LMDE vs. Debian

[Doughbury]

I currently have Linux Mint GNOME on my desktop. I chose Mint because it is a production machine and I need it to be fast and reliable. I've been very happy with Mint since switching from Ubuntu, but the whole Unity vs. GNOME 3 has me looking at KDE. Now I see that KDE is going to be based on Debian testing, just as Xfce is. So, since I need a stable machine, I'm wondering should I install LM 12 KDE or Xfce on my machine when it comes out and change the repositories to Debian stable, or should I just cut out the middle man and go straight to Debian Squeeze KDE or Xfce? Essentially, I'm asking what is the difference between Debian and LMDE? Is it just the assortment of applications, codecs and window dressing? Do I loose out on anything by switching to Debian?

[xenopeek]

There was a recent blog post explaining what LMDE is bringing to the table: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1781. Basically, LMDE aims to bring stability to Debian testing. So you get much more recent versions of packages than with Debian stable, but the LM team tests any packages for a month before they are available as update to your system, so it will be more stable than Debian testing.

As noted in the monthly stats for July (http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1799), the Ubuntu based Linux Mint will roll Gnome and LXDE versions. You can always choose to install KDE on Linux Mint 12 however.

Going forward our project will support 2 desktops with a frozen Ubuntu base (Gnome and LXDE) and 4 desktops on top of a rolling Debian base (Gnome, KDE, Xfce and Fluxbox).

Personally, I welcome this increased focus on LMDE

If you have to choose, and you want an ultra stable machine, nobody is twisting your arm to upgrade You can stay at current version you have installed.

[viking777]

If my computer is anything to go by (fairly modern and reasonably specced) I would venture to suggest that about 75% of computers world wide won't run either Gnome3 or Unity anyway and will just default to a standard Gnome desktop. (you could ask what is the point of designing a desktop environment that most computers in the world can't run, but I couldn't possibly answer that as I am obviously not clever enough to see it, but then I wasn't clever enough to see why you would destroy the best desktop environment in the world to produce KDE4 either - and I am still not). So do you have anything to worry about? As long as you don't go out and buy a new computer any time soon then probably not. Even if you did it is perfectly possible to install alternative desktop environments over the top of existing ones right now, and I see no reason why it shouldn't be in the future either.

So no reason that I can see to move away from Mint, just don't update your hardware. That way you save money and get what you want both at the same time.

[secipolla]

And if you do want to point LMDE to squeeze then better you get the old LMDE/GNOME ISO and change the sources.list to squeeze before upgrading (the Xfce ISO is already post-squeeze).
But the Mint apps from the Mint repo will eventually break if you update them (they depend mostly on python and will follow python's progress in wheezy), so you probably should comment out the Mint repo line too.