http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2809 The team is proud to announce the release of LMDE 2 “Betsy” MATE. LMDE 2 “Betsy” MATE Edition LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) is a very exciting distribution, targeted at experienced users, which provides the same environment as Linux Mint but uses Debian as its package base, instead of Ubuntu. LMDE is less mainstream than […] http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2808 The team is proud to announce the release of LMDE 2 “Betsy” Cinnamon. LMDE 2 “Betsy” Cinnamon Edition LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) is a very exciting distribution, targeted at experienced users, which provides the same environment as Linux Mint but uses Debian as its package base, instead of Ubuntu. LMDE is less mainstream than […]
I test drove the live LMDE2 MATE and, as expected, it was NOT exciting (which is a GoodThing). a couple minor quirks I noted: -- mintWelcome did not launch firstRun (but is listed among startup applications) -- virtual-guest-utils is autostarted (wtf? seems like an inappropriate default for a `live` session) -- brltty is autostarted (to disable that behavior, visit ControlPanel } Services } and uncheck the option) -- "blueberry" panel applet is marked as autostarting. I checked system-monitor and it is running... but its icon is not visible in panel. Shrug. -- ControlCenter } network (and various other controlPanel GUI dialogs) are PAINFULLY slow to load, no spinner (dialog window grayed out until populated) leaving user to wonder whether "something is hung" criticisms: IMO, waaay too many services are autostarted by default, including "MintUpload" (wtf?)(I know what it is, just questioning WHY) Packages for much of the preinstalled bloaty goodness cannot be uninstalled due to stated dependencies (90Mb fonts + 110Mb wallypapery imagefiles). 97Mb "mint-x-icons" package is not removable (deps: "mint-themes", mint-artwork-gnome, mint-artwork-debian). The supplied "FONT VIEWER" app (gnome? mate?) is sorta lame ~~ just displays 'tiles', depicting sample of the letter A, regular and italic, for each font. As ever, the "search enhancer" is preinstalled into Mint's version of firefox (no option provided for user to uninstall this shite "feature") Redundant chat applications are preinstalled, redundant (er, overlapping) media applications are preinstalled... ...yet (ignoring "office") no text editor is preinstalled aside from the feature-anemic MATE "pluma" app. Bah! takeaway: Although it's not my cuppa, LMDE2 MATE is a solid, debian-based but systemd-free, alternative... and MATE has progressed nicely since I lasted checked. (and MintMenu is still my most-admired linux desktop menu)
FYI virtual-guest-utils is very useful to have for those who want to try a live distro out in a VM, this is what I do.
It's a live distro. Following install to hard drive, virtual-guest-utils would be useful. Running live, booted from a pendrive, user is expected to have enough RAM to fire up a VM (and what? download another distro and run that second distro, containerized, within the liveboot session?)
Its a common use case to use VBox to load up live distros from an OS. For me I do it because its far quicker than writing an image to a flash drive and rebooting.
