Do the Linux Mint Devs support LMDE tracking stable?

[RHTopics]

I decided to stay with Squeeze, now Debian 6.0.1, rather than track with testing.

After applying the last upgrade package for network-manager, my Mobile Broadband selection disappears in the nm-applet after disconnecting from an active Mobile Broadband connection.

I also have a Debian 6.0.1 installation which exhibits the same problem, so it is definitely a Debian bug.

Are the Linux Mint Developers interested in this bug, or should I report it directly to the Debian bug reporting system?

[rivenathos]

When you decided to stick with Squeeze for your LMDE, did you make sure to enable all the Levels 1 - 5 for your packages?

[RHTopics]

Using sudo I do apt-get update and then apt-get dist-upgrade from the command line, so it grabs everything that needs to be upgraded.

[rivenathos]

Good. I just wanted to validate you were fully updated. I have one hard drive tracking LMDE Stable and one hard drive tracking LMDE Testing. I cannot duplicate the error you have on my Stable LMDE, but I have different hardware. Normally, an update in Stable is extremely safe.

Continuing thinking out loud, how do your sources look? Mine are:

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deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-updates main contrib non-free
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org squeeze main non-free
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main contrib non-free

I cannot guarantee my sources will work for you, but I have not had anything explode on me yet.

[RHTopics]

This is my sources.list:

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deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian squeeze main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org squeeze main non-free

It does not include these two from your list:

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deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-updates main contrib non-free
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main contrib non-free

What is your version of network-manager? Mine is:

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network-manager 0.8.1-6+squeeze1

[RHTopics]

An update.

I added from your sources.list:

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deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-updates main contrib non-free

to my sources.list.

Did another apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade.

Had one new upgrade package show up for tzdata.

Update 2:

I downgraded network-manager from:

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network-manager_0.8.1-6+squeeze1_i386.deb

to:

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network-manager_0.8.1-6_i386.deb

My problem no longer occurs using the previous version of network manager.

[rivenathos]

I have the same network-manager package (0.8.1-6+squeeze1) that you do. The behavior you see must be specific to your particular hardware. Usually, another security update will be released if there are any bugs/glitches discovered.

Some people use "wicd" instead of "network-manager." I use wicd in Xfce with no problem. If you switch to wicd in your LMDE, APT will remove network-manager stuff as it installs wicd. I am not suggesting this is something you need to do, but that people do switch with no problems.

The new "squeeze-updates" repo is what used to be called the "volatile" repository where programs such as Clam AV and other packages needing periodic updates were obtained.

The backports repository is where you can eventually get some updated applications such as LibreOffice that are compiled specifically for Squeeze. I have not installed anything from the Squeeze backports as yet, so I cannot say how it is working. I know it was fine with Lenny.

[RHTopics]

My Mobile Broadband device is Novatel MC760 USB modem. It connects through Virgin Mobile (Broadband2Go), which uses Sprint's CDMA 3G network.

With the current version of network-manager (0.8.1-6+squeeze1), I could re-establish the available connection by removing/re-inserting the USB modem or by issuing the following command:

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sudo /etc/init.d/network-manager restart

I decided to downgrade to the previous version which I still had in my /var/cache/apt/archives directory.

Which gets me back to my original question. Do you think the Linux Mint Devs would be concerned about this problem?

Testing now uses a newer version of network-manager and may not have this problem.

Just wondering should I submit a bug report in Linux Mint Launchpad and/or submit a bug report in the Debian bug reporting system?

Thank you for your replies to my post.

[rivenathos]

Well, downgrading to the previous version of network-manager is certainly a good option - especially since it works.

I am unsure if the Mint developers are worried about Debian Squeeze/Stable since the true LMDE is tracking Testing. Keeping LMDE tracking Stable is a personal choice, but not certain if Mint will support that method in the long run (with the MInt repository).

Submitting to the Debian bug-tracking might be an option, but I am not positive how they are dealing with derivatives such as LMDE right now - especially when LMDE is focused on Testing instead of Stable.

Since Debian Stable/Squeeze is only going to get security updates, there really will not be that many updates to worry about. If you see where network-manager is requesting to update, just set it to pin the version you want or ignore that one update. You will figure out the best update method for your needs whether it is MintUpdate with all 5 levels, Synaptic, or via the command line.

Just for the record, when I update Debian Stable, I use:

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aptitude update
aptitude safe-upgrade