'Linux Mint Debian Edition' Begins Public Beta Testing

This week saw the public beta-testing release of "Linux Mint Debian Edition". Besides listing download locations, its release notes also list out the project's three goals:

- Ensure Linux Mint would be able to continue to deliver the same user experience
- See how much work would be involved if Ubuntu was ever to disappear.
- Guarantee the software we develop is compatible outside of Ubuntu.

9to5Linux reports: Based on the Debian GNU/Linux 12 "Bookworm" operating system series, Linux Mint Debian Edition 6 is powered by the long-term supported Linux 6.1 LTS kernel series and features the latest Cinnamon 5.8 desktop environment that was introduced with the Linux Mint 21.2 "Victoria" release in July 2023⦠[T]his release comes with a new look and feel thanks to newly added folder icons with different color variants, improved consistency of tooltips to look the same across different apps and desktops, support for symbolic icons that adapt to their background, and full support for HEIF and AVIF

What about systemd ?

[Mirnotoriety]

> What is the point of Mint again?

It can be made to look like Windoze.

> Though I would agree that it is time to abandon Ubuntu, and revert to Debian, unless you really like snap.

Can we get rid of systemd?

Re:What about systemd ?

[flatulus]

Sure can. It's called Devuan

Re:

[93 Escort Wagon]

What is the point of Mint again?

Though I would agree that it is time to abandon Ubuntu, and revert to Debian, unless you really like snap.

Anyone even marginally aware of Linux Mint likely knows that one difference between it and stock Ubuntu is that snap is not installed by default in Mint. The reason why is explained in their user guide [readthedocs.io].

Re: just install Cinnamon or whatever on Debian

[Osgeld]

But it's Linux you can configure it any way you want by endlessly fiddling with text files

And if something goes wrong it's the user's fault ... should have stayed with the defaults and never venture from the app store ... er my bad "repositories"

Re:

[scalptalc]

...endlessly fiddling with text files

Is that you, Mr. Ballmer? But no, it's not. Of course it's not.

Re:just install Cinnamon or whatever on Debian

[Excelcia]

Though I would agree that it is time to abandon Ubuntu

If you have a feeling like that, then why is it surprising that so many other people clearly feel similarly enough to use Mint?

What is the point of Mint again?

They tend to isolate you from some of the more egregious Ubuntu-isms and that distro's growing commercial slant. I switched away from Ubuntu when they tried to ram Unity down everyone's gullet forcibly. Ubuntu later backed off that decision, but by then I didn't care because I'd discovered Mint.

Most distribution popularity counters, page ranks, and other metrics tend to rank Mint higher than Ubuntu itself in both installed user base and popularity, so that says something.

The most significant factor that keeps me with Mint is that their version-to-version upgrade system is fantastic. Both Debian and Ubuntu's "'apt upgrade' and pray" method is ok, apt is pretty good, but I've never seen a major upgrade go flawlessly with either and you still have . I am celebrating my 10th year on one installation with Mint. It has been upgraded from 14.0 through now 21.2. Seven major and, I'm sure few dozen minor upgrades. The "mintupgrade" system takes the guesswork out of upgrading and does it right, every time. That particular install runs in VirtualBox as a toolkit for Windows. I've had 4 different laptops that shared that same install.

Re:

[ichthus]

What is the point of Mint again?

Firstly, nice troll.

So, aside from being the distro that started the Cinnamon project, and continuing Gnome 2 in MATE, it's also the distro for people who like apt, and also like the ability to play a goddamn MP3 without having to add extra repositories.

Re:

[jenningsthecat]

What is the point of Mint again?

Though I would agree that it is time to abandon Ubuntu, and revert to Debian, unless you really like snap.

I've been using Mint for several years after having used Ubuntu for a long time. I moved to it after Ubuntu introduced Unity, or whatever their useless new tasting-of-ass (l)user interface was called. Ubuntu lost me forever when that shit came along.

Now, one major point in Mint's favour is one you already mentioned. Mint doesn't use snaps - has them disabled by default in fact - and has good Apt-based repos. Also, I have it set to simply notify me when updates are available. I don't like enabling automatic

Re:just install Cinnamon or whatever on Debian

[markdavis]

>"What is the point of Mint again?"

There are many points. Here are some:
1) No Canonical commercialism, it is community-driven
2) No crap like Unity, Mir, data collection, Ads
3) No forced SNAP
4) Things like Firefox in proper, native packages
5) Excellent and functional Cinnamon desktop default, which they created
6) Excellent upgrades within and between versions
7) Compatibility with Ubuntu (or Debian)

>"Though I would agree that it is time to abandon Ubuntu, and revert to Debian"

It has long been past time to abandon Ubuntu. Mint is nothing new and is extremely popular. Debian is nice, but it isn't wrapped up in a great overall user-experience like Mint. The idea of Mint Debian Edition is to rebase from Ubuntu to Debian, ensuring stability, something Mint does very well for 17 years.

Mint Debian Edition isn't new either. It has been out for something like 12 *YEARS* now (the summary is horribly misleading). It isn't the "main" focus when you say "Mint", but it probably will be at some point.

Summary is somewhat misleading, I think

[93 Escort Wagon]

This is written as if "Linux Mint Debian Edition" isn't already a thing. But what they're actually referring to is just the beta release of version 6 of Linux Mint Debian Edition.

Linux Mint Debian Edition 5, "Elsie", has been on their releases page [linuxmint.com] for quite some time. And, before that, version 4 was available, etc. etc.

compatible outside of Ubuntu

[ArchieBunker]

If you write software that can only operate under Ubuntu then I'm not sure what is more broken, your software or Linux itself.

LMDE 5

[eriks]

I've been using LMDE 5 for a few months now as my primary desktop. I've used linux almost since there was linux, but never as my main desktop; always as servers or secondary machines, with a primary windows (or mac, long ago) desktop. Every flavor of Linux as a desktop I've tried (and I've tried most of them) has always had fiddly bits that got in my way more often than I liked, or just plain didn't work out for me, usually only in edge cases, but still, it was never quite there. I'm sure I could have gotten used to the warts, but I didn't have to, so I never stuck with it. Mint pretty much solves all that, for me at least, along with QEMU for the few things I still need windows for. It really is almost zero-config unless you're running leading-edge hardware (I had to install a newer kernel for full GPU and some sensor support, which was easy with a debian backport, though I still don't have fan speed data, but I'm living with that for now) or just want to mess with stuff, which I've done a ton of, but I think most users could switch and never care about windows again. I'm kind of surprised that people aren't switching from windows in droves now. I guess the inertia of windows is huge. Cinnamon isn't better than windows, in terms of functionality, but it's also not worse, which is good enough for me. Looking forward to upgrading to LMDE 6!

Re:

[StormReaver]

Mint pretty much solves all that...

I really wanted to like Mint, but within ten minutes, I discovered that the desktop icons did not have a place to indicate a starting/default directory. That's a fundamental feature for all desktops, and is crucial for the business software I have written over the decades. I was able to manually edit the desktop icon file, but it made me wonder what other crucial functionality Mint didn't implement that would be a showstopper in the future.

Re:

[eriks]

I see what you're saying, and I agree that's a deficit, but isn't an issue for me, and as you say, there's a workaround, but life in windows also often requires workarounds for pretty basic things, so at least for me, it's still not worse than windows. As long as the easy things are easy and the hard things are possible, I'm happy, especially if critical stuff doesn't randomly and annoyingly fall over, which for the most part is the case for my install at this point.