It's More Than Time for a NEW LMDE Re-spin...

[thomasmc]

Hell if I can keep Debian sid running on the same system without reinstalling since Feb 2004 anyone can.

May the gods of Karma take note of your complete lack of sympathy for others.

[h2-1]

From my experience, and precisely because of the expanding update sizes (someone on irc last night had a 1.5 gigabyte update on Debian Sid), if you are going to have a rolling release iso, you really have to have it be released at a bare minimum 3x yearly, 4x is better. The larger the upgrade, the higher the risk of a clash or break that requires basically non-scalable support to resolve.

In other words, I think clem should give some thought to just auto-spinnning the release isos for LMDE, and not tie them to any particular feature or new development. Otherwise as a distro that's supposed to be user friendly the initial experience after 1 month from iso release becomes increasingly bad and unpleasant.

I speak as someone who was deeply involved in supporting actively the issues that come about from rolling release. The worst of those, of course, are seen in Sid, but even in Testing you'll see bugs and glitches on updates. So the less the initial update has to handle, the better off the end user was. smxi, of course, was explicitly designed to deliver real time patches and fixes to create a fairly seamless true rolling release experience, so that project gave me an unfortunately deep understanding of the realworld issues rolling releases present users. We had amazing success, by the way, with this when the group was actually cohesive and not backbiting etc, really major scale success, it was increasing steadily, there's a major group of people out there who are smart and can handle rolling releases, and who want Debian, but they do not want to deal with the geek side of things, ie, they have real lives and they want their systems to run, but they also want them reasonably current.

By the way, not that my vote counts, but I hope that the idea of trying to maintain part of Testing as a Mint pool is a false rumour, that's a horrible idea, totally impractical, a huge amount of work. Even maintaining a few packages after a while stops being fun, so I really hope that was just a false reported, untrue rumor. Debian works best when debian is the core, after that you are just duplicating effort and expanding the potential bug trigger pool, a pool that's already hard enough to get across.

Keep in mind also the true character of Debian Testing: Debian Sid is the debugging and package failure detection pool for Debian Testing, when ready to go, Sid packages go to Testing, which is itself the holding pool for the next Debian Stable. Because the primary release here is Stable, Testing is not a true rolling release, like Arch or Gentoo are, but is rather an intermittently rolling release, with frozen periods that can last up to 1 year. This difference is a challenge to explain to users, since the release is actually not truly rolling, only somewhat, and when it moves from stable freeze back to relatively rolling, that is a very bumpy time that really requires a lot of delivered fixes to create an actually running live rolling release system on a large scale. Or relatively large.

By the way, craigevil provides support on multiple forums, including debian's, to regular users of all kinds, and has never pulled the 'geek' thing, he's really meaning what he says, if he can do it, so can anyone else. However, he's also being a bit humble there, he's actually very skilled at debian systems, so his knowledge level is quite a bit above average, but he might now and then forget this. So it's not true that he doesn't have empathy for others, google his name, he's supported others for years now, all over the internet.

[ddavid123]

@ddavid123...From what i read, i think what you would be doing is "pointing" your updates toward the mint snapshot updates INSTEAD of using the default which of course is pointing toward debian testing...You would be getting your updates from MINT instead of Debian...So when updates would come down (let's say around 1x a month) from Mint, that is when you would see updates available to download....
So yes, you would be changing your repos to mints instead...

I think the main reason why PcLinuxOs is considered one of the most stable and trouble free rolling distros is because the guy that runs it (texstar) maintains COMPLETE monitoring and control over the updates coming down for it...This would be a way (though certainly less frequently then PcLinuxOs does it) to strive for that same kind of stability and trouble free that you unfortunately do not get from debian testing..

Does this mean all software installed on LMDE is pulled directly from Linux Mint snapshot, or from the debian testing repos? Does this "snapshot" contain just security and bug updates, or is it a complete repo?

[craig10x]

From it's description it sounds like it would be a complete repo, including program updates and the like, which would come directly from mint repos instead of debian testing and i would assume it would be screened for bugs or problems so that at least in theory, you should get more stable and bug free updates...I think this is what Clem is aiming for although it hasn't been explained in explicit detail yet...Just the impression i get from his statements about it...

In other words, instead of you taking your chances pulling direct from debian testing, Mint would be pre-screening them for you...but of course to do that you wouldn't be getting daily updates, probably more like a big package of monthly updates after mint has looked them over...Sounds much safer to me if it works...

[chrisinspace]

There's a lot of talk about making LMDE easier for newbies. While I'm all for attracting new users to the Linux desktop, I was under the impression that LMDE was an experimental Mint release intended for more savvy users. I often install or recommend the standard Ubuntu-based version of Mint for inexperienced Linux users, but I would not do so with LMDE. I see LMDE as a project to add a little polish to a distro that requires a bit more Linux knowledge. The upside of LMDE is that it is more efficient with resources and customizable if you know what you're doing.

[craig10x]

That is probably why (from my understanding) PcLinuxOs works very well as a rolling distro that IS newbie friendly...it is very easy to install
(has auto install options)...pretty smooth and easy to configure...and all the updates that come down are controlled and monitored by them...so the user doesn't need to be a technogeek to keep it running smoothly...

Only if Clem could do that for LMDE would it be a true "newbie friendly" distro that someone coming to linux for the first time could probably use...Otherwise, i couldn't agree more, Standard Mint is the best for newbies, non-techies and those that want a pretty "headache free" experience

[tdockery97]

Having installed LMDE for a neighbor who is "technologically challenged", I can say that it can be very newbie friendly...IF you set the repos to Squeeze and not Testing.

[chrisinspace]

@tdockery...That's a great idea and, I think, a much better solution than trying to maintain a separate repo specifically for LMDE. If Clem created and maintained a new repo (which sounds like an enormous amount of extra work), then the distro would cease to be Linux Mint Debian Edition. It would be it's own distro that is a Debian derivative, like Ubuntu. Sounds like a duplication of the main Mint distro.

It couldn't hurt to update the ISO once in a while, but we have to cut the devs a break. I'm so glad they started the LMDE project, but I understand that Mint's priority is their main Ubuntu-based release. I'm actually amazed that they have the time and talent to maintain so many variants and keep up the quality I have seen in those that I've tried. Maybe someone from the community could spin a new ISO with remastersys or something like that from time to time.

[craig10x]

Or perhaps Debian Stable with access to newer applications? I think someone mentioned you can have that...

[nunol]

Or perhaps Debian Stable with access to newer applications? I think someone mentioned you can have that...

Debian stable with ppa. I think Debian talked about that recently.

[renatortb]

From it's description it sounds like it would be a complete repo, including program updates and the like, which would come directly from mint repos instead of debian testing and i would assume it would be screened for bugs or problems so that at least in theory, you should get more stable and bug free updates...I think this is what Clem is aiming for although it hasn't been explained in explicit detail yet...Just the impression i get from his statements about it...

In other words, instead of you taking your chances pulling direct from debian testing, Mint would be pre-screening them for you...but of course to do that you wouldn't be getting daily updates, probably more like a big package of monthly updates after mint has looked them over...Sounds much safer to me if it works...

From what I understand, this new repository would be a place where the more mature packages from testing would be sent ... Is that right? There would only be a screening and forwarding?

I'm new in here and i wonder if there is a place where Clem writes what he's thinking for the LM. If not, this would be a great idea ... Because we would not have this waiting anxiety... hehehehe

[vrkalak]

I'm new in here and i wonder if there is a place where Clem writes what he's thinking for the LM. If not, this would be a great idea ... Because we would not have this waiting anxiety... hehehehe

I can tell that you're not from around here.

Clem reads and often posts on the LinuxMint Forums > http://forums.linuxmint.com
Clem has made and uses the LinuxMint Community Forums > http://community.linuxmint.com/
Clem writes a Blog for us and updates it often > http://blog.linuxmint.com/
Clem is regularly on the LinuxMint-IRC chats and interacts with members > #linuxmint-chat, #linuxmint-help #linuxmint-debian @ irc.spotchat.org

Besides, maintaining the main LinuxMint site > http://linuxmint.com

I believe that Clem goes out of his way, to 'Keep us Informed' about the goings on and development of LinuxMint and it's various versions and releases.

[nunol]

Or perhaps Debian Stable with access to newer applications? I think someone mentioned you can have that...

Debian stable with ppa. I think Debian talked about that recently.

Here is some info about the discussion on Debian ppa and rolling distro: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-an ... 00000.html

[graeme]

Resurrecting this thread because we still have this problem.

At the moment installing Linux MInt requires downloading it once to get the install disk, and then again for every install because most of the OS gets updated (unless you know how to avoid it AND that you need to do it).

It also needs the new MInt update and repos before you can update (because a fresh install gives you the "broken packages" message).

PCLinuxOS releases new ISOs four times a year, whereas Mint Debian ISOs available for download at the moment are up to 8 months old.

We are not asking for the equivalent of more frequent releases of the Ubuntu based Mint: just more frequent snapshots of what is there.

A rolling release distro needs either frequently updated ISOs or an installer that gets the latest packages from the repo in the first place. Debian does both.

[tdockery97]

A rolling release distro needs either frequently updated ISOs or an installer that gets the latest packages from the repo in the first place. Debian does both.

+1