main branch.
Then they automatically enter testing after a few weeks without anyone reporting a critical bug.

What this means: Testing is the only branch where the decision over what enters isn’t made by a human.

If someone notices critical bugs in testing, the packages may be kicked out of testing again until the bugs are fixed. So testing is the only branch where packages can simply disappear when you run an update.

It’s also the most insecure branch: When a vulnerability is discovered, the packages in stable are patched to close it. The packages in unstable are updated to a new version that closes it. In testing, the vulnerability stays until the unstable packages eventually migrate down the line again after spending a while in unstable.

I’ve run unstable for years. IMO it’s a great rolling release distro with horrible branding.

👁️👄👁️Sep 30, 2023

Thanks for the info! I know what you mean that unstable is similar to Arch, but I know Arch has like a 3 day period or something like that before it hits the default “stable” repo. Is Unstable similar to that, or do they just raw dog it?

selokichtli Sep 30, 2023

Sid is not a rolling release distro, it’s an unstable distro. If you want a rolling release distro, you want something like Arch Linux, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed or OpenMandriva RR.

Unless you know how to deal with problems, go ahead and install Sid. It shouldn’t be a problem if you already know Linux and Debian specifics.

superkret Oct 1, 2023

That’s just semantics in my opinion. Debian Sid isn’t meant to be a rolling release distro, but it works perfectly fine as one.
You have to take the same care as with other rolling release distros - actually read the changelogs, don’t automate updates, and type “No” if it wants to remove packages you need. Other than that, I’ve never had any issues, and never heard from anyone whose Sid brakes regularly.

selokichtli Oct 1, 2023

Debian does not agree. They even warn you about packages with unfulfilled dependencies. In my experience, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed does feel like a finished, polished rolling release distro. Sid breaks sometimes, it’s okay for it to get broken. I don’t know your use case but it did for me, especially with some obscure libraries or with very specific versions of scientific ones. It’s not semantics only, Sid is fundamentally designed as an unstable distribution, not as a rolling release one.

But I insist, if it works for you as a rolling release distro, it’s great. I just feel the obligation to warn the others what’s the intention behind Sid.

Debian -- The unstable distribution ("sid")

SteveTech Oct 1, 2023

I’ve only been running Debian testing for a few weeks (hopped from Ubuntu dev), but I believe testing also has a 2 to 10 day period before pulling packages from unstable. Like after 10 days in unstable with no issues it automatically gets moved into testing, with more important updates getting a human moving it earlier.

Gunpachi Oct 1, 2023

I use debian 12 unstable and it has been great. No issues so far.

Nik282000 Oct 2, 2023

I ran 12 (testing) for the last year and the only issue I had was related to unsupported hardware with a newer laptop.

vettnerk Sep 30, 2023

I would’ve jumped on this instantly, but I finally landed on a Min21 configuration that works well. New laptop => new hardware => need new nvidia driver => need new kernel.

Which kernel does LMDE currently ship with?