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Linux Mint Announces Latest Debian Based OS

posted by Fnord666 on Friday March 25 2022, @01:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the Minty-fresh dept.

upstart writes:

Linux Mint Announces Latest Debian Based OS:

Linux Mint has announced the latest release of its Debian based operating system Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE), codename "Elsie" is based upon the latest Debian "Bullseye" release and is an alternative to the mainstream Ubuntu based Linux Mint.

LMDE, or Linux Mint Debian Edition, is a backup version of Mint designed to preserve the work put into, and user experience of, Linux Mint should Ubuntu ever disappear to the great software graveyard in the sky. As Ubuntu is itself built on Debian architecture, to the uninitiated the difference is hard to discern. But under the hood there are notable software changes inline with the source operating system's philosophy. Following a successful beta release at the end of February, the time has come for a full version.

LMDE 5, codenamed Elsie, is made using the same Debian 11 Bullseye that Raspberry Pi OS made such a difficult upgrade to last year (as more recently and successfully did Peppermint OS). This, however, seems to be a much more fortunate project than Raspberry Pi's, displaying the same Cinnamon desktop as the Ubuntu-based version of Mint, but with none of the Snap containerised software packages used by Canonical's operating system. Instead, it uses the Flatpak application manager, along with a native Firefox app straight from Mozilla. Being a Debian based OS, Linux Mint also comes with the APT (Advanced Packaging Tool) to manage software installation.

The system requirements are modest, with just 2GB of RAM (4GB for a 'comfortable experience') and 20GB of disk space required. A screen resolution of 1024 x 768 is recommended, but on coarser displays there's a workaround involving Alt+dragging windows to get them on the screen.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 25 2022, @04:05PM (12 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 25 2022, @04:05PM (#1232062) Homepage Journal

    There is always confusion to be found in descriptions of Linux Mint. I think it best to say that Mint maintains two separate and distinct distros. Linux Mint is a distro based on Ubuntu, while LMDE is a distro based on Debian.

    IMHO, Debian is superior to Ubuntu in all respects, except that Ubuntu is more willing to hold hands with neophytes.

    I parted ways with Ubuntu when they forced the Unity desktop, and all purple throughout the desktop. Unity sucked, and purple really sucks for those of us who are color vision deficient.

    Today, my only complaint with LMDE and Debian, is systemd. Mint does a great job with customizing Debian. If you're looking for an all-around good user experience, you won't go wrong with LMDE. It works, out of the box, and it's easily customizable. If there were such a thing as a "best distro", LMDE would be in the running for the title.

    The important thing is, never confuse the two distros. They share some things in common, but they are not the same.

    As for Ubuntu disappearing - fat chance. I don't like it, I wouldn't miss it, but Ubuntu is going to be around for a long, long time. If Canonical should fold (which I don't expect to happen in the foreseeable future) then someone would acquire the pieces, and go on. There are some good underlying concepts behind Ubuntu, despite all the silly crap that I hate about it.

    --
    Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by turgid on Friday March 25 2022, @07:04PM (11 children)

      by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 25 2022, @07:04PM (#1232115) Journal

      They forced a desktop? (I know, I know...)

      The whole point of Linux is that it's loosely modelled on unix and the unix way and you should be free to choose whatever desktop you want.

      I don't get this whole forcing of desktops thing. It's not what Linux is about.

      Why can't ubuntu come with a selection of desktops and why is it do difficult to make others available? Why do you need a whole new distribution just to change the GUI?

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2022, @07:24PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2022, @07:24PM (#1232121)

        Forcing? Ask those questions about systemd instead of desktops. The lack of developer skills is noticed mostly in the area of GUI because they are visually apparent but it runs through most of the Linux stack. Take gtk3 (and mostly Gnome) for an example of terrible UI design. I know a GUI is not an OS, but look at Gnome and then remember that the same level of intelligence/skill/design/testing is present in most of the underlying OS and OS subsystems.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2022, @07:59PM (6 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2022, @07:59PM (#1232136)

        Why can't ubuntu come with a selection of desktops and why is it do difficult to make others available?

        What difficult? Are you running Windows? Ubuntu comes in several official flavours. Switching to another desktop is not trivial (as in a one-liner command), but can be done. This applies to just about any modern distro. Some even come with a choice at install time.

        The bigger issue is systemd. You cannot just go and easily "switch" between init systems. Even a seasoned Unix guru might lose several more rows of their remaining grey hair trying to achieve this. That said, some distros come with alternatives to systemd, but in most cases then promptly fall down in other areas - like software range, performance, DE/UI choices.

        As for LMDE being "in case Ubuntu goes away" does not mean it is that Canonical might cease to exist, but more if they suddenly change course and do something very anti-Linuxy. Which could happen as they: i) are a corporation, ii) have had blips in the past (Amazon "search"), and iii) are somehow strangely close with Redmond of late.

        Gnome have lost the plot. Or have they? Unity was made as one UI to rule both desktop and mobile. Like Apple's IOS/MacOS. Hmmm....
        Ubuntu's Unity and Gnome 3 started down the copy-Apple path. Linux users voted with their keyboards and desktops proliferated - MATE, Cinnamon. Then Microsoft got wind of the idea to copy-Apple and you get Windows 8, 10, and now 11. Even bad copies of Gnome like Deepin follow the copy-Apple design.

        So in the end you have a coming together around a very similar interface of: Android/iPhone, Apple desktop, Windows, Gnome & fam. These are the Modernists, versus the Traditionalists with the Win7 & earlier, MATE, Cinnamon, KDE, etc etc design.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by turgid on Friday March 25 2022, @09:29PM (2 children)

          by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 25 2022, @09:29PM (#1232172) Journal

          I run Slackware and I use WindowMaker.

        • (Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 25 2022, @09:43PM (1 child)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 25 2022, @09:43PM (#1232186) Homepage Journal

          Switching to another desktop is not trivial (as in a one-liner command), but can be done.

          I'm uncertain about Ubuntu, having not used it in years. But, on Debian, it really is trivial. ~3 minute video explains it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm8xg9-u07w [youtube.com] ~8 minute video shows how to install multiple desktops, and how to select between them at login. The limiting factor that determines how quickly you can complete the task, is your internet connection. It takes me about 15-20 minutes to install a desktop environment, multiply by however many DEs you want to install. If you have 20 users who can't agree on which DE to use, you can just install them all and let each user choose at login.

          --
          Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 26 2022, @07:17PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 26 2022, @07:17PM (#1232435)

            So it IS trivial ... as long as you can first point someone in the direction of a resource like the video link above. :)

            I wonder is bad UI designs can be found to have any connection with the suicide rate. I'm serious, someone should get a grant and study this.

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 27 2022, @02:51PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 27 2022, @02:51PM (#1232718)

          Switching to another desktop is not trivial (as in a one-liner command)

          sudo apt install cinnamon

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 26 2022, @08:21AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 26 2022, @08:21AM (#1232333)

        The whole point of Linux is that it's loosely modelled on unix and the unix way and you should be free to choose whatever desktop you want.

        I don't get this whole forcing of desktops thing. It's not what Linux is about.

        It's about picking good defaults. A restaurant saying "if you don't like it you can cook it yourself" isn't a solution to the problem. There are lots of people and organizations out there who aren't interested in "cooking Linux" for themselves.

        https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2580220&cid=38422000 [slashdot.org]

        Yes but it's not usually a good sign if the people designing the GUI don't have much clue about good defaults.

        It's like a restaurant with chefs who lack taste. They will churn out sub-par dishes, refuse to admit they are sub-par ("tastes great to me" [aka WORKSFORME]) and distro maintainers have to "customise" the dishes so that more people would actually eat them. At that point there'd be a limit to how good the dishes can be. You'd have to cook stuff from scratch if you really want something "insanely great" (to use Steve Job's phrase).

        And point 2) remains, if everyone has different "defaults" support becomes more expensive or not possible, UNLESS most agree to provide a standard "phone support" interface[1]. No support from cheap people reading scripts (one might think nobody would actually be helped by that sort of support, but the people who have "Hard Drives" with "cup holders" will).

        Not saying Microsoft is good, in fact Windows has got worse and worse as a Desktop OS over the years. But despite that Desktop Linux hasn't really improved that much over 10+ years.

        The Desktop OS situation has unfortunately got worse over the years.

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