<DECIDED> LMDE to be based on Stable, not on Testing.

[py-thon]

I thought about this a lot since the topic came up (more than would have been necessary because I could live with both options or another distro as well) and come to the result (in my opinion) that it doesn't make sense to base LMDE on Debian Stable.

Why did people choose LMDE instead of Mint XX? They wanted something more uptodate than Mint LTS but without having to reinstall constantly (in theory without having to reinstall ever). This was only partly achieved because of low frequency of UPs and in several cases breakages during the update process. Using two completely new DE (Mate and Cinnamon) didn't help either.

From Mint 17 onwards only LTS-versions of Ubuntu are used for Mint XX and Mint will thus try to be some kind of Ubuntu stable.
Using Debian Stable as a basis for LMDE would make it constantly lag behind both Mint XX and Ubuntu (both being based on Debian testing) and completely stop rolling (not counting the rollover from one Debian stable to the next every other year). Both ideas behind LMDE are lost this way. LMDE stable would be something completely different from LMDE now, aiming at a different clientele. This leaves me with the question: Why use LMDE stable at all? LMDE stable seems more like Debian stable with a few additional packages, not like a distribution in its own right. I don't see big advantages in using LMDE stable instead of Debian stable and I don't see any advantage in using LMDE stable instead of Mint XX.

[kurotsugi]

This new strategy is already very successful and not only will it make it easier for us to release 17.1 and allow us to focus more on the development side of things, it already benefited the 17 release greatly. The same strategy could be applied to LMDE by basing it on Debian Stable, essentially migrating it from a snapshot cycle to a frozen one, like in Linux Mint. The two distributions would then be more similar to each others. LMDE would gain in quality and attention to detail while requiring less maintenance. The pros and cons are being assessed at the moment. Don’t hesitate to use the section below if you want to comment on this or share your ideas with us.

Why use LMDE stable at all? LMDE stable seems more like Debian stable with a few additional packages, not like a distribution in its own right.

it is not explicitly stated but we can see that mint team have shifted from a distro maintainer into cinnamon's developer. they want to put all their works there.

[tek_heretik]

Mint XX and Ubuntu (both being based on Debian testing)

Umm, not exactly, it's a well known fact Canonical takes packages from Debian unstable and tweaks them so they'll work in the *buntus. Just sayin'.

This link is a bit old but it proves my point.

[py-thon]

Canonical takes packages from Debian unstable and tweaks them

That's strange. Normally you read that Ubuntu is based on Debian Testing, but it seems that this was only for some time, and only for LTS-versions. You are right, now even LTS is based on unstable: "Starting with the 14.04 LTS development cycle, automatic full package import is performed from Debian unstable" ( https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS )
So Mint is already based on Debian unstable (via Ubuntu) which would make LMDE stable lag even more.

it is not explicitly stated but we can see that mint team have shifted from a distro maintainer into cinnamon's developer. they want to put all their works there.

Would be a pity. I don't see an advantage of Cinnamon over other DEs. But development does not only take place on Cinnamon even though the development of the latter seems to have had negative side effects for users of other DEs as overall development (including LMDE) was affected.

[killer de bug]

So Mint is already based on Debian unstable (via Ubuntu) which would make LMDE stable lag even more.

Jessie, the next stable, will be ahead of Linux Mint 17 for at least 1 year... Of course, then it will far from Mint 18 for 1 year and then again ahead...

[JosephM]

it is not explicitly stated but we can see that mint team have shifted from a distro maintainer into cinnamon's developer. they want to put all their works there.

I'm sorry but that's complete nonsense. Do some devs focus mainly on Cinnamon? Sure, because it's what they use everyday and what they choose to work on. Cinnamon is also the only desktop actually maintained by the MInt team so it's there job to handle development. All the Mint tools, including those shared across all DE's have been getting attention. Things like the Update Manager, Locale settings, Mint Menu, and MDM just to name a few. You should have some actual information to back up these kinds of statements before spreading them around.

[py-thon]

Jessie, the next stable, will be ahead of Linux Mint 17 for at least 1 year...

Not necessarily, some packages take a long time from sid to stable. And even if they finally got to stable Jessie (or LMDE stable) would only be ahead of Mint 17 but neither ahead nor on par with Ubuntu 15.04 or SolydXK.

[killer de bug]

You should have some actual information to back up these kinds of statements before spreading them around.

Hi JosephM! You're courageous.

And even if they finally got to stable Jessie (or LMDE stable) would only be ahead of Mint 17 but neither ahead nor on par with Ubuntu 15.04 or SolydXK.

Sorry to inform you that neither Ubuntu 15.04 nor SolydXK are of interest for Mint team... Thus I don't see what this distro are doing in this topic...

[py-thon]

Sorry to inform you that neither Ubuntu 15.04 nor SolydXK are of interest for Mint team...

One should always take an interest in competitors, unless you already know all there is to know in your field.

Thus I don't see what this distro are doing in this topic...

Never mind, everyone else does.

[killer de bug]

One should always take an interest in competitors, unless you already know all there is to know in your field.

Yeahhh sure... Ubuntu 15.04 is not a LTS version, thus the Mint team will not use it.
SolydXK, Debian based Gnu/Linux distribution with XFCE and KDE desktop env... Exactly what LMDE is, isn't it?

[yatesco]

I've not been here at Mint long, but I have been around a number of online communities and one thing I know is that nothing kills a thriving community or puts people off getting involved as animosity.

I keep coming across questionable interactions where sarcasm, point scoring and ego trips are clearly in play which is such a shame as the initial adrenaline rush is absolutely minute compared to the never-ending damage they do everytime somebody new reads them. Those posts never, ever go away.

Please let's try and build a community that we are all proud of; as everybody's old mum used to say, "if you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say it"!

Here endeth the lesson .

[xenopeek]

Well said yatesco

And let's not get distracted here; It's not a race to run the latest versions of packages. Stability, long term support, low maintenance, and reduction of workload for the developers are under consideration. Stability, long term support, and low maintenance would be benefits for LMDE users--reduction of workload for the developers would benefit all Linux Mint users, freeing up time to work more on Mint tools, Cinnamon, and MATE.

[computer noob]

Just the opposite, it would be even more so a rolling. 100% completely rollling. Not quite as cutting edge but that would be the trade off, newish and flakey or somewhat stale but totally dependable.

So Stable LMDE would be rolling? Meaning you'd never have to install again? How would that work? I was under the impression that Stable was like LTS, and you'd have to reinstall every few years.

[kurotsugi]

Things like the Update Manager, Locale settings, Mint Menu, and MDM just to name a few. You should have some actual information to back up these kinds of statements before spreading them around.

I can give you a better list

Code: Select all

p   mintbackup                      - Home Directory Backup Tool                
p   mintconfig-xfce                 - The Linux Mint Control Center             
p   mintdesktop                     - Desktop configuration tool                
p   mintdesktop-xfce                - Extra settings for Linux Mint XFCE CE     
p   mintinstall                     - Software Manager                          
p   mintinstall-icons               - Icons for the Software Manager            
p   mintmenu                        - Advanced Gnome menu                       
p   mintnanny                       - Domain blocker for Linux Mint             
p   mintsources                     - Software Sources configuration tool       
p   mintstick                       - Tool to write .img and .iso files to USB s
p   mintsystem                      - Linux Mint System Base Package            
p   mintupdate-debian               - Update Manager                            
p   mintupload                      - Uploads files on the Internet             
p   mintwelcome                     - Welcome screen for Linux Mint             
p   mintwifi                        - Collection of drivers for you to configure

when did these stuffs got last update? I'm not sure anyone can remember since they haven't been touched long time ago. there are indeed some sarcasm behind my "shifted into cinnamon developer" but it's true that most the focus of mint team is currently on cinnamon. do you ever heard any development on the other "mint stuffs"? my backup? I'll tell you the story of LMDE. LMDE got bad treatment since long time ago, long UP period, no security updates, no fix for bugs, you can name it. after 9 months long without system maintenance a user create this thread http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 1&t=143543

FYI, that wasn't the first and neither the last. the issue got heated because some people in the community who can't stand how mint team manage LMDE take over LMDE KDE + XFCE version and create their own distro, and seems to quite succesful with their project. at that time I was on the "mint side" and trying keep the "riot" down. when we were advocating this issue into mint team they said "we're currently focusing on the main version and cinnamon, sorry". sure, we accepted that argument since they promised that LMDE will get a better management after they moved into ubuntu LTS version. we were expecting that their statement means that LMDE will get more attention, a better UP and they'll treat LMDE as a proper distro. we haven't got UP 9 yet. but, as you already knew, they suddenly want to move LMDE into stable and focusing into their "developmental side of things". the same pattern got repated. when we asked "why?" now they remove "maintaining main version" but they keep "cinnamon" as their excuse. sounds like they want to abandon their job for maintaining this distro for me. if you're a long time user of LMDE you'll feel that cinnamon is more important for them. they didn't care about leaving the user without system maintainance, bug fix and security patch up to 9 months. as long as cinnamon is alive, that's good for them.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewforum.php?f=228

if you want to talk community side of LMDE, please take a look into LMDE's community above. as you can see, the main section is flooded with "oh no...it's broken. help me". the real community where people chat and socialize is LMDE+testing (http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 8&t=132747) and LMDE+sid (http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 39#p896539). historically LMDE is born as rolling release distro alternative from arch. as I've stated before, it's originally a pure debian testing with mint "taste". later, we move into UP system but we keep the one who follow testing and sid as integral part of LMDE community. on other hand, if you see this issue on the UP user side, lots of user have moved away when this rumour spreaded. I'm not sure if I should happy when they said "we did it for the user". it sounds funny when they said they do care the LMDE user and planning the move for the user benefit but at the same moment they prepared several scenario and one of it is "abandon" LMDE until jessie becomes stable.

[KBD47]

If LMDE becomes based upon Debian Stable it will not be a rolling release.
Yet vanilla Debian Stable is Upgradeable to the next Stable release version. I think LMDE should also be upgradeable if based upon Stable. That is one of the questions I hope the Mint team answers when they make their decision. I like the idea of not having to reinstall, and that is how Debian Stable works:
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debia ... te.en.html

[killer de bug]

I can give you a better list

Code: Select all

p   mintbackup                      - Home Directory Backup Tool                
p   mintconfig-xfce                 - The Linux Mint Control Center             
p   mintdesktop                     - Desktop configuration tool                
p   mintdesktop-xfce                - Extra settings for Linux Mint XFCE CE     
p   mintinstall                     - Software Manager                          
p   mintinstall-icons               - Icons for the Software Manager            
p   mintmenu                        - Advanced Gnome menu                       
p   mintnanny                       - Domain blocker for Linux Mint             
p   mintsources                     - Software Sources configuration tool       
p   mintstick                       - Tool to write .img and .iso files to USB s
p   mintsystem                      - Linux Mint System Base Package            
p   mintupdate-debian               - Update Manager                            
p   mintupload                      - Uploads files on the Internet             
p   mintwelcome                     - Welcome screen for Linux Mint             
p   mintwifi                        - Collection of drivers for you to configure

when did these stuffs got last update? I'm not sure anyone can remember since they haven't been touched long time ago. there are indeed some sarcasm behind my "shifted into cinnamon developer" but it's true that most the focus of mint team is currently on cinnamon.

According to this wonderful link, mintsystem was updated 2 days ago, mintsources 3 days ago, mintupdate 5 days ago, mintupdate-debian 10 days ago, mintinstall 10 days ago... I will stop here, I really think it's enough to prove that you are (again) totally wrong...

Yet vanilla Debian Stable is Upgradeable to the next Stable release version. I think LMDE should also be upgradeable if based upon Stable.

For sure it will. That's one of the reason to use Debian.

[Monsta]

sure, we accepted that argument since they promised that LMDE will get a better management after they moved into ubuntu LTS version.

I don't remember such a statement. Can you post a link to that promise?

[xfrank]

For sure it will. That's one of the reason to use Debian.

This is the key point for many people to stay with LMDE: once installed, not ever have to reinstall it.

[tek_heretik]

Just the opposite, it would be even more so a rolling. 100% completely rollling. Not quite as cutting edge but that would be the trade off, newish and flakey or somewhat stale but totally dependable.

So Stable LMDE would be rolling? Meaning you'd never have to install again? How would that work? I was under the impression that Stable was like LTS, and you'd have to reinstall every few years.

OK, somebody, anybody, correct me if I'm wrong...If you have a Debian stable install and update it regularly, by the time the next official 'release' comes along (in this case, Jessie 8.0), because of the regular updates, your install is already at the next release level, maybe with the exception of a few packages on release day, like the one that changes your OS description to read Debian GNU/Linux 8.0 from 7.x. It's a gradual upgrade as opposed to a machine that never gets maintenance.

Edit: See xenopeek's post following this one, apparently I was wrong, oopsy.

[xenopeek]

Nope. You've completely misunderstood how Debian works. Overgeneralizing, but Debian stable only gets fixes added to its software repository--no new major versions of software, only minor versions to fix security issues for example.

To illustrate, here's the guide to upgrade from Debian 6 to Debian 7 (old-stable to stable) from Debian 7's release notes: https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/ ... ading.html

I also recommend you read this chapter in the Debian Administrator's Handbook, to understand the lifecycle of a Debian release: http://debian-handbook.info/browse/stab ... cycle.html