The future of LMDE

[thetank]

I became curious about lmde and rolling based distro's a few months ago. I like the mate desktop environment, and I enjoy an apt based distro. Having such wonderfull tools to use with Debian makes lmde really shine. However, I have been reading that lmde may not be supported in the future because not enough people use it. If this is true, should I bother migrating to lmde?

[killer de bug]

Don't worry. There is a bright future for LMDE.

[Crewp]

I have not heard anything concerning LMDE's future. But, IMHO, it would be a mistake for Linux Mint to drop the Debian Edition of Mint. Lets hope LMDE grows and gets even better in the future.

[py-thon]

"LMDE is special, it’s extremely exciting to work on, it holds strategic interests (in the eventuality of a complete departure from Ubuntu for instance) and it keeps getting better." Clem's answer to #27 on http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2577
This does not sound like the imminent end of LMDE to me.

Don't worry. Use LMDE if you like it. In case support ends some day (I hope it won't) we can switch to Debian Testing more easily than users of Mint's main edition.

[killer de bug]

The more users, the better LMDE.

[thetank]

"LMDE is special, it’s extremely exciting to work on, it holds strategic interests (in the eventuality of a complete departure from Ubuntu for instance) and it keeps getting better." Clem's answer to #27 on http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2577
This does not sound like the imminent end of LMDE to me.

This is the article I read that concerned me with the future of LMDE.

I really enjoy working with Debian and I’m really happy with the quality of LMDE. I can see a few things which are better on the Ubuntu side, but also things that are better here with Debian. Overall I’d say they’re pretty much on par at this stage, with a little advantage going to Ubuntu because it’s frozen, thus doesn’t require people to read/understand the problematics related to APT upgrades.

The big difference though is popularity and adoption. LMDE started as an R&D project, it was successful and so we continued it. Nowadays it’s as popular as one of our DE editions, but it requires maintaining on a different base, testing UPs and it is declined into two DEs. That’s a lot of extra work compared to a MATE, Xfce or KDE edition.

It would have to become more popular and gather wider adoption from the community for us to put more resources into it. We’re giving it our best shot each time and we hope people will enjoy it, but at the end of the day our focus needs to reflect what the majority of our users want. LMDE is special, it’s extremely exciting to work on, it holds strategic interests (in the eventuality of a complete departure from Ubuntu for instance) and it keeps getting better. But it does need more adoption and we do spend too much resources on it already with the current level of adoption.

Found here http://www.itworld.com/open-source/4077 ... on-survive

Haha! I just realized I'm quoting the same article you posted. Oh well... Maybe if there were more donations for LMDE, then the Mint team could spend more time on it. I think that in the direction that Ubuntu is going with licensing, LMDE adoption makes sense as the future of Mint. Cinnamon is already independent of Gnome, why not be independent of Ubuntu?

[GeneBenson]

It will be interesting to see what happens when Ubuntu switches from Xorg to Mir since neither Ati or Nvidia have expressed any interest in supporting Mir. I suppose Mint could always stick with Xorg, as other Ubuntu derivatives have already stated they will do.

Perhaps in a years time we will see a thread entitled: The future of Linux Mint Main Edition.

[killer de bug]

I have the feeling that this time will come faster than we think. With the main edition being only based on LTS version of Ubuntu, so much new features will be missed...

[py-thon]

People won't change from Main Edition to LMDE as long as LMDE lags behind in security issues.
Current situation: serious vulnerability in openssl.
Fixed in Debian Testing (Mon, 07 Apr 2014 23:17:42 +0200), fixed in Ubuntu an hour later (2014-04-07 22:18:30 UTC), Mint Main Edition uses those repos, so the same time applies.
LMDE almost two days later is still without the new packages. This is a sure way to kill a distribution.

[killer de bug]

It's fixed in Romeo. It will be for everyone tomorrow. It's in Romeo for testing purpose

[py-thon]

It's in Romeo for testing purpose

Meanwhile the old packages are still in the wild for testing by people less well meaning
It's annoying frequently having to resort to jessie-repos in order to have a working and secure system. It makes you wonder whether there is an advantage of LMDE over Debian Testing "pure".

[killer de bug]

You have a personal computer not a server, right? So this security concern is not that important for you. It was open for 2 years, you can wait 10 hours more, trust me

[py-thon]

According to what I read the packages have to be updated on personal computers (which can also be servers) as well. Skype for example uses openssl.
I don't have to wait anymore. I updated the packages an hour ago.

[pgreat]

If you absolutely cannot wait until officially distributed , just go directly to DEBIAN packages website,
download the latest version as a file and then install with "dpkg -i {filesname}.

[killer de bug]

If you absolutely cannot wait until officially distributed , just go directly to DEBIAN packages website,
download the latest version as a file and then install with "dpkg -i {filesname}.

Don't you think taking it from Linux Mint repo is simplier and safer?

It's fixed in Romeo.

[Crewp]

The fix is out today, 4/10/14 so no worries.

[Monsta]

People won't change from Main Edition to LMDE as long as LMDE lags behind in security issues.

LMDE lacks a security team, but the vacancy is open, so if there's anyone willing to fill in, report to Clem.

[py-thon]

The fix is out today, 4/10/14 so no worries.

Almost three days delay and meanwhile jessie is already at 1.0.1g-2. But this new update from g-1 to g-2 is only considered "urgency=emergency" ( http://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/c ... _changelog ), so no worries

[killer de bug]

Almost three days delay and meanwhile jessie is already at 1.0.1g-2. But this new update from g-1 to g-2 is only considered "urgency=emergency" ( http://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/c ... _changelog ), so no worries

Stop FUD! Seriously g-2 is only 'avoid a reboot after update'. Nothing is fixed here. Unless you run a server you don't want to reboot, this fix is useless compared to g-1.

openssl (1.0.1g-2) unstable; urgency=emergency

* Enable checking for services that may need to be restarted (Closes: #743889)
* Update list of services to possibly restart

-- Kurt Roeckx <kurt@roeckx.be> Tue, 08 Apr 2014 19:13:08 +0200

http://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/c ... _changelog

And by the way, g-2 is in Romeo...

[py-thon]

And by the way, g-2 is in Romeo...

It wasn't when I wrote, I checked. Now it is.