Differences between LM 13 and LMDE

[finjs]

I'd be happy to know the reasons for the following significant differences between LM 13 and LMDE.
- LM 13 image is 833 Mb whereas LMDE image is 1,12 Gb. Is there the same size ratio between the installed versions?
- LM 13 boots in 5 seconds whereas LMDE boot takes 15-20 seconds
- LM 13 silently boots whereas LMDE displays a long verbosity
Thanks.

[cwsnyder]

The answer, in a word, is choice.

Longer answer: The Linux Mint 13 image for a bootable medium is 833 GB, not 833MB, LMDE bootable medium is 1.12 GB, in my view, because fewer choices are made for you in LMDE vs. LM in applications and desktop environment.

The length of time required to boot depends on what is happening in the boot process and from what medium you are booting. If you are comparing booting from an SSD for LM 13 vs. booting from DVD or spinning HD for LMDE, you are talking apples and oranges. I haven't seen any reported instance where any distribution boots in 5 seconds from DVD, HDD, or USB thumb drive.

LM13 doesn't silently boot, it is simply covered by the splash screen. If you want to see what ACTUALLY occurs, edit the boot line in GRUB (the line which begins with vmlinuz) and remove the quiet splash boot options from LM. LMDE can also have the option to boot with the same quiet splash alternatives.

[finjs]

Thanks for all the information, cwsnyder. Could you give me a few examples of pre-made choices, please? I didn't use a chronometer but to me booting LM 13 was lightning fast (though surely more than 5 sec which was just my impression), about 3 times faster than LMDE anyway. I was dumbstruck. It may simply be the verbosity that slows down the LMDE boot. Note my processor is the 22-nm Quad Core "Ivy Bridge" 2.3 GHz Intel "Core i7" (3615QM).
I think LM 13 image is 833 Mb.

[killer de bug]

Longer answer: The Linux Mint 13 image for a bootable medium is 833 GB, not 833MB, LMDE bootable medium is 1.12 GB,

The length of time required to boot depends on what is happening in the boot process and from what medium you are booting. If you are comparing booting from an SSD for LM 13 vs. booting from DVD or spinning HD for LMDE, you are talking apples and oranges.

That's more or less all wrong...

So : first Linux Mint 13 is based on Ubuntu 12.04 and the iso is 833Mb not 833Gb... That's just common sense.

Second : the LMDE is based on Debian contrary to the main edition based on Ubuntu. In the last few years Ubuntu did a big job to decrease the booting time to roughly 15 seconds. Debian did not do the same job. That's why the main edition shows a black screen (time too short to show a picture) and Debian is "speacking".
So the main edition is booting faster than LMDE. BUT after that, during the use of the system, LMDE is more responsible than the Ubuntu based edition.

Be careful, the main edition is easier to use, more user friendly compared to the LMDE one. But LMDE is rocking solid and you don't need to reinstall. It's a semi rolling release distro.

To summarize : differences are coming from the base (Debian or Ubuntu) on top of witch these 2 editions are build.

[finjs]

Thanks Killer. I've been using LMDE for about a year now (on a couple of other computers) and it was my first try with LM 13 (on my new Mac) just to check if the internet connection was supported in LM 13 since it wasn't in LMDE (see my other threads). And as I said I was dumbstruck by LM 13 booting speed. I'll take the quiet and splash options off my LMDE grub to have a proper comparison. Yet I can already note that LMDE waits for some time before starting giving some output and that by that time LM 13 is almost up and running.

I do like LMDE because of its Debian foundations precisely. I'm not going to change for LM 13 because of a shorter boot time. I'd just like to understand why. And your answer is helpful. cwsnyder's answer too.

A question no one answered is: Is there the same size ratio between the installed versions, that is is LM 13 25 % smaller? LMDE, let's say reduced to essential applications only and "bitbleached", takes about 3,5 Gb. Would LM 13 takes about 2,6 Gb in the same conditions?

[killer de bug]

I can't answer the last question because I'm no more using the main edition since 1 year at least and my last install was Mint 10 (the best ).

The size depends on what you have installed, and I have Latex... So I'm probably using more or less 6/8 Gb on my hard drive with everything installed. To compare I would need a LM13 with the same softwares installed. I don't have this.

You need to consider the fact that LMDE has 2 desktops in the iso and the main edition has only one : Mate or Cinnamon. That change the size of the iso a lot.
My guess is that after a fresh installation the Debian edition should be less heavy than the Ubuntu one (comparing the same desktop of course). But it's just a guess... (Debian/Ubuntu/Mint vs Debian/Mint... )

[zerozero]

You need to consider the fact that LMDE has 2 desktops in the iso and the main edition has only one

this.
a fair comparison would be with mint12 http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1889 where "similar" isos have 1.0G http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/linuxmint.com/stable/12/
but (Clem said this somewhere but obviously now that i need it, i can't find the quote) in debian the locales are handled differently and are "heavier"

LM 13 boots in 5 seconds whereas LMDE boot takes 15-20 seconds

it's mainly related with the booting process: ubuntu changed to upstart a while ago and debian stayed with sysvinit.
because of this, debian booting is slower than ubuntu's