Linux Mint Forums

It's astonishing how some people are surprised to have problems with a rolling release... As said by several people here and elsewhere, it's the nature of the beast, this is its design... If you don't like and/or want this, and/or if you are not advanced enough to be able to cope with these problems, stay away from the rolling releases!

You'll have problems after updates. And when this arrives, you'll have to wait some/several days for the problem be resolved. For instance, me, one time in Debian Testing, I had to wait about 10/15 days before a problem be resolved. OK, sometimes this takes less time but if you are not ready to this, if you don't know to cope with these problems, you should not use a rolling release.

You'll have breakages, regressions, bugs... in a rolling release. By design.

As I often say, for me, rolling release is a broken model by design. But now, if you are happy with it, good for you and enjoy. For the others, stay far away from them!

thomasmc wrote:

t3g wrote: Congrats on completely missing the point.

Congrats on being a complete a-hole. I installed them, and don't have any problem. If you are so disturbed by such little things, perhaps you should try a different distribution.

What some of us are saying is that Clem and the Mint team know which packages are troublesome with each Update Pack by listing them in the Update Pack Info. Since they are aware of which specific packages are giving troubles, then obviously they are able to pinpoint which ones to force the update manager to ignore until the dust is settled in Debian testing. That is why I threw out a suggestion to have a stable repository (served from a CDN like cdn.debian.net) and/or backports listed either in the sources.list or hardcoded into the update manager just in case packages need to be downgraded to something that is known to work and is stable.

It's not a matter of being disturbed or not because I'm trying to build a consensus in what others think regarding this. I'm all for making this the best Linux distro and ditching Ubuntu based ones alltogether.

t3g wrote:

thomasmc wrote:

t3g wrote: Congrats on completely missing the point.

Congrats on being a complete a-hole. I installed them, and don't have any problem. If you are so disturbed by such little things, perhaps you should try a different distribution.

What some of us are saying is that Clem and the Mint team know which packages are troublesome with each Update Pack by listing them in the Update Pack Info. Since they are aware of which specific packages are giving troubles, then obviously they are able to pinpoint which ones to force the update manager to ignore until the dust is settled in Debian testing. That is why I threw out a suggestion to have a stable repository (served from a CDN like cdn.debian.net) and/or backports listed either in the sources.list or hardcoded into the update manager just in case packages need to be downgraded to something that is known to work and is stable.

It's not a matter of being disturbed or not because I'm trying to build a consensus in what others think regarding this. I'm all for making this the best Linux distro and ditching Ubuntu based ones alltogether.

So, I should be denied the use of them, because you are so worried about differences in theming? I think it is the other way around, if the window borders bother you so much, YOU should ignore them.

If you want a stable repository, reinstall and set your sources list to "stable", and quit gripping about every little thing coming out of testing. That is not the purpose of the Latest repo.

thomasmc wrote: So, I should be denied the use of them, because you are so worried about differences in theming? I think it is the other way around, if the window borders bother you so much, YOU should ignore them.

If you want a stable repository, reinstall and set your sources list to "stable", and quit gripping about every little thing coming out of testing. That is not the purpose of the Latest repo.

We keep going in circles over and over again. Someone says something, you disagree and repeat what you said earlier and then someone responds and repeats what they said earlier. Like I was saying before, the look and feel of the programs you use is very important and many times is much more noticeable than using a .2 release with no visual changes. I'm sure you disagree of course, but look is very important in our user interactions and why there continues to be heated debates between Gnome 3 and Unity. While those two are arguments over personal preference in user interaction, an out of place program that does not fit into the theme visually is a step back.

As you were saying with going back to the early images that pointed to squeeze to get the stable repos, many people are saying that at this point in time, more issues can arise and the best bet is to stick with Debian testing and hope the Mint team releases a new respin.

t3g, why not help out with the testing? If you have that much of an issue with things, why not help make them better? As has been said, LMDE is a rolling(ish if you use latest) distro and as such things can go wrong on occasion. Accept that is the case and take a bit of responsibility for your system, and excerise care when updating.

Speaking as someone who kind of forgot this distro is based on something called TESTING and who as a result, recently had his arse well and truly bitten by an update* I would advise care when updating, even from latest. And finally, remember that it is called latest not stable!

* Learning is fun. Unexpected learning is well.... unexpected!

t3g wrote:We keep going in circles over and over again.

If you can't handle the imperfections that are inherent to a rolling release, you should use something else. This release is based on TESTING.

Perhaps you don't understand that this isn't Ubuntu/Canonical, where a billionaire can throw around endless amount of money hiring hundreds of people to do everything everyone wants, as soon as they want it. This is just a handful of people, volunteering their own free time, to make something even BETTER than Ubuntu. And for them I am extremely grateful.

I wish I had more technical expertise, so I could help out as well, as I truly LOVE LMDE. Yes, at times it can be frustrating, but I'm an adult and can handle it. If all you are going to do is whine that everything isn't up to your perfect standards (after what, 3 WEEKS of this Latest repo being in existence?!?) then you really aren't helping at all.

I have used LMDE since it was released and i dont want Clem to hold my hand. I am happy with if the update manager tells me what is a problem and give me an option to take the action i want to take. If i dont want to install the gnome 3 packages i will set them on hold until its fixed. If i can stand the difference in how it looks i will install them and i did. But i can understand the OP. The latest repo maybe should hold these packages. Im on the incoming repo but right now i cant see any reel difference between the incoming and the latest repo but this is something new and the OP have to understand that things take time to tune..

thomasmc wrote:

t3g wrote:We keep going in circles over and over again.

If you can't handle the imperfections that are inherent to a rolling release, you should use something else. This release is based on TESTING.

Perhaps you don't understand that this isn't Ubuntu/Canonical, where a billionaire can throw around endless amount of money hiring hundreds of people to do everything everyone wants, as soon as they want it. This is just a handful of people, volunteering their own free time, to make something even BETTER than Ubuntu. And for them I am extremely grateful.

I wish I had more technical expertise, so I could help out as well, as I truly LOVE LMDE. Yes, at times it can be frustrating, but I'm an adult and can handle it. If all you are going to do is whine that everything isn't up to your perfect standards (after what, 3 WEEKS of this Latest repo being in existence?!?) then you really aren't helping at all.

You are talking to me like I am a child when I am fully aware of what is going on. I'm bringing this up because there is a rumor that all of the desktop environments will be eventually merged over to the Debian branch. Linux Mint is currently the #2 Linux distro by popularity and in order to maintain the respect of this distro, things like this cannot happen. Testing repositories or not.

linuxviolin wrote:
You'll have breakages, regressions, bugs... in a rolling release. By design.

As I often say, for me, rolling release is a broken model by design. But now, if you are happy with it, good for you and enjoy. For the others, stay far away from them!

You're of course right but I would say it in another way.

We now enjoy with LMDE a new layer of control with the monthly (about it) update of its Latest repository. Still, breakages will happen, from time to time. This is unavoidable. We live in a real world.

Do you know that you still can add your own layer of control?: I would advise you, before implementing this important monthly update to backup your partition. If you make for example a Clonezilla image of it, you can restore it in some minutes. With unfrequent updates, it seems to me this is a sensible policy. If something breaks your particular configuration, you can report it and then go back to your previous safe situation to wait for a solution or make a selective and clean (by your own standards) update

Yes, you can have the cake and the money of the cake.

roger64 wrote:Do you know that you still can add your own layer of control?: I would advise you, before implementing this important monthly update to backup your partition. If you make for example a Clonezilla image of it, you can restore it in some minutes. With unfrequent updates, it seems to me this is a sensible policy. If something breaks your particular configuration, you can report it and then go back to your previous safe situation to wait for a solution or make a selective and clean (by your own standards) update

Yes, you can have the cake and the money of the cake.

Of course we can do this. But then it's a little like if the user fixes the distro in the place of the maintainer just because this one can not really to do it because the distro is rolling. I'm sorry but it's not to the user to make this. The user should not have to make this.

linuxviolin wrote:

roger64 wrote:Do you know that you still can add your own layer of control?: I would advise you, before implementing this important monthly update to backup your partition. If you make for example a Clonezilla image of it, you can restore it in some minutes. With unfrequent updates, it seems to me this is a sensible policy. If something breaks your particular configuration, you can report it and then go back to your previous safe situation to wait for a solution or make a selective and clean (by your own standards) update

Yes, you can have the cake and the money of the cake.

Of course we can do this. But then it's a little like if the user fixes the distro in the place of the maintainer just because this one can not really to do it because the distro is rolling. I'm sorry but it's not to the user to make this. The user should not have to make this.

Well, LMDE or not, I do it anyway about once a week. So, now, I just try to synchronize it with LMDE updates. But, no problem, feel free to enjoy the ride.

t3g wrote:

thomasmc wrote:

t3g wrote:Linux Mint is currently the #2 Linux distro by popularity and in order to maintain the respect of this distro, things like this cannot happen. Testing repositories or not.

Why not? People who demand greater stability can use Linux Mint in it's other various forms. LMDE is a rolling release, and will always be slightly imperfect. Do you not understand that?

It looks like at this stage of the game that the main goal between incoming and latest is to provided merely the documentation of issues. This allows the users a more straightforward way to find information on how to deal with update issues. Fixes/repairs to ensure latest stability isn't the goal at this point. Mainly to ease the pain of scouring the forums for information. Now the information is right there in the debian mint update.

see this link for clem's response

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 97#p451097

perhaps in the future the resources will be available to provide more than quick access documentation, the team just isn't at that point yet.

thomasmc wrote:Why not? People who demand greater stability can use Linux Mint in it's other various forms. LMDE is a rolling release, and will always be slightly imperfect. Do you not understand that?

I don't know if you are trying to be a **** or not, but you conveniently left out my previous sentence (talked about all versions moving to Deb) in your quote which you chose to ignore:

"I'm bringing this up because there is a rumor that all of the desktop environments will be eventually merged over to the Debian branch"

t3g wrote:

thomasmc wrote:Why not? People who demand greater stability can use Linux Mint in it's other various forms. LMDE is a rolling release, and will always be slightly imperfect. Do you not understand that?

I don't know if you are trying to be a **** or not, but you conveniently left out my previous sentence (talked about all versions moving to Deb) in your quote which you chose to ignore:

"I'm bringing this up because there is a rumor that all of the desktop environments will be eventually merged over to the Debian branch"

I'm not the one being a ****, Richard. You are apparently an anal retentive control freak, who has found something that doesn't stand up to his standard of perfection, and have decided your goal in life is to change it into something it was never intended to be, whether anybody else likes it or not.

I don't give a crap if the other versions are going to be switched over to Debian, they won't be rolling releases, based on testing.

You haven't listened to a damned thing anybody has said to you in this thread, I'm through wasting my time with you, Dick.

thomasmc wrote:
I'm not the one being a ****, Richard. You are apparently an anal retentive control freak, who has found something that doesn't stand up to his standard of perfection, and have decided your goal in life is to change it into something it was never intended to be, whether anybody else likes it or not.

I don't give a **** if the other versions are going to be switched over to Debian, they won't be rolling releases, based on testing.

You haven't listened to a damned thing anybody has said to you in this thread, I'm through wasting my time with you, Dick.

Nerd.

LMDE is a new kind of rolling release with multiple levels of stability and/or "adventure". The new "Latest" could be a great alternative for a newer linux user coming from Ubuntu or another 6-month-cycle distro who would like to test the waters of a rolling release without having to get in too deep with the hiccups that sometimes occur in Debian Testing.

I'd love to see the Latest repo go ahead and clean up things like broken borders or window decorations that those of us comfortable in the CLI would just shrug off. I think just like following Sid isn't for everyone, neither is following Latest.