Outdated

[AscLinux]

I read LMDE 2 has newer packages than regular Mint. But everything is still so outdated, gcc is 4.8, there were significant changes in gcc-4.9, gcc-5.4 is long out and stable, gcc-6.2 is used in other distros. Or kernel, 3.x. Hello! 4.8.6 is stable!

[Fred Barclay]

Hello AscLinux.
I think there's a misunderstanding here. LMDE 2 does indeed have some newer packages than Mint 17.x (though not than Mint 18), but that doesn't mean it has the absolute latest packages:

* Mint, and LMDE, doesn't have the goal of having the latest packages. Our goal is stability and user-friendliness, both of which are difficult to achieve if you constantly integrate newer packages (which can, and often do, break things).

* Mint, and LMDE, does indeed have the latest packages for some programmes, such as Firefox, in which case it would be a security risk to use older versions.

* LMDE 2 is based on Debian 8 Stable ("Jessie"). We get most of our packages from Jessie, and the Debian team is very particular about releasing stable, well-tested software. If you consider this a bad thing, then please at least don't blame LMDE. We are dependent on Debian and their choices.
(Please note that I consider Debian's stability to be a great thing! I don't have time these days to debug a broken OS, and I suspect most Mint users don't either.)

* As a wise man once said, "A stable kernel does not make a stable OS." Just because kernel 4.8.6 is stable does not mean that a Linux distro which utilises it will be stable.
(Actually, I just came up with that quote.)

* As Yoda said, "Outdated, a package is not, when newest, it is not." LMDE, and its packages, are not outdated and won't be until they are no longer supported by the Mint team and the Debian Security team (around 2019 if I remember correctly). Yes, there are newer packages (with new bugs). But we are still being supported and so we're not outdated.
(Yes, I just came up with that quote too.)

* Lastly, you can get some newer packages on LMDE through Debian Backports.

If you want the absolute latest packages, then I recommend Arch, or (the more newbie-friendly) Manjaro. They're both outstanding distros, but be warned that you are much more likely to break something. Be sure to make regular backups!
EDIT: or Debian Sid if you want the Debian package system.

[Crewp]

Yes, agreed, a wise old man once said "A stable kernel does not make a stable OS." or was that Fred Barclay

You could switch your repo's and follow Debian testing. But you do so at your own risk of coarse.

[Zill]

AscLinux: Please see "Don't suffer from Shiny New Stuff Syndrome" in the Debian Wiki.

[Kilwillie]

I think AscLinux may have misunderstood Clem's description of LMDE:

LMDE is however slightly faster than Linux Mint and it runs newer packages. Life on the LMDE side can be exciting. There are no point releases in LMDE 2, except for bug fixes and security fixes base packages stay the same, but Mint and desktop components are updated continuously. When ready, newly developed features get directly into LMDE 2, whereas they are staged for inclusion on the next upcoming Linux Mint 17.x point release. Consequently, Linux Mint users only run new features when a new point release comes out and they opt-in to upgrade to it. LMDE 2 users don’t have that choice, but they also don’t have to wait for new packages to mature and they usually get to run them first. It’s more risky, but more exciting.

What that means is the Mint-developed portion of LMDE gets newer packages. I.E: When a new version of Cinnamon comes out, it's pushed to the LMDE repos once it's stable, while the Ubuntu-based users have to wait until the next point release. We also got the new X-apps while Ubuntu-based users had to wait until 18.

If you want to see what's in the Betsy repos, look here:

http://packages.linuxmint.com/list.php?release=Betsy

Everything else comes straight from Debian and follows their conservative update schedule.

[deleted]

Yes, agreed, a wise old man once said "A stable kernel does not make a stable OS." or was that Fred Barclay

^ LOL
another wise one (on Kanotix->sidux->siduction says "An operating system must operate"

[AscLinux]

We already have Mint and lots of *buntus, all conservative with software versions. I was hoping this is different, tracking unstable or at least testing. Thanks, but I lost interest.

[deleted]

siduction and semplice are your best bets for tracking Debian SID.
...And the forums are good, too
-H

[mzsade]

Having the latest is not necessarily a good thing. I refer especially to gcc. You cannot imagine the amount of grief i ran into using gcc-6 on my Debian (Sid) partition trying to compile a new kernel with it. Finally, after trying out everything i had to install an update-alternatives for gcc and switch back to gcc-5. And believe me, gcc-5 compiles the kernel in half the time gcc-6 did before they messed it up completely.

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=841368

[AscLinux]

OK, here's the setup:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-6100 CPU @ 3.70GHz.
In both cases the kernel is compiled with -march=native.
The command was

Code: Select all

time make -j5

With gcc-5.4

Code: Select all

real    3m33.597s
user    11m0.159s
sys     0m33.383s
ls -l arch/x86/boot/bzImage 
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3851952 Nov  4 21:07 arch/x86/boot/bzImage

With gcc-6.2

Code: Select all

real    3m21.262s
user    12m10.559s
sys     0m34.934s
ls -l arch/x86/boot/bzImage 
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3843872 Nov  4 21:12 arch/x86/boot/bzImage

[zorzi]

LMDE2 is one of the best distros I've used (for a year) in terms of stability.

It's based on Debian (Stable) repos. But that means you can add the debian jessie-backports if you absolutely need some recent stuff (for example: Libre Office 5 instead of L.O 4), or (less recommended) the debian testing repositories.

Linux Mint is really making a good work with this distro, pushing newer stuff (Mate) as soon as possible.