LMDE Update Pack 7 - when?

[Transitman]

While I have one LMDE system working just fine (dislike fiddling as much as the next who wants a stable running system), I took one of my machines and hacked in SolydX, and removed all traces of Mint.
While this is not a recommended way, I like to fiddle with at least one system.
I am also running Liquorix Kernel 3.10-9.dmz-liquorix-amd64. The system is stable, and I am following Testing/Jessie and some SID.

As for why things are quiet on the "Clem" front on when the next UP is coming out, only Clem knows for sure.
And I've seen this cycle before, and after some time things work out and gets back to "normal".

Cinnamon has hit a wall with Gnome3 dependencies messing with it. Don't know when it will get resolved, but I watch the forums for updates.

And like you, I really know nothing, just wonder and wait and watch the forums.

[eidnch]

I changed also now from LMDE to SolydX. For that i removed Cinnamon and installed Xfce. I tweaked Xfce with Compiz and it looks very nice, runs faster than Cinnamon. After some tweaks it runs good now, hope SolydX will survive the next years. Perhaps Debian CUT will come again to life ... or LMDE will release the UPs more frequently ... we will see what the future brings. I have still LM KDE LTS on my other partition and the advantages with the ubuntu base are the ppa repositories. There is less to compile from source. But also Debian has its advantages, it will be there also the next 10 years, Ubuntu perhaps not ...

For me half a year to wait for UPs is to long, you lose the advantages of a semi-rolling-release model. The advantage of a semi-rolling-release model is the balance of stability, security and cutting edge. SolydXK fulfill this purpose, but in my opinion not the UPs of LMDE. Ok, this is my point of view, that has to be discussed ...

I think the problem is Cinnamon for now. When you make UPs more frequently it will break Cinnamon, because Cinnamon is developed for the Ubuntu base and the Ubuntu base has a half a year development cycle. With the disadvantage of a 9 month support, i ask, why not only stick with Ubuntu LTS for the main edition? That would be better for the main edition and for LMDE. ElementaryOS and Bodhi went already this way ...

[Zill]

...For me half a year to wait for UPs is to long, you lose the advantages of a semi-rolling-release model. The advantage of a semi-rolling-release model is the balance of stability, security and cutting edge. SolydXK fulfill this purpose, but in my opinion not the UPs of LMDE...

+1

...I think the problem is Cinnamon for now. When you make UPs more frequently it will break Cinnamon, because Cinnamon is developed for the Ubuntu base and the Ubuntu base has a half a year development cycle...

IMHO this is an interesting theory but I would like to see some confirmation of this from the LMDE developers. AIUI, Cinnamon is based on Gnome 3 and this might be part of the problem. Although MATE has the look and feel of Gnome 2, is this also based on Gnome 3 and inheriting similar problems? Are there any LMDE/Cinnamon/MATE devs out there prepared to explain exactly what the problem (if any!) is?

[francheu]

Some nice comments from Clem on the LM blog [url]http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2427[/url]:

The next update pack was prepared this week and should arrive into incoming next week. We also took the opportunity to upgrade MATE to 1.6, Firefox to 23 and Thunderbird to 17.0.8. Regarding the “rolling” aspect of LMDE, no, it is not “rolling”. It uses snapshots and emphasizes stability over updates. If you were to follow Debian Testing for instance, you’d break Cinnamon 1.8 with the gjs 1.36 update… Update Packs were designed precisely so you don’t have to worry about things like that.

new ISOs will come post-Mint 16 (also likely with a new UP8). Our priority with UP7 is to update the base for existing users. When the time comes to work on new ISOs, we want to put in them all the things we’re currently working in.. so the improvements featured in Mint 16, as well as MATE 1.8 and Cinnamon 2.0, we want to have all of that in the next ISOs. From a technical point of view Cinnamon 2.0 is also important to LMDE because it uses its own backend and its own Javascript interpreter. The situation in UP7 isn’t ideal as both Gnome Shell and Cinnamon depend on gjs and they need different versions of it… I’ll explain more about this problem (there’s a workaround for it, but it’s not ideal) in the UP release notes.

Enfin !

Though the frequency update is quite low, I appreciate the fact that I do not have to re-install everything once or twice a year, and tweak the fresh install to my needs (LXDE, remove/install a bunch of software... ). What is the point in having the very latest version of a software ? Did you see any difference between FF21 and FF23 (from the casual user point of view) ?
LMDE may not be perfect on this point but it fully satisfies my needs.

François

[killer de bug]

What is the point in having the very latest version of a software ? Did you see any difference between FF21 and FF23 (from the casual user point of view) ?
François

I may be wrong but for example it's not possible to get the last version of Chromium right now in LMDE. And without this last version, no replay on a very famous french TV channel.

[eidnch]

What is the point in having the very latest version of a software ? Did you see any difference between FF21 and FF23 (from the casual user point of view) ?
François

When you don't update firefox you will miss the security updates and bug fixes. This should be the advantage of a semi-rolling release model, the base is kept stable and security relevant programs are updated. For example PCLinuxOS and Chakra Linux work in this way. From wheezy on you have now also apparmor, this is already a improvement. Linux is not invulnerable ... your private data in the user space can also be accessed by browser security holes. Chromium and Google Chrome have a sandbox, but it don't work now with LMDE, so with that UP range of half a year you have to live 3 or 4 month without that sandbox. But how Clem said, the priority of the UPs is stability and not security. He also said in the blog, that their UPs are handled as snapshots not as rolling release. So the UPs in LMDE is not a rolling release nor a semi-rolling release model. The advantage is only stability and that you don't have to reinstall every half a year but you have not the advantages of a semi-rolling release model, the balance of stability and security. Thanks god there is now SolydKX ... ... i test it now but my main distribution is still LM KDE LTS.

[francheu]

When you don't update firefox you will miss the security updates and bug fixes.

I know, but looking at the release pace of firefox, I find it normal that LM does not update it just in time.
We missed FF22, and we got FF23 three weeks after it release, this is quite satisfying for a free distribution...

François

[eidnch]

Yes, Firefox is good supported by LMDE, there are also updates between the UPs.

So i think,

- if you need stability and cinnamon you can use LMDE with UPs,
- if you need a rolling release then use LMDE with testing or SID,
- if you need a semi-rolling release then use SolydXK,
- if you need the ubuntu base then use the main editon,

there is for every need the right distribution. Perhaps with cinnamon 2.0 you can use it also in debian testing, i don't know.

[Jerom]

When you don't update firefox you will miss the security updates and bug fixes.

I know, but looking at the release pace of firefox, I find it normal that LM does not update it just in time.
We missed FF22, and we got FF23 three weeks after it release, this is quite satisfying for a free distribution...

François

I also find some delay normal and healthy rather than jumping in every new version (23.0.0 was buggy, hence 23.0.1 with a correction - as usual with FF I would say...)

But I'd rather go by default with Firefox ESR (17.0.x) for stability : http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq/
With security backports every 90 days.
And a new stable release every year or so - the next one will be v24.0 in october'13 will follow the latest 17.0.8.

[lukew]

In case anyone has not seen the news, LMDE UP7 is incoming!

There was a reference in the latest news email; some issues to resolve but more importantly it is incoming!!!

[Crewp]

It wont be long now

[excollier]

What sort of size of download are we talking here?

[Riko]

What sort of size of download are we talking here?

Judging from what one currently sees in the incoming repos, prepare for something larger than 800 MB

[Orbmiser]

Holy Molelee! That is huge how many months between update packs.

Me with a slow 1.5mb connection and glad I went with SolydK with monthly updates which I assume are a lot smaller.
Just going to Debian rolling KDE so rolling debian is new to me.
But wonder that size to install takes up as much time to download for many?
As doing a Clean install and restoring your separate /home as installing non-rolling new versions with separate /home?

Just seems like it's as much work and more things with the possibility of breakage when they are that old and big?
As kept my /home and installed solydK to root and just a minimum 10 mins fuss to adjust a couple of things and worked like a charm.

And with monthly would think be a smoother transition?

Sorry just trying to understand the process and understand the long delay between update packs in Mint.
And any inherently problems with rolling releases and update packs in general.
.

[Crewp]

Guess we will have to wait and see.

[excollier]

800MB+? That's gonna take about 3-4 hours to download for me. Generally anything that big I download with my Raspberry Pi so I can shut down my main computer, saves power and can be left to it. Obviously that's not possible here, so I'll see what the SolydK UP is like tomorrow so I can compare. My LMDE partition looks under threat.

[Riko]

Well, the SolydXK UP will not be any better considering it follows a monthly cycle:

from [url]http://solydxk.com/[/url] about UP 2013.09.06

Those who haven’t upgraded from the testing repositories, and depending on whether you’re a SolydX or SolydK user you will have between 200MB until 700MB of packages to download.

Good luck!

[excollier]

SolydK will be the larger one, mainly due to the fact that KDE 4.11.1 is included this month, so that probably explains that one away. Unusually large, I imagine. I stand to be corrected though.

[Orbmiser]

Ladies and gentlemen,
Unfortunately, I unintentionally started synchronization already.
It's no use having a partial UP pack. So, I'll finish the synchronization as if it was planned this way.
Until further notice: please do not upgrade your system!
[url]http://forums.solydxk.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1430[/url]

Below you see the information shown by the "Update Pack Info" button in the Update Manager after the repository synchronization.

Just popped up here at SolydK 8:54am

Update Pack 2013.09.06

Changes These are the highlights.

KDE
Santa has made KDE 4.11.1 available.
Kernel
The kernel has been updated to version 3.10-2
Firefox
Firefox has been updated to version 23.0.1

Problem tho is update manager is not showing number of packages and total size anywhere that I can see.
I need that kind of info to schedule when as others use this connection and don't want to bog them down.

Well found it in selecting Log

2-09-2013 08:51:36 RefreshThread.run INFO 565 recommended updates available (442MB)

Wish they would apply that info to the bottom status bar like everyone else does. And include package info so I know what it is.
Nice to see tho that they didn't include the re-downloading of KDE wallpapers which is about 84mb in size and I always had to make sure it was tagged with ignore.
.

.

[Monsta]

UP7 is getting closer, and some important things have been fixed yesterday (see Clem's posts starting from [url=http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=187&t=144198&p=763985#p763554]this one[/url]). There's still a need for more testers.
Anyone volunteering? It would certainly be more interesting than discussing the woes of the large downloads