How stable is LMDE?

[holden87]

Hi guys!

I'm considering installing LMDE as my main desktop. I'm an ordinary user - multimedia & web + libreoffice typing. So my question is, how stable is this rolling release model, is it stable enough? Never reinstalling is quite a big plus, but don't know what are the risks...

Thank you!

[mockturtl]

What are you using now? The Debian base beats Ubuntu for stability and speed.

I haven't seen any(!) complaints with the default upgrade path ("latest" repository -- after a QA incubation period as the "incoming" repository -- which is a snapshot of Debian's "testing" branch -- which has, itself, passed strict quality-control checks from the "unstable/sid" branch, which is, anyway, pretty darned stable).

"Rolling" is not quite the right word; it's more of a pooling and spillover, with the natural filtration that implies. But it works very well.

This community, I don't mind saying, is the best you'll find anywhere. That helps a lot.

Welcome.

[jjaythomas]

ditto of

mockturtl

right now using the default 'UPacks' are similier to doing a 'online upgrade' to new verion a (Ununtu style) uless start doing more frequently
debian (even testing or sid) software maybe older (except package mint maintains/updates in own repo) like firefox, thunderbird ect.

also welcome

J.Jay

[jumbli]

It is more stable than what anyone here wants it to be...

[holden87]

Hi!

Currently using Xubuntu 12.04! Seriously considering LMDE, as i tried a couple of times to set up Wheezy directly, but i had problems with installing icedove and current iceweasel as the repositories marked for testing at mozilla.debian.net always wanted to pull in about 500MB of updates. And i managed to screw up my installation three times in a row. (i'm not a geek or anything, so it's a miracle i manage to add the repos to sources.list:D). + multimedia was a blur for me, because in squeeze i used to just add deb-multimedia, but it doesn't work in wheezy.

So yes, would like to use Debian for stability, ease of use but above all philosophy, so i'm seriously considering LMDE, because it's, if i understand, Debian made easy? (no post install problems? )

Thanks!

[fiver22]

Heya holden87,
The standard LMDE (no post install messing with sources.list) is very stable. It's quite easy to install and use compared to many distros but lacks some of the 'hand holding' that say Ubuntu does, or even the regular mint releases. I would call it a perfect step outside regular Mint or Ubuntu.
What you will find is that in some cases (maybe many cases) packages will be older than Ubuntu's or regular Mint's. That doesn't mean ancient or feature lacking, but they are often older -something that contributes to it's stability. Also, as a step away from Ubuntu you will notice that one of peoples' favourite features of Ubuntu (and regular Mint, I assume) is not recommended in LMDE: that feature is PPAs. You can use PPAs in LMDE, or Debian, for that matter -but many knowledgeable people will tell you not to.
To be honest, stability isn't a real issue for my usage in many popular distros, but I would say LMDE is VERY stable. If stability is something super-important to you there is always Debian Squeeze -though, in my experience that level of stability is unnecessary for most desktop users.

[widget]

I use Xfce on my LMDE install. Also on Debian testing and Sid.

I prefer Debian for Xfce but if you are having a problem with it LMDE will work and be stable.

The problem is that Xfce is not well supported and you will end up with Mate installed also. If space is not a concern this is no probelm. My most basic Wheezy install with LMDE has a / partition with 3.57GiB used. The LMDE / partition has 4.99GiB used. As you can see this is not a big deal on a modern drive.

It is just a lot easier, time wise, for the LMDE devs to use the LMDE standard install as a base and Xfce installed as an extra. Small team and they must do their best to serve the needs and wishes of most of their users. Xfce users are, it appears, too much in the minority.

LMDE uses, as does Xubuntu, way too many gnome "improvements" for my taste anyway so it makes even more sense to do it this way. I have not looked at Xubuntu since it was in developement for 12.04. It was all right. LMDE is nicer.

The Debian Xfce4 under Wheezy or Sid is, to me, better yet.

If I were you though I would stick to LMDE as Wheezy is actually less stable right now than Sid. I am on Sid right now.

I installed LMDE with Xfce on my bosses laptop. She had never heard of Linux before I did that to her. She was very dubious. She now loves it.

Ubuntu has 2 types of release. LTS and the ones in between. LTS is based on Debian testing. The others on Debian Sid. I tested Ubuntu for years. They are not as stable as LMDE.

The reason for that is actually two fold. Ubuntu messes with the Debian basic file system and adds too much from outside and more unstable Debian repos (sid for LTS and experimental for the other releases).

LMDE gives you a "snapshot" of Debian testing with just stable packages (as far as possible, at least). The packages are fully compatible with Debian packages so if you ever want to go to Debian in the future it is not hard.

I know people that use Debian that use some LMDE packages like Mate.

Never try this with Ubuntu unless you really enjoy breaking your system.

Give LMDE a whack, use the recommended update/upgrade proceedure using the Update Manager and you should be fine.

[jjaythomas]

Hi

It is just a lot easier, time wise, for the LMDE devs to use the LMDE standard install as a base and Xfce installed as an extra. Small team and they must do their best to serve the needs and wishes of most of their users. Xfce users are, it appears, too much in the minority.

the unofficial lmde-xfce is underway (same man that does the 'unoffical KDE'

based LMDE with Xfce4.10 and lighter Apps. ***Edit Oh Ya built using UPack6

J.Jay
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=118890

[widget]

Hi

It is just a lot easier, time wise, for the LMDE devs to use the LMDE standard install as a base and Xfce installed as an extra. Small team and they must do their best to serve the needs and wishes of most of their users. Xfce users are, it appears, too much in the minority.

the unofficial lmde-xfce is underway (same man that does the 'unoffical KDE'

based LMDE with Xfce4.10 and lighter Apps. ***Edit Oh Ya built using UPack6

J.Jay
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=118890

Thank you very much for that information. Will bookmark the needed address for that stuff.

May be the way for the OP to go.

Not for me. I could do that myself for a LMDE strictly Xfce install. I need to keep the standard issue with Xfce tacked on to make sure I have the same thing installed as my boss has. Any problem with her install will be mine to fix. That is the only install of LMDE I have, currently, on drives I use.

I have two other installs of straight Mate/Cinnamon, one 32 bit and the other 64, on my loaner drive which is for people that want to try out Linux on their computer. LMDE is my Gnome showcase install there.

Even set up Compiz which I absolutely abhore. I want people to see different install with different distros and DEs. Squeeze for OpenBox (don't expect any noobs to go for it - handles grub), Wheezy for Xfce, LMDE for Gnome and will have, when released Mageia 3 for KDE. Lxde I don't know about. Will not be Lubuntu although I think it is a nice, maybe nicest Lxde settup I have seen. Just refuse to point people at an outfit, Canonical/Ubuntu that I don't trust.

May just have to look at this "fork" of LMDE and see what I think of his take on Lxde.

Would look at other Red Hat distros but frankly I don't like the RPM base system or .rpms. The Mandrake, Mandriva, Mageia fork of RH is, to me, the best of the bunch because of the urpmi, urpme management of .rpms and the repositories.

Hey, I have one RH branch distro in. I even like the OS.

Would rather use Debian based stuff and LMDE is just better for noobs than Debian.

Will definitely be looking at that guys work. And maybe setting lxde up myself on top of LMDE or Debian but I would prefer something set up and supported reliably by someone else.

I don't mind setting up peoples systems and giving help but they need the opportunity to be independent.

[jjaythomas]

May just have to look at this "fork" of LMDE and see what I think of his take on Lxde.

lxde

Not really a fork just a continuation for LMDE-Xfce now that Mint (Clem/Team) are stoping full official support of the Xfce LMDE spin. (no Upack 6 ISO planed for)

Its still based on LMDE (besides getting Xfce4.10(from sid I believe) and a different package set (all from official repo I believe)

J.Jay
P.S. even artwork is mostly mint's (some modified) with Mints/Clems okay I believe (as long as emphases 'UNOFFICIAL'

[widget]

May just have to look at this "fork" of LMDE and see what I think of his take on Lxde.

lxde

Not really a fork just a continuation for LMDE-Xfce now that Mint (Clem/Team) are stoping full official support of the Xfce LMDE spin. (no Upack 6 ISO planed for)

Its still based on LMDE (besides getting Xfce4.10(from sid I believe) and a different package set (all from official repo I believe)

J.Jay
P.S. even artwork is mostly mint's (some modified) with Mints/Clems okay I believe (as long as emphases 'UNOFFICIAL'

Seems to have Lxde and KDE in the works. Xfce seems to have been added do to much popular support for it.

Must admit to not having waded through the entire thread yet. Working on it. fascinating reading.

[jjaythomas]

Doesn't have a LXDE version as far as I know!

Has done the KDE one for awhile now (almost year I think)

He Just started the XFCE one soon after Mint (Clem) announced they're dropping (official) support of LMDE-Xfce (including no UPack6 ISO for)

J.Jay

[seppalta]

I run on several laptops aftermarket LXDE on LMDE since Update 4. Updates 5 and 6 went well - only change that I noticed was the replacement of abiword-gnumeric with libre-office. Upgrade-system works great for cleaning out the orphans. Now that Mint won't be issuing any more updates for LMDE xfce, I'm not sure what I'll do about updates - probably just continue to get them, add lxde updates on my own, and then clean out the extraneous stuff as best that I can. The deciding factor is how fast and stable the final result is, and so far, LMDE with LXDE is the best that I have ever used. My installation recipe: http://lxlinux.com/debian.html .

[jjaythomas]

[quote]I run on several laptops aftermarket LXDE on LMDE since Update 4. Updates 5 and 6 went well - only change that I noticed was the replacement of abiword-gnumeric with libre-office. Upgrade-system works great for cleaning out the orphans. Now that Mint won't be issuing any more updates for LMDE xfce, I'm not sure what I'll do about updates - probably just continue to get them, add lxde updates on my own, and then clean out the extraneous stuff as best that I can. The deciding factor is how fast and stable the final result is, and so far, LMDE with LXDE is the best that I have ever used. My installation recipe: http://lxlinux.com/debian.[/quote

Hello May want to try 'Sparky Linux' its a LXDE debian based on testing (directly) . Would have to add Minty stuff (most in Mints package repo (mostly works in debian)

J.Jay

[seppalta]

May want to try 'Sparky Linux' its a LXDE debian based on testing (directly) .

Have you tried Sparky? Seems quite recent.

I tried Siduction twice, but it created more work on just getting the basics to work than I thought it was worth. Kind of the same for Semplice, although I never got to installing it on a hard drive. What do you think of Crunchbang 64-bit: http://lxlinux.com/crunchbang.html ?

[zerozero]

can we please stay in-topic and move discussions about other distros to chat?

[jjaythomas]

sorry my bad

JJay

[rop75]

Hi guys!

I'm considering installing LMDE as my main desktop. I'm an ordinary user - multimedia & web + libreoffice typing. So my question is, how stable is this rolling release model, is it stable enough? Never reinstalling is quite a big plus, but don't know what are the risks...

Thank you!

LMDE is a really stable distro. I have used it for months and I didn't have any problems. However, some people (like myself) might find LMDE too stable, and move to other distros that provide their users with more frequent updates.

[jjaythomas]

LMDE is a really stable distro. I have used it for months and I didn't have any problems. However, some people (like myself) might find LMDE too stable, and move to other distros that provide their users with more frequent updates.

Yep... or source list direct to testing or sid (although not latter yet but contemplating)

J.Jay

[holden87]

I want to thank you guys fot the comprehensive info!

I decided to stay away from Xfce in LMDE (since it won't be officially supported anymore), but will install the Cinnamon image once it comes out 'solo' (not mate+cinnamon) this month.

Thank you for all your help!