Linux Mint Debian 201101 - Really, really nice

Geek Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. Here's an enthusiastic review of Linux Mint Debian 201101, a Linux Mint edition based on Debian, including live session, installation in a dual-boot configuration and post-install use; covered topics - Wireless, Bluetooth, Samba sharing, multimedia - MP3 playback, Video, Flash, Microsoft Media Service, (MMS), Apple (QuickTime .mov), Compiz effects, applications choice, package management, stability, memory usage, suspend & resume, and more. You really ought to see this.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux-mint-debian.html


Cheers,
Mrk

 

Gave it a shot, but was dismayed at the lack of add-apt-repository, because apparently the python-software-properties package is stuck at version 0.6.

What to do? Is there an equivalent command in Debian? Or should I just give up my addiction to Ubuntu PPAs, even though packages in the Debian Testing repo are oh-so-obsolete?

 

Mint has always been one of my favorites, might switch to that if I ever stop using Gentoo.

 

Mrk,

I took a look LMDE earlier this week. I have to say I was impressed at what the mint guys had done. I really like the choices that the Mint team are providing their users.

You can add PPA's manually.
Add the ppa in /etc/apt/sources.list and add the key using apt-key.
Im sure theres instructions on launchpad.

I personally would avoid external sources for a rolling distro, as you can't guarantee compatibility with the app in PPA and the dependancies in the main testing repository (as continously changing) and also if the app in PPA is not updated could hold back a whole load of changes from the main debian testing repository.

Cheers, Nick

 

I'm aware of the traditional method, but most Launchpad PPAs don't publish their full addresses and keys anymore, just a ppa:xxx/xxx style address.

 

You can still find out. Just click the "Technical Details About This PPA" button and it will expand and show the HTTP address as well as the signing key info.

 

Whoops. my bad. Thanks.

 

Have you tried adding the experimental repos?

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ experimental main contrib non-free
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org experimental main

 

No, I haven't. Is there any online documentation where I can learn more about them?

 

http://wiki.debian.org/DebianExperimental

Here's the list of packages:
http://packages.debian.org/experimental/

And here's a tutorial specifically for Linux Mint Debian:
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/250

 

Thanks.

Reading through the first link, I found this: "Quoting the Debian FAQ: "project/experimental/: This directory contains packages and tools which are still being developed, and are still in the alpha testing stage. Users shouldn't be using packages from here, because they can be dangerous and harmful even for the most experienced people.""

That doesn't sound very healthy. To be honest I'd prefer to not be forced to make a choice between horribly obsolete packages and alpha-quality software. Or am I misinterpreting the FAQ?

 

Well, that's why apt-pinning is strongly suggested in the 3rd link in order to maintain the stability of Debian Testing. If you apply that as shown, you won't even see the unstable and experimental repos in Synaptic. You will if you go back to the standard preferences file: Suddenly you'll see hundreds of updates in Synaptic - but most of them libraries or other stuff you're most likely not interested in. apt-pinning prevents them to be installed (thus keeping the distro stable) - but you're still able to selectively update the packages you want, like your browser or whatever. You have to do that on the console as described in the tutorial. With

apt-cache policy packagename

you can find out which versions are available in the different repos.

BTW: FF 4 (or Iceweasel as it is called in Debian) can be installed from here.

 

Hmm, ok. My point was that I don't want to see alpha software, ever. I just want to be upgraded to the latest stable releases without fuss.

I guess I'll probably be sticking to the standard Ubuntu-based Mint; after all, the lead developer has said that Mint will stick to GNOME 3 and good old-fashioned panels, with none of the Unity or GNOME Shell nonsense.

 

Re. compiz not starting. Saw this ..

Lest I forget, thank you for the review Mrk. I will install this come end April/beg May.

 

It is really cool, but it was surprisingly slow on my old system compared to Mint 9 Xfce, so I uninstalled it.

The new Xfce Debian is looking pretty hot! Might just install it to see how it does.

 

Hm, I was curious to read about Mint Debian Edition and then I had to wade through rants about Unity. eh...

Since a few months now Linux Mint Debian Edition is my favorite distro and it's installed on two desktops and one laptop. I really really enjoy the merge of Debian with Ubuntu's superior font rendering. And based on the updates, I think that the next release will be 'flawless'.

Now and then some Debian Testing quirks may show up, but that usually is solved with a little patience one or two days later.
Very content with LMDE!

 

I have been experimenting with a number of distros of late for my laptop, Suse 11.4, Pclinuxos, Fuduntu, Mint Julia, Fedora but i have finally settled on LMDE.

It took a little time setting things up, and the only thing i had a slight problem with was my wireless card which was quickly solved thanks to a "how to" in the community section.

LMDE is nice and light, great battery life and everything works as it should.
Thanks for the review Mrk, if you had not done it then the chances are i would have missed out on this fine edition of Mint.

 

Not all the Ubuntu packages are compatible with Debian. Ubuntu's packages come from the unstable branch of Debian and they are updated more frequently.

But if you want a stable operating system with little to no need to get the latest and greatest, Debian is the safe choice.

 

Hello wilbertnl,
Am posting this from LMDE Live CD - very impressed and keen to install.
One worry. I am concerned that the frequent number of updates from 'testing' will chew up my monthly bandwidth allocation. Would you be so kind as to give me some rough indication of how many MB's of updates you download on a monthly basis, excluding of course those after the initial install ?

Regards

 

You can install GNOME Shell but its current hefty requirements don't play nice with any but the newest computers, due to the need for accelerated graphics hardware for it to work. If they had developed a 2D GNOME Shell, I could see it but why is every else being left out? The Linux Mint team decided to go in the right direction with GNOME 3.

As for Unity, they are not including it now as the default UI but users have the option to always install it from the Ubuntu repository or they can go with Unity 2D if they want.

 

Howdy Ocky,

That is a fair question and the log file of apt-get shows the file names without file size. I'm not comfortable with just throwing a random amount at you, but I do have some thoughts.

There is debdelta, which supposedly only downloads the changed bytes, compared to a previous version (much like the presto plugin for Fedora). I do not have experience with this feature.
I also wonder how LMDE acts when you change the apt sources list to Debian stable as opposed to Debian testing.
And then also, nothing is downloaded without your consent, it may work well to only upgrade/dist-upgrade twice a month.

I wish that I could be clear about bandwidth needs for LMDE.
Perhaps anyone else has suggestions on this issue?

 

An upgrade-related question as well: when doing a dist-upgrade with LMDE, I get prompted with a bunch of "script differences, apply maintainer's version? y/n"?-ish questions. What are those, and is there an appropriate response for them?

Thanks in advance.

 

If you don't edit system scripts/config fles yourself, then I assume it's safe to install newer versions. In case you modify these files yourself, you have the option to show the differences. I usually follow the maintainers updates.

 

Hmm.. but surely switching to Debian stable will negate all the advantages of a rolling distro, and I think switching back to testing at a later stage would cause lots of severe 'unpleasantness' to put it mildly.

The apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade every 2 weeks sounds OK as it would jump all the little incremental updates one would be saddled with during that 2 week period. However one might miss an important security update.

Difficult decision for me.

Regards

 

Hm, I went ahead and did that. Now the comic "blurbs" that show up whenever you open a terminal window are gone.