Linux Mint Forums

I'm creating my own distro. I'm pretty much learning everything on the fly and had a question. Mint is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian. Am I correct in assuming that, in this case, the mint sources take precedence and default to the Ubuntu packages when no mint alternative is available and same situation Ubuntu to Debian.

Does every distro compile everything themselves? That doesn't make sense to me.

The purpose of the question is, in mint when using synaptic to view sources list (or at the file) as I recall it is all Linux mint named, as Ubuntu is all named Ubuntu (like, Ubuntu multiverse) how would I do the same, rename everything to my distro name and such? What all is involved? And answers would be greatly appreciated.

You can set the priority of repositories in APT (the Debian package manager; which all the front-ends like Software Manager, Synaptic, aptitude and apt-get use). If the same package is available in multiple repositories, the repository with highest priority takes precedence. This is what Linux Mint does, it sets the priority for the Linux Mint repository higher than that of the Ubuntu repository.

As an example, have a look at the /etc/apt/preferences file on Linux Mint, and see the apt_preferences manpage to better understand (or also search the Debian wiki: http://wiki.debian.org/).

AFAIK, Ubuntu does recompile all packages they import from Debian. Linux Mint only provides the packages they add (those missing from the Ubuntu repository) or those for which they deliver a different version. Some of those packages (like the Linux Mint developed applications) will also be compiled and packaged by the Linux Mint developers. Some of those packages (like MATE for example) are compiled and packaged by others, and just imported into the Linux Mint repository as-is.

You can browse the Linux Mint repositories here: http://packages.linuxmint.com/

thank you very much for the explanation. It's greatly appreciated.