Linux Mint Xfce For Creatives?

[Kreative]

The IBM takeover of Red Hat and Fedora is a worrisome thought. I have a few questions for the Creatives (Web/Graphic Designers and Artists) on LM.

One of my major concerns is current Graphics Applications.
Fedora Version:
Inkscape 0.92.3 (2405546, 2018-03-11)
GIMP 2.8.22
Krita 4.1.5
Scribus 1.4.6

Also will I be able to Plug-n-Play Firefox & Thunderbird plus a few others Settings from Fedora to Linux Mint Xfce? The only desktop environments I liked on Fedora was Xfce and GNOME 3, sadly the latter one is becoming counter productive for me. I have an i5 3570 & Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch which runs fine on Fedora except for Tablet Buttons not mapped correctly.

[xenopeek]

Welcome to the Linux Mint forums.

Linux Mint 19 has the same version of Inkscape, GIMP, Scribus and Firefox as you list. It has version 4.0.1 of Krita instead of 4.1.5 and it has version 60.2.1 of Thunderbird instead of 60.3.0. Looks like it should be pretty simple to hop over.

Should you absolutely require the newer version of Krita you can add the Krita Lime PPA ppa:kritalime/ppa (PPAs are similar to COPR) or install the Krita flatpak. Both offer 4.1.5 currently. Flatpaks you can install through Software Manager. PPA's you can add through Software Sources and afterwards you'll find updates for Krita in Update Manager.

One (major) difference between Linux Mint and Fedora is the development and support cycle. Fedora does a release every 6 months and those are supported for 13 months. So, likely every 6 months you get new versions of your creative programs. Linux Mint instead has a two-tier release system:

• Major releases are done every 2 years and are supported for 5 years (Linux Mint 19 was released mid 2018 and Linux Mint 20 can be expected mid 2020). Major releases move to a new package base (the Ubuntu LTS releases) and as such get you new versions of your creative programs. You also get the latest Linux Mint developed and maintained software.
• Minor releases are done every 6 months during the first 2 years of a major release (e.g., Linux Mint 19.1 is due around December 2018, 19.2 mid next year and 19.3 end of next year). These get you the latest Linux Mint developed and maintained software but are optional (Linux Mint 19, 19.1, 19.2 and 19.3 will all be supported for the same 5 year period). It's unlikely that from the minor releases you'll see new versions of your creative programs, that happens with major releases.

There are ways around it. You can add PPAs to your system for specific programs of which you must have a newer version. Or you can instead install their Flatpak.

[Kreative]

Thanks for the advice
Inkscape keeps pestering me to update my SVG files... always test w/ a copy first to play it safe.

[Kreative]

I have another Question: Would Linux Mint Debian 3 be a bad idea for Creatives?

I know PureOS is based on Debian w/ GNOME 3 DE and likewise for MX Linux w/ Xfce DE, they all look good, but are current graphic apps on Debian a problem? I'm still somewhat of a Linux Noob w/ over a year on Fedora.

[xenopeek]

No, any Linux distro will likely work for you—they should pretty much all have the same graphics programs you want, though there may be differences in versions. I don't feel like doing all that legwork but you can search for the names of those programs here https://www.debian.org/distrib/packages (in "Search package directories") to check their versions in Debian stable, which is the package base used by LMDE 3.

One difference to be aware of is that Linux Mint based on Ubuntu uses Ubuntu's LTS hardware enablement stack (kernel and drivers), which gets upgraded a few times during its lifetime to enable newer hardware to work with it. Debian does not do that by default and while you can use things like Debian backports repository to get a newer than stock kernel, it's not the same. That may or may not be important to you.

I;m not quite sure but have a thought that graphics tablet support may be better on Ubuntu based Linux Mint.

Linux Mint 19 is our primary edition. LMDE 3 is proving to ourselves that we can do Linux Mint also with a different package base.