LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

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Kev
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LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by Kev »

For years I've run both Mint and also Debian (with Cinnamon), and really like both OSs. LMDE seems to sit somewhere between the two so is clearly interesting, but as it is intended as a contingency, rather than as a main release, I've never actually used it seriously.

Is there some summary info anywhere, that goes a bit beyond the general concept? For example I don't know if LMDE is entirely Debian-stable except for Mint's particular Cinnamon and theming, or if the customisations go much further. Or what I might actually be missing from it, compared to mainstream releases such as Mint or Debian.

Apologies if this is obvious stuff! I've been very happy that Mint has a plan-b and also that it is Debian, but I'm only just starting to wonder if I might want to try using it instead of normal Mint or Debian.

Thanks,
Kev
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xenopeek
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by xenopeek »

If you look in Software Sources program you can confirm LMDE is Debian stable repositories + Linux Mint repository. The latter mostly has software developed by Linux Mint but also some other packages such as newer Firefox version and additional graphics card drivers. The Linux Mint repository may override some packages from Debian stable, providing newer versions or including customizations specific to LMDE and./or Cinnamon. You can see what all is in that repository here: http://packages.linuxmint.com/list.php?release=Debbie
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Kev
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by Kev »

Ah, thats great; I'd not thought to look there. Many thanks!

That all looks pretty good to me. Nice to see some newer packages rather than simply following behind Debian; maybe not masses but I like the concept and it shows the principle. So there doesn't seem a lot to lose really, whilst also gaining the association with Mint and this forum.

Of course Bullseye is imminent, but I've no pressing need to upgrade Buster so should be similarly fine running LMDE-4. Think i shall give it a try and see for myself then; I accept that it isn't Mint's main focus but a Mint-ified Debian still seems like an interesting combo.

Thanks again,
Kev
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all41
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by all41 »

I run buster, lmde, and other debian variants.
imho lmde tops the heap, especially regarding Update Management
Everything in life was difficult before it became easy.
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by Kev »

Thanks! Sounds encouraging. I've downloaded LMDE4 so will hopefully be installing it later in the week; it'll be fun to see how it compares to mainstream Debian, which can be a bit stubborn at times for one of my mediocre technical skills. Mint 20.1/20.2 will still be on my main laptop, LMDE will be on my second/older one but Debian is fairly light so that should be ample.

The only other direct Debian derivative I've so far tried and liked was MX-Linux. It seemed a useful combo of the Debian base with more of a focus on desktops/laptops and normal users. Perhaps LMDE is similar in concept, but (in its current roll) the customisations seem fewer; having less to go wrong might actually suit my purposes better.

Cheers,
Kev
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by Kev »

I'm typing this from a new LMDE install :)

I just used the standard live installer, I don't think there was an automatic 'use free space' option offered but a basic scheme using the manual option was still quite easy even for me (I'm already familiar with Gparted) and worked fine. Normally in Debian I'd use the encryption and LVM wizards, so for a fairer comparison I'll probably try another LMDE install using "sudo live-installer-expert-mode". Unfortunately on the first attempt I'd overlooked the need to start the installation differently from the outset.

First impressions are exactly as expected: LMDE looks like Mint and acts more like Debian, no surprises there. As a (very) small test I downloaded BalenaEtcher as an appimage, and just as with Debian it doesn't run out of the box (without sudo or preferably tweaking pkexec), whereas I'd expect it to in Mint. Again entirely as expected, just wanted to see if any LMDE tweaks had altered Debian's default behaviour or not.

So, after a re-install I'll use it for a while and see how it works for me, compared to normal Debian. The Mint-specific tools are a nice touch but a lot of what I like about Mint is built into Cinnamon, so actually available to either. There really might not be a lot in it, perhaps a number of small things may add up though.

Replacing mainstream Mint with LMDE might be a bigger question. I'm not the most technical of users, and find the Debian base a bit more challenging; probably there is only so much LMDE could do about that. But.. I happen to particularly like Debian for some reason, so maybe dealing with my ineptitude could be justified - painful and slow as that is likely to be.

Cheers
Kev
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by argentwolf »

It's truly astonishing to me how so few realize the brilliant intention behind LMDE (it's not simply a swerve off of Ubuntu), but so much more, it perfectly fits a miss in Debian and other offerings. My hat stays off to Clem's clear vision which I appreciate so very much! A high water mark indeed is set...LMDE is KISS achieved with elegance and pizazz! drops mic
Vanguard debian, because nothing's worse than doing nothing whimsically.
LMDE 6 | i7-4790 @ 3.60GHz x 8 CPU | 15.6GiB RAM | NVD9 1.9GiB GPU | 931GiB SSD | 298 GiB HD
LMDE 6| 2 Duo T5270 @ 1.40GHz x 2 CPU | 3.9GiB RAM | NV86 117MiB GPU | 465 GiB SSD
Kev
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by Kev »

Yes I like Debian though I don't find it easy, and have also highly approved of Mint's work on usability for many years now. The two could certainly be a superb combination, so this little voyage of discovery is probably way overdue.

That said, I can also see that Ubuntu makes a very good base for what Mint wants to deliver; I prefer Debian but it seems a slightly more distant point to start from, in a few ways. So I'm not really expecting LMDE to be quite the full Mint experience, especially as it isn't their main focus, but it'll be interesting to discover how far the Mintification of Debian does go.
Kev
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by Kev »

Well I've spent several hours tinkering with LMDE now and all is going well! I'm not sure what I was expecting really, but aside from the Mint-theme and small number of tools + apps in the LMDE repo, I can't actually find many differences between LMDE and Debian+Cinnamon. So I suppose thats the answer to my question really. Though to be fair I might well have altered Debian's defaults myself and forgotten; I vaguely recall that sudo may not have been available out of the box, for example.

Of course, were LMDE ever to become Mint's main focus, probably its repo would expand sharply and the differences increase. But for now I think the main advantage of LMDE would be the Mint team and community. I can't really see any major disadvantages. There is a lag between Debian releases and LMDE, but Mint also adds some newer stuff (and Debian stable is hardly about cutting edge anyway). I've also seen it said that Debian is more secure than most derivatives, but most stuff in LMDE looks to come directly from the Debian repos anyway. I suppose the Mint additions and tweaks inherently add 'some' opportunity for issues, but they don't seem any more risky than what is in Mint proper.

So I think mainstream Mint is rightly the best choice for most cases, but oddly enough (current) LMDE might suit me better for learning more about desktop Debian than Debian itself. I might choose Debian for set-up-and-forget applications, especially as v11 is just about to arrive, but there isn't much in it as they're both (currently) so similar.
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by Tolayon »

One important difference is that LMDE uses the latest version of Cinnamon, even if the system itself is based on Debian Stable. Well, LMDE still might lag behind mainstream Linux Mint, but software updates follow soon after their release on Ubuntu-based Mint.

Debian - at least the stable branch - uses a way older version of Cinnamon. Some weeks ago I installed Debian 10 in a VM and was surprised to find that the Cinnamon version was only 3.8.8!
Also, Debian Stable only gets rarely even security updates. Twice already I wanted to update the system after two weeks each - just to find that there were no updates available! Only in between there were like three updates.
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by Kev »

Yes the LMDE-specific repos (linked higher up) have quite a bit of Cinnamon stuff in, along with some other apps and bits&bobs, which are of course updated by Mint rather than Debian. As it happens, there aren't actually any differences between LMDE's and Buster's versions of Cinnamon that affect me very much at present, but that could easily change as new desirable features are introduced. Possibly Cinnamon updates could be a key reason to go with LMDE; it is my favourite desktop.

Debian is certainly quite good at keeping changes to a minimum. I'm sure the bulk of LMDE will therefore be no different, but I haven't been running it long enough yet to see how often the LMDE-specific repos change, presumably a little more often than the Debian equivalents but perhaps not radically so?
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by WriteF »

Kev wrote: Sun Jul 04, 2021 4:54 pm As it happens, there aren't actually any differences between LMDE's and Buster's versions of Cinnamon that affect me very much at present, but that could easily change as new desirable features are introduced.
I got one. :( I haven't succeeded in adding the Wifi applet to simply scan for and select a wireless network. I hope that will be fixed with Bullseye. Honestly things like that are the biggest reason to look forward to LMDE5
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Kev
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by Kev »

Thats strange, if I'm understanding correctly. For me the Cinnamon wifi applet has been automatically present and working equally well in Mint20.1, LMDE4 and Buster.

I needed to manually download and install the wifi driver during installation of Buster, because I rather rashly used Debian's free-only ISO, and my particular wifi card required a non-free driver. But thats the only wifi tinkering I did (aside from entering the password, obviously). WiFi and Linux does seem to be a slightly turbulent match, at times :|
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by Fossy »

all41 wrote: Tue Jun 29, 2021 11:02 pm I run buster, lmde, and other debian variants.
imho lmde tops the heap, especially regarding Update Management
Speak in my own name here , Updating / upgrading Linux Distros is a learning process .
After saying goodbye to Windows 8 /10 for good, I started about 13 years with Linux Mint 17 Quana .
Without having renounced Linux Mint , both the Ubuntu and Debian based editions , I now only use Debian ( 10.10 Buster ) as a " daily driver " .

as far as updating & upgrading is concerned, under any Linux Distro I now only work with the gnome terminal :
sudo apt update > if necessary sudo apt list –upgradable followed by sudo apt upgrade .

As for the “non-free” drivers, I always include them immediately with a clean install, for Debian I always use the Live *.* amd64 + nonfree– cinnamon .iso
https://cdimage.debian.org/images/unoff ... so-hybrid/

haven't had any problems with this method so far.
I’m not eager to get both Debian 11 Bullseye and LMDE5 … yet ... :roll:

translated by " zinnen vertalen " ... I'm native Dutchspeaking
Kev
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by Kev »

Yes, upgrades and updates are certainly something I need to experience with LMDE. With Mint they tend to recommend a clean install for new major versions whereas Debian is renowned for painless upgrades of the existing installation, so it will be quite interesting to see which way LMDE goes. Though Mint can be upgraded, part of its great value is in considering what approaches best suit normal desktop users (like me!) so the reasons aren't necessarily just technical ones.

For updates and software, it looks like LMDE4 has a few good options. I like the Mint-like tools for day-to-day use, especially for software discovery - unlike some other distro's bespoke solutions Mint's have not given me any problems - though IIRC it doesn't offer everything (like libraries). Synaptic is really excellent for cases when I already know what I want, due to having so may features and options, I use it a lot in Debian. Apt is very reliable and deceptively simple, but I'm more of a GUI person by preference so mainly tend to use it if already working in the terminal. I vaguely recall that some of these might handle recommended software differently, but could be confusing other distros.

That said, I tend not to install masses of stuff or tinker very often, and no longer use rolling releases. For more complicated or less stable situations then maybe I would use apt much more.
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by Bolle1961 »

Fossy wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 6:50 am After saying goodbye to Windows 8 /10 for good, I started about 13 years with Linux Mint 17 Quana .
I think you made a typo.
Linux Mint was first released in 2006? Linux Mint 17 was released may 2014
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by Fossy »

Bolle1961 wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 10:02 am
Fossy wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 6:50 am After saying goodbye to Windows 8 /10 for good, I started about 13 years with Linux Mint 17 Quana .
I think you made a typo.
Linux Mint was first released in 2006? Linux Mint 17 was released may 2014
indeed , it was " only " circa 7 years ago ....
hereby corrected
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by WriteF »

Kev wrote: Sun Jul 04, 2021 6:29 pm Thats strange, if I'm understanding correctly. For me the Cinnamon wifi applet has been automatically present and working equally well in Mint20.1, LMDE4 and Buster.
Kev wrote: Sun Jul 04, 2021 6:29 pm As for the “non-free” drivers, I always include them immediately with a clean install, for Debian I always use the Live *.* amd64 + nonfree– cinnamon .iso
https://cdimage.debian.org/images/unoff ... so-hybrid/

haven't had any problems with this method so far.
I’m not eager to get both Debian 11 Bullseye and LMDE5 … yet ... :roll:

translated by " zinnen vertalen " ... I'm native Dutchspeaking
I think my problem with the Wi-fi applet being absent and a pain to add might have to do with this. There are just way too many horrible (for my taste) default programs included with the default install. And more than you might ever need. Finding and removing them all with synaptic takes forever and leaves a lot off unused and unnecesary packages for a clean install.

So I had to somehow add this from gitlab https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/network-manager-applet. Which was more of a pain than I hoped, and failed at. I guess I am still to much of an amateur to customize the DE properly.

Other than that I figured (from Majpooper) the best non-free Cinnamon DE install was to do an install with just the printer stuff selected and then do the following in the TTY.
apt install cinnamon-core gedit gnome-terminal gnome-calculator firefox-esr gnome-system-monitor gnome-disk-utility evince gnome-mpv audacious badbab gnome-calender eog gnome-screenshot keepassxc
apt remove imagemagick uxterm
So I haven't found what I needed to add to get easy Wifi selection added.

EDIT: Komaan man, je Engels is vast prima :D
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by Kev »

Well there has been further testing and still all is fine, so that leaves surprisingly little between them.

As expected, I still find mainstream Mint a little better for my mainstream usage; a little more user friendly, more up to date software etc. There is much less in it between LMDE and Debian. Probably timing is the main differentiator for me: the immanent Bullseye will initially be more attractive, but later on LMDE5 may become more tempting as Bullseye's version of Cinnamon (etc) becomes older.

That said, LMDE obviously just has the Cinnamon option at present. Which is understandable given LMDE's main purpose, and happens to be my favourite anyway. But one of my machines (an old core-M) is noticeably more sprightly with Debian Xfce, so that may well swing the Debian choice.
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Re: LMDE compared to Debian & Mint?

Post by Fossy »

Kev wrote: Tue Jun 29, 2021 5:34 am For years I've run both Mint and also Debian (with Cinnamon), and really like both OSs. LMDE seems to sit somewhere between the two so is clearly interesting, but as it is intended as a contingency, rather than as a main release, I've never actually used it seriously.

Is there some summary info anywhere, that goes a bit beyond the general concept? For example I don't know if LMDE is entirely Debian-stable except for Mint's particular Cinnamon and theming, or if the customisations go much further. Or what I might actually be missing from it, compared to mainstream releases such as Mint or Debian.

Apologies if this is obvious stuff! I've been very happy that Mint has a plan-b and also that it is Debian, but I'm only just starting to wonder if I might want to try using it instead of normal Mint or Debian.

Thanks,
Kev
LMDE compared to Debian & Mint ?
Tytsjerksteradiel ( one of my alter ego’s ) purely out of curiosity , ever installed LMDE4 Cinnamon next Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon next Debian 10.7 Cinnamon on the the same SSD … went flawlessly .
if you are interested in his topic : https://forum.linuxmintnl.nl/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7037
I advise you to translate the content with : https://www.vertalen.nu/zinnen/
and if you follow his example you could compare the three distros to your heart's content :D
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