Dumped LMDE for now!

[bootmakr]

After multiple breaks in my LMDE and a couple too many installs, I've finally dumped LMDE on my laptop I still have in on my desktop though. I see LMDE as one of the best of the debian clones, and expect it to be possibly the best when it has more devs who have the time to devote their time to it, while others are developing LM, etc. I would be of no help to keep on using it and try to file bug reports, because I don't know how to file for one thing, and wouldn't know what's wrong for another. I will continue to monitor the boards and when LMDE comes into maturity, I will load it onto the laptop once again! Thanks

Dell D600
1.6MHz Intel processor.
1024Mb RAM

[Pythzor]

Hello,

Yes, I know what you mean. In the meantime, however, I recommend that you use Linux Mint 11 Katya. Mint 11 is the standard that LMDE currently aspires to. You won't be disappointed.

Cheers

[bootmakr]

Nah, I like Debians, but have never got along with *buntus . I even tried LM7 and Lisa, but neither flipped my switch. Tried sidux - too many arguments on their forums, obnixious mods; aptosid - sid doesn't get along with this lappy; Debian testing - can't stand Gnome; Desktop BSD - seems like a 'mac forum' rude, belligerent, RTFM types; PC-BSD that was nice, but not ready for prime time, and I don't like to have Linux and BSD on the same HDD (slices v. partitions); and now I'm back to antiX (testing - rolling release) until LMDE gets more stability then I'll be back.

[Bobbo]

Nah, I like Debians, but have never got along with *buntus . I even tried LM7 and Lisa, but neither flipped my switch. Tried sidux - too many arguments on their forums, obnixious mods; aptosid - sid doesn't get along with this lappy; Debian testing - can't stand Gnome; Desktop BSD - seems like a 'mac forum' rude, belligerent, RTFM types; PC-BSD that was nice, but not ready for prime time, and I don't like to have Linux and BSD on the same HDD (slices v. partitions); and now I'm back to antiX (testing - rolling release) until LMDE gets more stability then I'll be back.

Hello! I have a similar laptop to yours. It's a D505 but they are essentially the same blood and bone. Let me know your troubles and maybe I can be of some help. Don't give up just yet, LMDE is wonderful once you get things rolling

[Monsta]

LMDE is wonderful once you get things rolling

I wonder if "to get things rolling" means "to track debian testing repos"

[Bobbo]

LMDE is wonderful once you get things rolling

I wonder if "to get things rolling" means "to track debian testing repos"

UHOH! BUSTED!

Ok I've actually done that until the recent Update Pack 4 was released. Now it's all LMDE again! I think LMDE has a huge momentum at the moment.. ..um, it just keeps rolling!

[zerozero]

LMDE is wonderful once you get things rolling

I wonder if "to get things rolling" means "to track debian testing repos"

UHOH! BUSTED!

Ok I've actually done that until the recent Update Pack 4 was released. Now it's all LMDE again! I think LMDE has a huge momentum at the moment.. ..um, it just keeps rolling!

actually there's a few that think that the real lmde is the one tracking directly debian testing repos

[Monsta]

And there's nothing bad about it, Linux is about freedom, after all

[bootmakr]

Actually, I followed the Mint-Up-Dater packs for the first two packs, then I switched to Debian testing ...... that seemed to be where it would break. I eventually got one of the installs to update to the third MUD pack, but then went again to Debian testing - I broke it again ...... I even tried one where I didn't use the MUD packs but went directly to the Debian testing repos - it broke after the first dist-upgrade. I, personally, think that the MUD packs are a great idea, upgrades/dist-uppgrades are tailor made for that particular Debian-clone system; i.e. they are kind of like smxi - another way to upgrade/dist-upgrade and lessen the chances of broken packages and systems. I'll be back, but may wait awhile, I'm sure that LMDE will improve adequately over time

I may try installing again and use smxi for all my upgrading needs and see how well that works ...... until I wrote about that above, I hadn't thought about trying that option .... it depends upon how aggravated I get at this antiX install (which is already trying to give me fits!) ....... we'll see!

[Bobbo]

What I did when installing LMDE was update right away to the new update manager. I didn't have any option to not do so because the only package available for update was the mintupdate application. After doing that I noticed the update manager wanting my attention with a little red marker telling me that my repositories needed to be changed. I did so according to instructions after which I followed up with another update. This time it was a huge one. After that one had finished I restarted my laptop.

Updates happened every now and then, but after awhile I noticed some packages being held back. I was also in the process of spicing up my mint to look awesome, and needed some gtk-engine packages updated. So I switched to debian testing and did all the updates being held back and installed the updates I needed from there. Then I stayed with debian testing until now when update pack 4 was released and I switched back to lmde.

This way nothing ever broke. I'm not sure what you did to have things break Did you install packages from outside, not in the repository? Did you manually compile some critical packages and install w/o checking their dependencies?
Also when doing updates the update manager would sometimes ask me to either keep old configuration files or use the new ones provided by the package. I answered on every single update to use new ones, but I also checked what changes where made. There is an option to check differences with the configuration files. I might have answered to keep old on some, I was very careful with that I remember..

I'm sure there could be many causes of a system breaking, and I'm by no means an expert on the subject. Just sharing my experience hoping there might be something of help for you here

[bootmakr]

I'm giving it one more try. This time I decided to use ONLY the MUD packs, but right off the update manager wouldn't work. I had seen this thread and set up the repos ahead of time. The update manager would disappear each time I tried to access it, so I finally did apt-get upgrade and upgraded it that way. After upgrading, I tried the update manager again, and it worked fine. It upgraded another 400+ Mb of packages. I tried it once more and it says that my system is up to date now I don't know if the update manager was held up the first time by me setting up the sources ahead of time, but at least it's working good now. I'll see how this works and get back in a week or so with the results. If I have any other problems, I'll be asking for more help, but my hope is that there will be no more problems

[Monsta]

I'll see how this works and get back in a week or so with the results.

Well, chances are Update Pack 4 will be finally tested and officially released in a week or two, so you actually might find yourself facing yet another 1 Gb of updates that can (in theory) break something again.

[Bobbo]

I'll see how this works and get back in a week or so with the results.

Well, chances are Update Pack 4 will be finally tested and officially released in a week or two, so you actually might find yourself facing yet another 1 Gb of updates that can (in theory) break something again.

SSssssshhh!!

Glad you got it working bootmakr!!

I don't know if it'll put you at ease, but you reminded me that I've also had problems with the update manager. It used to just hang after refreshing the list and not present me with any updates at all.. I've had to fore quit, sorry wrong platform, xkill it multiple times. But that problem seem to have gone away and I've actually forgot I ever had it Too bad I can't recall how I got it working again..

[bootmakr]

Too bad I can't recall how I got it working again..

Now you're beginning to sound like me

[bugmenot2012]

Nah, I like Debians, but have never got along with *buntus . I even tried LM7 and Lisa, but neither flipped my switch. Tried sidux - too many arguments on their forums, obnixious mods; aptosid - sid doesn't get along with this lappy; Debian testing - can't stand Gnome; Desktop BSD - seems like a 'mac forum' rude, belligerent, RTFM types; PC-BSD that was nice, but not ready for prime time, and I don't like to have Linux and BSD on the same HDD (slices v. partitions); and now I'm back to antiX (testing - rolling release) until LMDE gets more stability then I'll be back.

I also like debians and can't get behind *buntus, (let me point out that you can use debian testing with kde, make a netinstall, don't select gnome and voila) aptosid was my laptop os until I recently bought a newer thinkpad and debian lacked in documentation about EFI, GPT and the like, so I gave arch linux a try. And it's totally worth it, it is not only a rolling release with daily updates but arch wiki is a gold mine of documentation and the community is nice. DEfinitely a keeper.

[LifeInTheGrey]

Nah, I like Debians, but have never got along with *buntus . I even tried LM7 and Lisa, but neither flipped my switch. Tried sidux - too many arguments on their forums, obnixious mods; aptosid - sid doesn't get along with this lappy; Debian testing - can't stand Gnome; Desktop BSD - seems like a 'mac forum' rude, belligerent, RTFM types; PC-BSD that was nice, but not ready for prime time, and I don't like to have Linux and BSD on the same HDD (slices v. partitions); and now I'm back to antiX (testing - rolling release) until LMDE gets more stability then I'll be back.

I also like debians and can't get behind *buntus, (let me point out that you can use debian testing with kde, make a netinstall, don't select gnome and voila) aptosid was my laptop os until I recently bought a newer thinkpad and debian lacked in documentation about EFI, GPT and the like, so I gave arch linux a try. And it's totally worth it, it is not only a rolling release with daily updates but arch wiki is a gold mine of documentation and the community is nice. DEfinitely a keeper.

Personally i use Debian Testing with XFCE and its the best combo ever, like having GNOME 2 again. If you install Debian without a desktop environment, just boot to terminal and sudo aptitude install xfce4 xfce4-goodies and you're golden.

Tappa tappa

[papakaz]

Personally i use Debian Testing with XFCE and its the best combo ever, like having GNOME 2 again. If you install Debian without a desktop environment, just boot to terminal and sudo aptitude install xfce4 xfce4-goodies and you're golden.

Well for that matter, Arch Linux with XFCE is a pretty good deal. I'm using that off another partition (Arch also has "Cinnamon" in its user generated repositories, but I don't want to install all the GNOME dependencies).

I've been wating for LMDE to sort itself out for several months now... I'd like to see it be a good distro for Grandma -- install and let it continue-not-breaking. That's the only reason I'm sticking with it...

[LifeInTheGrey]

Well for that matter, Arch Linux with XFCE is a pretty good deal. I'm using that off another partition (Arch also has "Cinnamon" in its user generated repositories, but I don't want to install all the GNOME dependencies).

I've been wating for LMDE to sort itself out for several months now... I'd like to see it be a good distro for Grandma -- install and let it continue-not-breaking. That's the only reason I'm sticking with it...

I'm actually quite interested in trying Cinnamon, once it reaches a later version. The reviews I've read about 1.4 say its a huge stride forward, it looks like its heading in a very good direction. I don't know if I could ever leave XFCE (its just so damn lightweight!), but I might throw Cinnamon on a laptop once it adds some more 3D effects. One thing I learned from Compiz was that the cooler-looking the desktop the more likely you will attract converts from Windows, or even Mac. Perhaps LMDE with Cinnamon can become my next "recruitment distro".

[Nick_Djinn]

The one thing I couldnt live with after system upgrade was the regression with Cheese, which I use a lot for videos. That regression exists in Mint 12 and Ubuntu as well. I might try to do another install of Mint Debian and not upgrade to the new repos, but set them back to stable and add third party repos for cutting edge software.


Here is a tip though....Mint 11 was also unstable and applets crash due to Gnome-Shell, and double trouble with Unity...Dependency conflict hell. Mint 10 was the last 'stable' release as far as performance, but its before the performance boost in the newer kernel.

I have two solutions.....Use Mint 11, but instead of booting Gnome use XFCE. XFCE is under appreciated and more stable and customisable than MATE. You can import the Mint Gnome Menu, import most of the Gnome applets, set up Compiz Fusion, and you get a system that in many ways looks as good as Gnome2 did with compiz effects and Mint Menu and gnome applets, only you get a totally awesome full menu on right-click on the screen. You can also swap Thunar for Nautilus and use Gnome terminal, and you practically have Gnome again, even in newer distros. A really spruced up XFCE is currently my first choice over MATE.

This is also good for AMD/ATI users and you dont have to install Gnome-shell/Unity/Cinnamon *at all*. Maybe just the menu and applets you want, and specific things you want to port from Gnome 2 (or 3 even) to XFCE.

The panel does not seem to crash as much because of it.

[bootmakr]

I've finally got LMDE running the way it should - I think

I reinstalled the XFCE version, had problems with it, but this time when it pooped out on me, I installed LXDE and removed that pesky XFCE - then I got rid of the logout problem by installing another login manager, now I've got everything the way I like it, and with the Midori browser, it runs faster than it ever has on this old laptop! Now it's updating and upgrading just fine! Thanks for all the comments and advice!