Ok, I'm going to debian from now on...

[Gnomikian]

Hi folks,

I was very happy to see a "semi-rolling" debian available. The things I didn't liked with the pure debian distro was the lack of the branded Firefox and Thunderbird (and you can add the others non-free apps here) applications. I thought at first I had found the holy grail of the debian releases, LMDE. But for every things on earth who are too good to be true is a fact. As soon as I installed LMDE on my laptop I was a very happy man, until I did a dist-upgrade. When doing the upgrade I was watching tv because the whole process was tooking 2 hours, but that didn't bothered me cause I'm a very patient man. While I was watching tv I did took some looks at the dist-upgrade process and, to my surprise, I saw a few packages that surprised me. The two of which I noticed were Mono and Virtualbox (and I'm pretty sure I've missed a bunch too), I don't use any of them so the question was... why ? Why does the LMDE team does include software in their distros which are available in the repositories ? Not everyone is using those and, If I did, I could simply install them when needed no ?

Just for that fact I'm going back to debian straight (leaving all the bloated software comming with LMDE) and just install what I need when I need it.

I was hoping the LMDE distribution cinnamon/mate edition would come with basic apps only and we could go from there but It's not the case as I can see.

I will try to satisfy myself with pure debian from now on but I wish sincerely that I will be back to the Mint edition asap.

By this post I don't want to bash LMDE at all, I was just saying that the distro could be minimal as possible and then grow from there.

It's better to install a bare bone os and build from the foundations than to install everything and remove stuff imo.

Just my two cents.

And sorry for my english if I did offence anyone

Regards

[jjaythomas]

Welcome
acually

branded Firefox and Thunderbird

are same as the debian (unbranded) version of 'iceweasel and icedove' and either way can get latestest version on web.
Upack system (exspeciasially since UPack 5 ISO wern't produced ) tend to be big. I too wish their was a 'core/lite' edition (mint debian packages can be accessed from web/repo )
Ya the default system and included packages (Mono and Virtualbox are dependicies for other apps included) won't suit all. Some may be bloated others may not be enough (magic of debian installing and uninstalling).
May like a more leaner (whatever that means to you) debian. and install up.

J.Jay
P.S. I currentlly like Sparky linux (see my post in 'other distro discusion' forum

[altscribe]

Seems to me the idea is to make life easier for the largest number of users. With storage space as cheap as it is and the [now] relatively small amount of space taken up by including packages like VirtualBox that could be a challenge for novice users to correctly install; to opt to include packages for the sake of ease of use and completeness rather then set up a goal of a spare and lean system for its' own sake and than make arbitrary decisions about what packages to keep and which ones to "allow the user to install" I would agree with the completeness approach. Most new users want things to simply work and aren't that worried about saving a few hundred megabytes.

It is also quicker and easier to remove unwanted packages than to know (without previous experience) what packages you really DO need and then locate and install them.

If the idea of LMDE is to have a distro that works fine "out of the box", there can really be no other philosophy, given the issues and realities at hand. Having been a computer professional since 1978, and a Linux user since its' introduction, the endless clerical work involved with manually installing everything and keeping up with the same is no longer fun. I just LOVE an OS that I can install, forget about, and have the rock-solid dependability of Debian, the beautiful and [dare I say it] exciting Cinnamon interface with Mate as a fallback, and not have to be bothered in the meantime.

[jjaythomas]

Agree Altscribe

I tend to have a remastersys LMDE that's twice the size of regular ISO on a USB pen drive.
But
I personally would like to see something like a core edition for those who like control. But not at the expense of a 'ready to go' edition.

J.Jay
P.S. I into Xfce something harder than Mate or Cinamon some things easier. Preference

[cwsnyder]

My two pennies worth: First, how would you define a 'core system'? What may be an indispensible application which makes Mint what it is to you, may be junk to someone else. Thunderbird for example--I remove that application first thing after an install.

My Debian install (alternative to LMDE) is installed from a Net-Install CD and I choose the application mix I want to use, as you can with Gentoo, Arch, Tiny Core and Slackware, but for noobs??? How would they know even what the names of the applications would be?

[jjaythomas]

read to much into

A core system would not be for noobs. And Mint is a 'Noob-friendly' distro. Doesn't mean can't have a core for more advanced users. As said should not be at the expense (detracting) from Main target. But would be nice for some users who want it.

Core system= the System with maybe a very light DE (one of the boxes? flux/open ect) where you could add your DE of preference. A sys updater, apt (or synaptic GUI), a browser, a terminal emulator (probably in sys anyways) and a text editor (nano?). That's probably about it. Being Mint codecs, extra drivers ect.

Never said "For noobs'
J.Jay

[cwsnyder]

@jjaythomas, this is why I consider a 'core system' to be a matter of opinion. If you leave it open to 'add' a DE, then the very lightest DE for the 'core system' would be the GNU utilities and a CLI with package manager, with Lynx or Links2 for browser, ed or nano editor, etc. Of course if you start at the command line, you don't need a terminal emulator, do you?

[Zweitaktmotor]

If you want a core system that is easy to set up yet totally flexible, try TinyCore Linux.

LMDE is the complete opposite, being as comprehensive as possible.

I am using both systems and both have their uses.

It is the beauty of Linux that you can find a distro that exactly fits your needs.