Linux Mint 12, and beyond?

[linuxviolin]

I'd personally love to see Mint go with Debian base full time

I guess you're not alone on this. And I could agree with that too. But maybe Stable should be the best for this...

[Nick_Djinn]

I would jump on the LMDE bandwagon IF...

1. Hardware support matched Ubuntu....Mandrake/PCLOS has some of the best hardware support, but Ubuntu still trumps Debian.

2. Driver installers were ported to Debian. I know you can use the CLI, but you have to log out of X which means no cheats. Not everyone is a hacker who loves wasting time for fun. Even people who know what they are doing value their time.....and its worse when some of the drivers dont work at all, causing frustration and making you continue to retry your steps in vain......Point and click driver installation is mandatory for a general population OS.

3. You need more repos. If somebody wants all free software they can go to the source. If somebody wants Mint on a Debian base, they are going to expect youtube videos to work OoTB, are going to want more repos, and may even want some proprietary goodies.



I hate to say it, but when PCLOS goes 64bit I think that is going to be the end of my Ubuntu days, maybe even the end of my debain days. Mandrivas biggest weakness is the package management tools, but PCLOS uses Synaptic that most of us seem fond of. My Wacom bamboo pen and touch worked out of the box. They even had a distro from 2010 that might be hard to find but it used the KDE panel and widgets with E17 as a Window Manager.....It was the best looking OS I have ever seen, and better functioning than that hybrid XFCE/E17 with thunar that everyone seems to implement.....I just install that on my older laptop and let it update since its a rolling release. 32bit only, which means it wont support my 8gb of ram on my newer laptop or desktop. I rarely go over 4.5gb, but I often go over 3.2


Im a little sad that Mint is dropping KDE to Debian.....and I hate to say it, but Debian isnt "easier to maintain"...so much as its 'easier NOT to maintain'. Straight Debian is customized as a server distro and a base. Its not fine tuned for desktop use, yet.

How about Mint keeps an Ubuntu distro, unless they want to switch to use Mandriva or Black Panther Linux as their base, and creates something like KDE with the E17 window manager? That was really the best looking distro I have seen......Drop Gnome entirely if its so buggy.


Mint 11 was the first time Mint was buggy and crashing for me. I dont blame Mint though, I blame the shift to Unity.

[AlbertP]

It's easier to maintain for the Mint team so I understand the decision. The update packs have made it some easy for users too, but still Debian is not the perfect base for everyone.

[tdockery97]

I have personally come to prefer the Debian Testing base over the Ubuntu base. LMDE has been perfectly stable for me for many, many months now with no breakages. I do, however, use the Debian way of apt-get update/upgrade/dist-upgrade rather than the new Mint update pack system. So far I have suffered none of the breakages that those using the update packs have suffered. I suspect much of that breakage is being caused by holding back updates until there is nearly 1GB at once to update. Of course I have to settle for using Firefox 5 instead of 7 and KDE 4.6.5 instead of 4.7, but I do have the stability I desire.

[linuxviolin]

I have personally come to prefer the Debian Testing base over the Ubuntu base.

Hmm, I guess Stable would be better. Testing, and although you have not experienced breakages from what you say, is a somewhat risky base and if Mint used Testing as base I fear it will loose the less technical/advanced users, newbies, who would not be able to cope to their system if this one has some issues, crashes, breakages... Mint would risk to loose users and to become a more "technical" distro for more "advanced" users. Not at all, I guess, the Clem goal for Mint at the beginning. And the distro would be probably less popular.

[zerozero]

debian stable is a too old base to build an attractive system upon (imho) and i feel that the average mint user wants more up-to-date applications available; and unfortunately the backports don't work that well because don't have a large of apks;

testing is, i think, the right balance, and specially now with the update-packs, users can be sure to have a safe update, specially if they keep tracking latest.

[craig10x]

debian stable is a too old base to build an attractive system upon (imho) and i feel that the average mint user wants more up-to-date applications available; and unfortunately the backports don't work that well because don't have a large of apks;

testing is, i think, the right balance, and specially now with the update-packs, users can be sure to have a safe update, specially if they keep tracking latest.

has "latest" been stable? If one tracks it now can you be reasonably sure you won't get breakage? just curious
i had posted a new thread about that, but so far hadn't gotten any replies...i was starting to wonder if anyone was tracking "latest" on the LMDE update packs

[NicolasRobidoux]

Clem and his gang seem to understand "usability."

They are not chasing the smart phone/tablet golden floss, nor are they targeting servers.

I'm also guessing that they know by now that their fan base is more comfortable with "evolution" than "revolution." And that "dumb" is good, but "dumber" is not.

Forecast: Mint 12 will be just fine.

[zerozero]

craig, i can't tell you i never tracked latest myself; testing yes and is stable enough for me, sid as well and is fairly stable, but when it breaks, breaks big time and i have 1 partition following incoming (so the bug-hunter for latest) and all the update-pack have been boring

[craig10x]

then it sounds like tracking "latest" should be even more boring, zerozero...that kind of "boring" i like
also, if anyone who is tracking latest..will love your input of course...

[linuxviolin]

testing yes and is stable enough for me, sid as well and is fairly stable

sid "fairly stable"? This could be disputable... About Testing, "stable enough" for you, maybe, yes, and "enough" is the word, but maybe/probably not for less technical/advanced users, newbies... as I said.

[monkeyboy]

There will always be a group of users who won't be able to deal with any level of instability regardless of how minor it is. No Linux distro can be easy, stable or familiar enough to meet all the expectations of all potential users. While Linux is much easier for a new user to manage then it was a few years ago I doubt it will ever be the point and click model some folks seem to want. So one of the questions for me is what is the lowest comm on denominator Linux needs to shoot for.

[ElderSnake]

Of course I have to settle for using Firefox 5 instead of 7 and KDE 4.6.5 instead of 4.7, but I do have the stability I desire.

That's not a bad thing at all IMO.

I've used KDE 4.6.5 on Debian and it was absolutely rock solid and a pleasure to use. I've found 4.7 to have some annoying regressions myself, at least for the time being. As for Firefox, I've barely noticed any changes since 5 anyway

[gosa]

then it sounds like tracking "latest" should be even more boring, zerozero...that kind of "boring" i like
also, if anyone who is tracking latest..will love your input of course...

The latest RC is tracking Latest, right?

- If so I've been on it for about two weeks, and although my time for any extensive use (testing) have been quite limited since my daughter was born the 22nd of August I haven't really encountered any weird stuff so far in my "daily" use (it's my main OS). The only issue I have so far is that I'm not allowed to install Handbrake - some things with dependencies getting messed up because of stuff getting held back while being tested by the guys tracking Incoming and other stuff coming directly from the Debian Multimedia repositories needing what's held back. But as far as I understand that will be fixed - I think - in Update Pack 3.

Another thing that people have complained about is Flash, but for me that got fixed by a recent update (think it came last week).

So all in all I'm quite happy with my install for now...

[craig10x]

Thanks gosa...and congrats by the way about the new daughter
Yes, that is helpful...if you installed the RC you are tracking "latest" by default (i believe that is the way Clem set it up on the RC)....

I did notice the "flash" problem while running a live session of the RC dvd...glad to hear a fix came down for it....I am waiting on the final release iso to check it out and consider whether i want to install (i tried LMDE in the past but got discouraged with various breakages i had but when i read about improvements to the updater and the packs i started to consider again)....

Appreciate that and any other observations anyone might post about this...

[craig10x]

By the way (i think zerozero would have this or tdockery97) what is the link for the mirrors page where the LMDE final iso will first appear?....i had it but can't seem to find it...thanks (i see Clem has just approved it for release)...

Now i guess he will be thinking about mint 12 and how to make it minty with gnome 3...

[zerozero]

well they are already here

[craig10x]

well they are already here

Cool...thanks

[craig10x]

downloaded the LMDE gnome 64 bit iso but i think it may be a bad image that they uploaded...i burned in k3b at slow speed and got a "coaster" and i like NEVER get a coaster using k3b

and yes...checked the md5 sum and it matched...

*Update: I tried the link to the yellow fiber mirror and that image worked...i was able to successfully burn the iso dvd...the problem one was on the heanet mirror...

[theremper]

1. Hardware support matched Ubuntu....Mandrake/PCLOS has some of the best hardware support, but Ubuntu still trumps Debian.

You are correct

2. Driver installers were ported to Debian. I know you can use the CLI, but you have to log out of X which means no cheats. Not everyone is a hacker who loves wasting time for fun. Even people who know what they are doing value their time.....and its worse when some of the drivers dont work at all, causing frustration and making you continue to retry your steps in vain......Point and click driver installation is mandatory for a general population OS.

You are incorrect.

3. You need more repos. If somebody wants all free software they can go to the source. If somebody wants Mint on a Debian base, they are going to expect youtube videos to work OoTB, are going to want more repos, and may even want some proprietary goodies.

You tube and videos do work out of the box

I hate to say it, but when PCLOS goes 64bit I think that is going to be the end of my Ubuntu days, maybe even the end of my debain days. Mandrivas biggest weakness is the package management tools, but PCLOS uses Synaptic that most of us seem fond of. My Wacom bamboo pen and touch worked out of the box. They even had a distro from 2010 that might be hard to find but it used the KDE panel and widgets with E17 as a Window Manager.....It was the best looking OS I have ever seen, and better functioning than that hybrid XFCE/E17 with thunar that everyone seems to implement.....I just install that on my older laptop and let it update since its a rolling release. 32bit only, which means it wont support my 8gb of ram on my newer laptop or desktop. I rarely go over 4.5gb, but I often go over 3.2

that is one of the beautiful things of Linux. Choice

Im a little sad that Mint is dropping KDE to Debian.....and I hate to say it, but Debian isnt "easier to maintain"...so much as its 'easier NOT to maintain'. Straight Debian is customized as a server distro and a base. Its not fine tuned for desktop use, yet.


LMDE is very fine tuned for desktop


How about Mint keeps an Ubuntu distro, unless they want to switch to use Mandriva or Black Panther Linux as their base, and creates something like KDE with the E17 window manager? That was really the best looking distro I have seen......Drop Gnome entirely if its so buggy.

Again the beauty of Linux

Mint 11 was the first time Mint was buggy and crashing for me. I dont blame Mint though, I blame the shift to Unity.[/quote]

Could also be your hardware the drivers from Ubuntu