Linux Mint Debian Stable (For Those Running This Setup)

[cwwgateway]

just had to wonder, pardon if this question is too newbie ;]

what if you take a deb 6 install and delete all repos except for the minty one? (incoming i think?) [that is, ADD mint]

If you only include the packages.linuxmint.com repo, you'd have no software. LMDE uses three other repos (at debian.linuxmint.com). The repos and explanations are here - http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=197&t=91405. However, updating from squeeze to LMDE (which is kind of based on debian testing), has a good chance of failing, as there are many packages that have gone through large changes since the release of squeeze (nearly 2 years ago).

[melltuga]

Hey,

will it lead to any problems if I activate backports?

[jamvaru]

cool, thanks
so, I'm thinking I will try to add various things to debian stable, one at a time, trying to turn it into lmde
what would be the best way of reverting the changes if it breaks?

[zerozero]

Hey,

will it lead to any problems if I activate backports?

of what backports are you talking about?
the backports section in the packages.linuxmint repo

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import backport romeo

not a problem but it's empty http://packages.linuxmint.com/list.php? ... n#backport

or this backports http://backports-master.debian.org/
this one i wouldn't advise, they are to be used with debian stable.

[melltuga]

Oh, yeah, I was talking about the Mint-Backports. Didn't know it was empty, but it makes sense. Thank you

[KBD47]

OK guys, here is what I would like to do. I want Mint Cinnamon LMDE running on Wheezy, not Testing, sources. I wouldn't mind leaving it on Latest sources except that I'd rather this be Debian (new-upcoming) Stable. I know how to change the sources but I don't know if Cinnamon can be kept intact and un-borked running on Wheezy sources, I think the odds are that it would be fine, but welcome feedback on this question of switching to Wheezy sources.
Thanks!

[cwwgateway]

OK guys, here is what I would like to do. I want Mint Cinnamon LMDE running on Wheezy, not Testing, sources. I wouldn't mind leaving it on Latest sources except that I'd rather this be Debian (new-upcoming) Stable. I know how to change the sources but I don't know if Cinnamon can be kept intact and un-borked running on Wheezy sources, I think the odds are that it would be fine, but welcome feedback on this question of switching to Wheezy sources.
Thanks!

I would pin cinnamon at whatever version is in the repo currently. When Gnome Shell 3.6 enters testing and there is an update pack for it, cinnamon will stop being compatible with Gnome Shell 3.4.

[rop75]

OK guys, here is what I would like to do. I want Mint Cinnamon LMDE running on Wheezy, not Testing, sources. I wouldn't mind leaving it on Latest sources except that I'd rather this be Debian (new-upcoming) Stable. I know how to change the sources but I don't know if Cinnamon can be kept intact and un-borked running on Wheezy sources, I think the odds are that it would be fine, but welcome feedback on this question of switching to Wheezy sources.
Thanks!

I am gonna do something similar to what you want to do. When Wheezy stable is released I will have my repos pointing to stable for a few months (when Jesse testing starts rolling it is gonna be too risky for my liking, "weather" is gonna be really "stormy" at least for the 3-4 months after Wheezy stable is released).

However, I am using gnome shell so I won't have the problem you mentioned, but I guess that your best option is to add (or keep in case you have already added it) to your sources.list the linuxmint repo (deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import backport), that will keep your system stable at least until the next UP is released. When the next UP is released (needless to say I am talking about the first UP after wheezy stable is released) you will have to make a decision (or you stay in Debian wheezy -and get rid of Cinnamon (*) and edit your sources.list to delete the linuxmint repos-; or you can edit your sources.list and have the repos pointing to latest or Jesse testing- .

(*) Cinnamon won't be s compatible with wheezy for long

[KBD47]

Thanks cwwgateway! I know every time a new version of Gnome comes out it breaks things. In retrospect it might be easier to do what I want with MATE as there is probably less chance of breakage.

[cwwgateway]

Thanks cwwgateway! I know every time a new version of Gnome comes out it breaks things. In retrospect it might be easier to do what I want with MATE as there is probably less chance of breakage.

That sounds like a good idea. If I were to do a Debian Stable install I would choose either a DE in the Debian repos or MATE. It's possible MATE will add their own wheezy repo once wheezy is released

[KBD47]

rop75, what I usually did in the past to use Mint to get me into Debian Stable was to install another desktop and login manager, remove preferences under apt, and change sources from Testing to Wheezy, and add Multimedia source. This was a quick way to get into Stable with codecs and great Mint stuff but sadly, without the Mint desktop. I sort of miss the Mint Xfce version because you could pretty much keep it without it breaking using a Stable setup. Cinnamon has me worried because of its ties to Gnome 3 at present, and Gnome is pretty much shutting out anything except default Shell desktop. I'm thinking MATE Mint might be possible to maintain, perhaps adding the Debian MATE repo. Maybe someone who knows more could comment on that.
Thanks!

[KBD47]

cwwgateway, there actually already is a Sid/Wheezy Debian MATE repo:
http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/download
I've used it to install MATE on Wheezy recently and it worked great. This makes me wonder the best way to keep Mint LMDE MATE as is except for turning it into a Wheezy system rather that Testing, to follow into the new Stable. I wonder if it would be best to remove the Mint repo and just set up for Wheezy plus that MATE Debian repo, or if it is pretty safe to leave the Mint repo attached and just change the Testing to Wheezy sources.
I may do some experimenting this week to see if changing to that MATE direct repo and disabling the Mint repo leaves the install intact with the Mint stuff as is.

[KBD47]

OK, I ran my experiment tonight using the new LMDE MATE RC. I used sudo pluma to remove preferences under apt, and to block Mint sources and set just wheezy sources. I added debian multimedia with the keyring, and the MATE desktop for debian source and keyring. I then ran updates in the terminal--which took a long while. I rebooted, and everything looks fine except the mintupdate manager is off, it wants to update and remove some Mint stuff, so I just removed it from the startup menu and will use the terrminal for updates. The following packages are being held back in updates:
apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
bind9-host dnsutils firmware-linux firmware-linux-nonfree hunspell-en-us
libbind9-80 libisccc80 libisccfg82 liblwres80 libqt4-dbus libqt4-declarative
libqt4-designer libqt4-help libqt4-network libqt4-script libqt4-scripttools
libqt4-sql libqt4-svg libqt4-test libqt4-xml libqt4-xmlpatterns libqtcore4
libqtgui4 qdbus
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 24 not upgraded.

This worked better than I expected, but I think one would have to be careful with updates to make sure nothing important gets removed. In the past I always had issues with Debian wanting to remove mdm during updates, but so far so good this time. I think adding the MATE source probably makes all the difference with keeping this setup together. And probably someone who knows more than I do could set apt-pinning or something to further secure the setup, but like I said, so far so good.
edit/update: forgot to mention during the update a script stopped it at one point, and I entered the letter q to get it going again. I also entered the letter n to keep defaults during the update. Just to spruce up the fonts I grabbed an Ubuntu Natty fontconfig file. You really would not think this is a Debian install.
My LMDE MATE Wheezy:
http://imgur.com/ST4dCwC