LMDE a sleeping distro?

[Stevie_Bingo]

It has been very entertaining reading this thread.
I just don't see what the fuss is all about. I mean, what is LMDE other than a standard Debian Testing with a lot of Python junk and ugly icons and wallpapers on top?
The first thing I did after installing it was to remove all the Mint junk. That left me with a more or less standard Debian Testing with Debian Multimedia and the non-free and contrib repos enabled.
Just track Debian testing, and you will be running the greatest versions of everything, and forget about sucking up to Clem and his so called python script developers.
Have anyone bothered to check how much memory the mint-menu uses?

[Davarish]

It has been very entertaining reading this thread.
I just don't see what the fuss is all about. I mean, what is LMDE other than a standard Debian Testing with a lot of Python junk and ugly icons and wallpapers on top?
The first thing I did after installing it was to remove all the Mint junk. That left me with a more or less standard Debian Testing with Debian Multimedia and the non-free and contrib repos enabled.
Just track Debian testing, and you will be running the greatest versions of everything, and forget about sucking up to Clem and his so called python script developers.
Have anyone bothered to check how much memory the mint-menu uses?

Well Stevie_Bingo I will say that you are right about many things but I don't agree on many others. For example you call Mint an ugly distro with ugly themes and ugly icons and ugly wallpapers. I find Mint to be one of the most beautiful distros and this matters to my eye. But anyway beauty is subjective. Please explain to me something else. If you want Debian without all the Mint "junk", why didn't you install Debian stable and then change your repos to Debian Testing? Wouldn't that serve your needs better, and save much of your time? Just curious...

[Stevie_Bingo]

If you want Debian without all the Mint "junk", why didn't you install Debian stable and then change your repos to Debian Testing? Wouldn't that serve your needs better, and save much of your time? Just curious...

About the themes, I disagree. I think there is too much green everywhere, and I don't like it.
About Debian: You are right, and that's what I usually do and have been doing since Debian Woody . I have been tracking Debian testing on my home work horse without any major issues for several years. Never had to re-install.
About one year ago however i came across LMDE and thought it sounded quite nice, so i tried it at work.
I soon found out however, that it was not so rolling after all. They kept making new re-spins to enable new features. The cgroup patch, fonts that looked good, etc etc... I had to re-install a new version to get the new features. Where did the rolling release go?
And now this update pack madness. I just don't get the point. Not much difference between how Ubuntu is released and this.
Clem talks about stability, but that is not really serious. A distribution like Aptosid which is tracking Debian Unstable manages to work just fine without any stability issues as long as you use smxi to upgrade. If they can do that on Unstable, then I don't see why it is so difficult on Testing.
Anyway, that's their choice.
All I'm saying, is change the sources.list and track Testing and debian multimedia, and forget about LMDE as long as it is maintained like this. Ohh, we will upgrade when we have the time, but first we have to keep up with Ubuntu... You will have nothing but all the time in the world, because soon nobody will be running LMDE as there is no point in doing so.

[monkeyboy]

It has been very entertaining reading this thread.
I just don't see what the fuss is all about. I mean, what is LMDE other than a standard Debian Testing with a lot of Python junk and ugly icons and wallpapers on top?
The first thing I did after installing it was to remove all the Mint junk. That left me with a more or less standard Debian Testing with Debian Multimedia and the non-free and contrib repos enabled.
Just track Debian testing, and you will be running the greatest versions of everything, and forget about sucking up to Clem and his so called python script developers.
Have anyone bothered to check how much memory the mint-menu uses?

You are know by the quality and nature of your posts.

[VanR]

I really hope LMDE is not scrapped. I've just left LM12 (too many hang-ups and freezes for my liking) and installed LMDE again today. I see LMDE as the future of Linux Mint as I believe it's time for Clem and Co. to leave the Ubuntu base behind and go their own way.

[Berneri]

I think I'd come around with my two pence. Well, Davarish, all I have to say about your ranting is this: the GNU/Linux ecosystem offers sufficient variety for you to go and try out. The basic consumerism you show in your posts is irrelevant: you don't pay for this distro. As explained, LMDE offers a lot of choices in itself, if they do not suit you, you can always try another distro. Of course, every distro has its highs and lows, some are effectively rolling but they ask more of their users than others, like Arch…

As for that:

It has been very entertaining reading this thread.
I just don't see what the fuss is all about. I mean, what is LMDE other than a standard Debian Testing with a lot of Python junk and ugly icons and wallpapers on top?
The first thing I did after installing it was to remove all the Mint junk. That left me with a more or less standard Debian Testing with Debian Multimedia and the non-free and contrib repos enabled.
Just track Debian testing, and you will be running the greatest versions of everything, and forget about sucking up to Clem and his so called python script developers.
Have anyone bothered to check how much memory the mint-menu uses?

Seriously, what is the interest of such a post? Anyway, I personally think that LMDE is great and I am very satisfied with it, I'd like the updates to come faster, but on the other hand, I can wait. Knowing they will come in the not too distant future is enough for me, and I would hate it that LMDE is ditched because of the whims and insults of some people who should probably try to be a bit more constructive in their posts.

[Oscar799]

Berneri,
It wasn't Davarish who posted the opinions you disagree with

[Davarish]

Berneri let me tell you something
I myself said that since I didn't pay anything for LMDE I am not demanding anything. I did say that on a previous post here so first read what I wrote and then write your answer. I have every right to complain about the misleading advertisment that you can find here: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1818
This is the official LMDE advertisment and I have every right to complain about it being misleading. Don't I? People come here and tell me I am ranting. I am not. For god's sake understand what I am talking about and stop picking one or two sentences from what I wrote here and answer to these only. If you want to tell me something you should first read everything I wrote here, get the bigger picture of my opinion and then answer to me. I am a completely civilized, calm and sane person and I will try to answer to you with arguments in a form of a discussion not a rant

[Berneri]

Berneri,
It wasn't Davarish who posted the opinions you disagree with

Wasn't he? I was disagreeing with both Davarish's views of "official users" —whatever that may be— and Stevie_bingo less than constructive post. Maybe the confusion arose because I didn't quote Stevie_bingo properly. I'll edit my post to fix that.

I myself said that since I didn't pay anything for LMDE I am not demanding anything.

The overall tone of your posts suggests otherwise.

This is the official LMDE advertisment and I have every right to complain about it being misleading. Don't I? People come here and tell me I am ranting. I am not. For god's sake understand what I am talking about and stop picking one or two sentences from what I wrote here and answer to these only. If you want to tell me something you should first read everything I wrote here, get the bigger picture of my opinion and then answer to me.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion. I am not picking one or two sentences (a classical rhetorical argument, btw), and you made your opinion pretty clear. It is possible that the announcement was misleading, although I read nowhere that update packs will come around every month. Granted, "continuously" might be misleading; however, and I'm sure some people already wrote you that, several things needs to be considered:
- LMDE isn't the mint distro with the wider user base, for now at least.
- The devs team is thin, one needs to take that into account.
- The team at Mint has an history of releasing things when they deem it ready, this is why there isn't any release date for the regular Mint releases. I see no reason for them to act otherwise with LMDE. In fact, I'm glad they're doing that.
- Like I wrote (and probably others did so too), LMDE offers more choices (tracking latest, incoming, testing, unstable…), you can also go and test Chakra linux (I'm thinking of it myself, although I like LMDE a lot): they apply a half-rolling release where the core is released once the devs are statisfied with its stability and the apps that are not essential to the system are updated on a rolling basis—at least that's what they say. Or Arch, or Aptosid, which is truly rolling but might come with very rough edges. This is just a suggestion, don't take it the wrong way: I'm not telling you to shut up and leave us alone, I'm telling you that there are other distros out there that you might like more.

[Davarish]

I am already in the search for my new distro of choice. Thanks for the suggestion but I see Chakra is KDE only right? Anyway, after 3 months of LMDE usage I can say I am verry happy with what this distro offered to me, but I can't stay without updates anymore. Also, I am not happy with what I saw on Lisa so I think there is no point for me to wait another 2-3 months without updates and finaly get something that I don't like. The "one UP per month" system would be the perfect for me. Even if that was only 10 packages. If there are only 10 that will not unstabilize my system I want them. Since it is not like that I am going away. Thanks everyone for the precious help on every sector I needed it. Mint users community is very nice and helpful. If I see that things have changed in the future I will come back again.

[Berneri]

I am already in the search for my new distro of choice. Thanks for the suggestion but I see Chakra is KDE only right? Anyway, after 3 months of LMDE usage I can say I am verry happy with what this distro offered to me, but I can't stay without updates anymore. Also, I am not happy with what I saw on Lisa so I think there is no point for me to wait another 2-3 months without updates and finaly get something that I don't like. The "one UP per month" system would be the perfect for me. Even if that was only 10 packages. If there are only 10 that will not unstabilize my system I want them. Since it is not like that I am going away. Thanks everyone for the precious help on every sector I needed it. Mint users community is very nice and helpful. If I see that things have changed in the future I will come back again.

Chakra is KDE only, yes. They have a bundle system for the popular gtk applications, but I honestly don't know what to make of it. In any case, that you'll look for something that suits you better is only fair.

May I suggest something though? Sometimes, there are packages whose updates I find very important to me. What I do, is that I briefly track Testing, update the packages I want and go back to latest. I need to stress something, however: I only do that for packages that do not belong to the core of the system as I do not want to break my install. I also do that in very rare instances (to update focuswriter, for instance).

In any event, I hope you'll find what you're looking for.

[viking777]

I am already in the search for my new distro of choice. Thanks for the suggestion but I see Chakra is KDE only right? Anyway, after 3 months of LMDE usage I can say I am verry happy with what this distro offered to me, but I can't stay without updates anymore. Also, I am not happy with what I saw on Lisa so I think there is no point for me to wait another 2-3 months without updates and finaly get something that I don't like. The "one UP per month" system would be the perfect for me. Even if that was only 10 packages. If there are only 10 that will not unstabilize my system I want them. Since it is not like that I am going away. Thanks everyone for the precious help on every sector I needed it. Mint users community is very nice and helpful. If I see that things have changed in the future I will come back again.

May I suggest that you might be interested in Pclinux. I have had it installed for a year or so now, and as it is my second choice distro, I treat it like crap, and I can't break it. The worst that has ever happened to it is after a graphics driver update it wouldn't start in graphical mode. The solution was really complex - I rebooted a second time, after which it worked - I have had to do that more than once and it has always been successful. It does get its fair share of updates though and maybe that is not what you want, but it has the advantage of being a true rolling release which means you will never have to reinstall unless you want to.

I can't remember if you are one of those that are interested in recency or not, but if you are then I can tell you that it runs roughly parallel with Debian Sid (which means it is very up to date) but - for me - never breaks. The only reason it is not my first choice is that - again, for me - it is too boring, it just works and therefore is not challenging enough, but it might suit you, only you can decide.

For information, as I share your frustration with LMDE, I have uninstalled it (incoming that is, but definitely not testing, which still remains my first choice distro) and replaced it with Fedora 16 (which I really don't recommend you try ), but I like distro challenges you see and it certainly gave me one

[asymmetros]

May i propose my favourites too?
One good alternative is Salix. Stable, fast, light in resources, the installation of packages takes no time. Salix is to Slackware almost the same as LMDE to Debian.
Another option is Archbang. It gives you an elegant and minimal openbox ( )desktop, fast, lightweight bla-bla also but it is a bleeding edge distro. Adding gnome (or xfce or kde) on top of it is a piece of cake.
From Debian territory, i suggest Antix. Points testing with a mere stable Mepis-kernel, comes with a lovely icewm/fluxbox desktop and offers nice metapackages for many tastes and needs (latex, codecs, games, kde, gnome. xfce, etc..)
Last but no least, pure debian. It uses a powerful installer although installation process takes usually more than 30-35 minutes, depending on your selection of software.

@VanR: i agree with you about LMDE. The good thing is that there is no need to re-install it ever again. Even in the worst case scenario, change your sources to testing and you will be fine. (i used UP for 2-3 months. only cause i was hoping to provide some feedback. Other than that...)
@Berneri: about monthly updates http://blog.linuxmint.com/?m=201107&paged=4
That' s not big deal my friend. Obviously, something went wrong, i do not suggest to shoot Clem on the feet cause of this , i am just saying that it is not fair to blame frustrated LMDE users that were sold of that announcement (some people blamed them) or wondering for LMDE' s next steps

[Berneri]

PclinuxOS seems a nice distro. Although it is tested on 64 bits, it only comes as 32 bits so far. This is not a big deal, unless you have a 4 Gb ram you'd like to use. After having a look, I'm not sure that the distro is much more up-to-date than LMDE, though. But I'll gladly admit that I didn't have an in depth look.

@ assymmetros: I know, I read it too and got sold, and indeed, that's no big deal. Then again, with how Mint works, people (myself included) should have seen it coming, ain't it? Anyway, the devs probably found such a frequency was harder to maintain than they initially thought. Maybe that would be possible if LMDE was the only distro Clem and the others had to take care of . But that's not the case, so be it.

[wormtown]

Can we change the documentation? Make a post in the "announcements" section at least?

I'd be happy to, but it looks like only mods can put posts there.

[viking777]

PclinuxOS seems a nice distro. Although it is tested on 64 bits, it only comes as 32 bits so far. This is not a big deal, unless you have a 4 Gb ram you'd like to use

Just use the pae kernel.

As for it not being as up to date as LMDE, I can't say I have done an in depth study, but a few weeks ago I looked at a four programs that I use often and they were the same version numbers on Pclinux as they were on Debian Sid, but that was a few weeks ago, I haven't done it since and things move on of course. It is up to date enough for me and because it is so stable it makes an ideal second choice distro for when I break LMDE.

[Berneri]

PclinuxOS seems a nice distro. Although it is tested on 64 bits, it only comes as 32 bits so far. This is not a big deal, unless you have a 4 Gb ram you'd like to use

Just use the pae kernel.

As for it not being as up to date as LMDE, I can't say I have done an in depth study, but a few weeks ago I looked at a four programs that I use often and they were the same version numbers on Pclinux as they were on Debian Sid, but that was a few weeks ago, I haven't done it since and things move on of course. It is up to date enough for me and because it is so stable it makes an ideal second choice distro for when I break LMDE.

I have just two Gb, so for me it is really not a big deal. And by no means my post was a critique of Pclinuxos.

[amandus]

I wiped this unicorns and put in Arch Linux instead, much more stable and updates every day

[wb666greene]

I'm totally disappointed that Eclipse is still broken if I update the "rolling release" much beyond the initial install. I can live with not following the GUI dujour, heck, if Xfce is good enough for Linus, its good enough for me! But I can't live with a major package like Eclipse rotting and broken by upgrades.

Doesn't look like LMDE will in any way be a usefull alternative to Ubuntu LTS for me

[asymmetros]

Eclipse is not broken in sid and i think it is not broken in testing either. The flow of updates and fixes resolves that kind of problems, usually in days or weeks. Especially sid, is the one that receives faster those fixes. But i understand that you probably do not need LMDE for this.

ps: xfce is splendid!