Is this the right order to get LMDE Stable?

[mikhou]

Hey guys,

I have been dual-booting LMDE Testing and Debian XFCE Testing for awhile now with Debian XFCE Testing being my primary OS. Well, I've got a new laptop on the way, and I am trying to figure out what to put on it as my primary OS. Having done it in the past, I would be completely comfortable with setting up Debian Testing XFCE, but frankly I'm feeling lazy. So I'm considering going with LMDE XFCE or Crunchbang XFCE. I'm leaning more toward LMDE XFCE, but here's my question. In the past I have run Testing, and I like it (a lot), but I live and work in a part of the world where my internet connection is not always very fast so sometimes having to download updates on a regular basis is kind of a pain. For that reason, I am considering switching to the Stable repos. If I go with LMDE XFCE, I am assuming that I would do this:

1. Install LMDE XFCE.
2. Before doing any updates, switch the repositories to Stable.
3. Run an update.

Here are my 2 other questions.

1. Could going backwards like this cause any issues?
2. Since XFCE 4.8 has hit the Testing repos, can I upgrade to XFCE 4.8 before switching to the stable repos, or would that cause an issue?

Thanks for your thoughts.

mikhou

[JasonLG]

Hey guys,

I have been dual-booting LMDE Testing and Debian XFCE Testing for awhile now with Debian XFCE Testing being my primary OS. Well, I've got a new laptop on the way, and I am trying to figure out what to put on it as my primary OS. Having done it in the past, I would be completely comfortable with setting up Debian Testing XFCE, but frankly I'm feeling lazy. So I'm considering going with LMDE XFCE or Crunchbang XFCE. I'm leaning more toward LMDE XFCE, but here's my question. In the past I have run Testing, and I like it (a lot), but I live and work in a part of the world where my internet connection is not always very fast so sometimes having to download updates on a regular basis is kind of a pain. For that reason, I am considering switching to the Stable repos. If I go with LMDE XFCE, I am assuming that I would do this:

1. Install LMDE XFCE.
2. Before doing any updates, switch the repositories to Stable.
3. Run an update.

Here are my 2 other questions.

1. Could going backwards like this cause any issues?
2. Since XFCE 4.8 has hit the Testing repos, can I upgrade to XFCE 4.8 before switching to the stable repos, or would that cause an issue?

Thanks for your thoughts.

mikhou

If you want a very stable system then yes your first set of steps are correct.

Updating and then switching your sources to stable would be pointless. Think about it for a minute. You would basically freeze your system at that point since stable will never reach the same version numbers as testing. If you want Xfce 4.8 stick with testing. If you want stability stick with stable.

[mikhou]

Well, that's kind of my question. I knew that if I installed and immediately upgraded before switching the sources.list to Stable that the packages would be to a point that Squeeze would never reach. I guess I should have asked a different question which is this. Does LMDE XFCE (since it is based on Testing) install with packages that Squeeze will never get to? If so, would it be better to go with Crunchbang because it is based on Squeeze or even just install Debian Squeeze and configure it?

I guess I'll go boot up LMDE XFCE on a flash drive and see at what level the packages are and compare them to the Squeeze package lists.

mikhou

[mikhou]

One other thing. So if I go with Squeeze, and I want a package that is not available in Squeeze (e.g., I use rapid-photo-downloader to download photos off of my camera), I just make sure that all of the dependencies are met and then install the package myself, right?

mikhou

[michaelzap]

I'd recommend that if you want a system that's based on the stable repos, you install Crunchbang or regular Debian instead and then add the Mint repo to your sources.lst and "Mintify" it. You can't go backwards from testing to stable, so you're going to have issues with updates if you try to do that. Stable runs very well and I had no issues while I was using it, but it does not have all the software that's in the testing repos (including Xfce 4.8), so I upgraded my main #! system to testing.

If you track stable, I think it's probably fine to install packages from the testing repos that are not in the stable repos, as long as they don't pull in a whole lot of potentially incompatible libraries. For example, when I was tracking stable I changed my sources to testing in order to install Synapse (which is not in the stable repos at all), and then I changed them back to stable. I wouldn't do that for something as extensive and essential as Xfce 4.8, however.

I had no issues installing from the Mint repo in Crunchbang tracking stable, so that's also probably a safe way to go.

[rizzeh]

I agree with michaelzap, far better option is to get plain debian or crunchbang and add Mint repo.
The next question will be what is in Mint repos that you want, apart from icons,wallpapers? I have LMDE on one of the laptops but haven't come across any useful tools that i can't apt-get on debian.

[JasonLG]

Well, that's kind of my question. I knew that if I installed and immediately upgraded before switching the sources.list to Stable that the packages would be to a point that Squeeze would never reach. I guess I should have asked a different question which is this. Does LMDE XFCE (since it is based on Testing) install with packages that Squeeze will never get to? If so, would it be better to go with Crunchbang because it is based on Squeeze or even just install Debian Squeeze and configure it?

I guess I'll go boot up LMDE XFCE on a flash drive and see at what level the packages are and compare them to the Squeeze package lists.

mikhou

The last iso of LMDE(GNOME) is a snapshot of testing before it was stabilized. If you install and switch your sources to stable then update/upgrade your system what you get is a Mintified Debian stable. There is no need to install Debian stable or crunchbang. As Far as Xfce is concerned I'm not sure if the last snapshot is before or after Squeeze was stabilized.