LMDE vs Mint 13 for New Dell XPS 15?

[merc1973]

I was wondering what everyones opinion was about these two distros. Go with LMDE Mate/Cinnamon 64 bit or wait for LM 13? I know the basic difference with Debian vs Ubuntu and rolling updates vs Mint single release and LTS. I use LXDE 9 in my ancient laptop and netbook and love it. I now have a new, more powerful laptop, Dell XPS 15.
Dell XPS 15:
-Core i7 2670-qm
-1GB GeForce GT525m
-8 GB DDR3
-Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1030 with Bluetooth 3.0
-1TB HDD (5400 RPM)
-BluRay player

Which distro will be the best, or be able to utilize the new tech in this laptop? BTW, I'm not a PC-gamer, thats what my PS3 is for. Most likely a dual boot...

[Oscar799]

Moved here by moderator

[merc1973]

Moved here by moderator

Thank you.

[xenopeek]

Well, LMDE has the .iso refresh last month and LM13 hopefully later this month. I'd try both from the Live DVD and see which works best? Or install both (what is 6GB per installation if you have 1 TB disk ).

[merc1973]

I just installed dual boot with Win 7 last night, took about an hour so since I was taking my time with some interruptions. This was my first time using Debian partitioning, very interesting. Worked flawlessly, although it took me a while to figure how to switch between Cinnamon and MATE, noob... Can I "shrink" the Linux side of my HDD partition, since I used 1/2 for the install for when Mint 13 is released?

I used a combination install following these 2 links:
http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2011/04/23/how-to-dual-boot-linux-mint-debian-edition-and-windows-7/
http://helpsite.org/linux-mint-debian-edition/

[cwwgateway]

I was wondering what everyones opinion was about these two distros. Go with LMDE Mate/Cinnamon 64 bit or wait for LM 13? I know the basic difference with Debian vs Ubuntu and rolling updates vs Mint single release and LTS. I use LXDE 9 in my ancient laptop and netbook and love it. I now have a new, more powerful laptop, Dell XPS 15.
Dell XPS 15:
-Core i7 2670-qm
-1GB GeForce GT525m
-8 GB DDR3
-Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1030 with Bluetooth 3.0
-1TB HDD (5400 RPM)
-BluRay player

Which distro will be the best, or be able to utilize the new tech in this laptop? BTW, I'm not a PC-gamer, thats what my PS3 is for. Most likely a dual boot...

I also have a Dell XPS 15 (different specs - see my signature). LMDE is ok with mine, but Ubuntu 12.04 (and therefore Mint 13) seem to support pretty much everything. Here's a good link for getting it working with Ubuntu - http://hanynowsky.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/dell-xps-15-l502x-ubuntu-linux/. The things that have trouble - the HDMI port won't work with neither LMDE nor Mint 13, you have to install bumblebee (from the PPA) to get graphics working properly, and BluRay won't work, but otherwise everything works. I would do a dual boot if you want to still use the BluRay player. So there's Mint 13 that has the best support for now, but any extra support (for BluRay and optimus) most likely won't go to Mint 13. LMDE has less support now, but you will always have the best support possible - extra support will come through updates. It's your choice. Also, yes, you can shrink the LMDE partition to install Linux Mint, but you can only have 4 primary partitions, so make sure you use an extended partition.

[dr_worm]

http://hanynowsky.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/dell-xps-15-l502x-ubuntu-linux/[/url]. The things that have trouble - the HDMI port won't work with neither LMDE nor Mint 13, you have to install bumblebee (from the PPA) to get graphics working properly, and BluRay won't work, but otherwise everything works.

Hi mate, I basically have the same laptop as you I think (inc. the 540M). Haven't had any luck with bumblebee so far. The install instructions aren't super friendly for a newbie, so I hope you don't mind me asking you whether you use Bumblebee with the nVidea proprietry drivers, or Nouveau or something else?

The laptop seams to run hot and noisey at the best of times, so anything that can calm it down would be a real bonus.

Cheers
DrW.