LMDE based on Debian Testing

[FinixFighter]

Hi all! I was wondering if there is the possibility of having a LMDE based on Debian Testing in the future. Current version is based on Debian Stable and software versions are old, as you know. I don't think that adding repos can fix the problem because with the passing of the time the versions "diverge" too much and system becomes even more unstable. I think that the a LMDE based on Debian Testing would be great. I use Linux Mint 19.1 at the moment because I need a more updated software, this is the only reason I don't use LMDE. But I would definetely use it if it was based on Debian Testing. What do you think about that?

[KBD47]

LMDE used to be based upon Testing. They changed to to Stable. Not likely to ever go back. Having a Stable base allows them to save time and effort on development. You could roll your own by changing sources, but don't be surprised if it breaks. Debian Testing is in the first part of its three part freeze leading to the next Debian Stable right now.

[Carps]

It is a shame that they don't provide Mint on Debian Testing. Not that I don't understand why, however. It's a tremendous task to maintain two concurrent Linux distributions. It'd just be great if we had the less commercial father of Ubuntu (grandfather of Mint) as a foundation, but one that wasn't so terribly out of date (although, again, I can understand why Stable is, well, stable). Mint functions very well on Ubuntu and Debian, one less stable than the other, so I wonder just how difficult it would be to permanently transition to Debian.

I for one am curious as to what the Mint team likes so much about Ubuntu. It's not a bad thing. In fact, it cuts out a lot of the work for them with package maintenance and such. I'm just curious.

[KBD47]

It is a shame that they don't provide Mint on Debian Testing. Not that I don't understand why, however. It's a tremendous task to maintain two concurrent Linux distributions. It'd just be great if we had the less commercial father of Ubuntu (grandfather of Mint) as a foundation, but one that wasn't so terribly out of date (although, again, I can understand why Stable is, well, stable). Mint functions very well on Ubuntu and Debian, one less stable than the other, so I wonder just how difficult it would be to permanently transition to Debian.

I for one am curious as to what the Mint team likes so much about Ubuntu. It's not a bad thing. In fact, it cuts out a lot of the work for them with package maintenance and such. I'm just curious.

Ubuntu provides some things out of the box like lots of drivers Debian does not supply. Ubuntu is a 'commercial' distribution, vs Debian which is a community distro. Ubuntu can and sometimes does fix things faster. The downside of that is Ubuntu sometimes breaks things while Debian doesn't change much and less chance of breakage. Yet Debian Stable can have bugs that stick around for quite awhile.
I've argued that Mint should go full Debian and not depend upon Ubuntu as Shuttleworth is headed for an IPO and perhaps to sell Ubuntu not far down the road. Hopefully no one wants to buy it, for if it sells who knows what eventually comes of that.
There is a non-free Debian ISO release with much firmware that would negate the biggest argument against Debian Stable:
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unof ... -firmware/
Perhaps Mint could work directly with those maintaining the non-free ISO's.
And perhaps if Mint was only building upon Debian it could reboot a version based upon Testing.
Here is my thread arguing for going Full Debian:
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=273469

[Carps]

Ubuntu provides some things out of the box like lots of drivers Debian does not supply. Ubuntu is a 'commercial' distribution, vs Debian which is a community distro. Ubuntu can and sometimes does fix things faster. The downside of that is Ubuntu sometimes breaks things while Debian doesn't change much and less chance of breakage. Yet Debian Stable can have bugs that stick around for quite awhile.
I've argued that Mint should go full Debian and not depend upon Ubuntu as Shuttleworth is headed for an IPO and perhaps to sell Ubuntu not far down the road. Hopefully no one wants to buy it, for if it sells who knows what eventually comes of that.
There is a non-free Debian ISO release with much firmware that would negate the biggest argument against Debian Stable:
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unof ... -firmware/
Perhaps Mint could work directly with those maintaining the non-free ISO's.
And perhaps if Mint was only building upon Debian it could reboot a version based upon Testing.
Here is my thread arguing for going Full Debian:
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=273469

Yeah, I figured that the best course of action would be to implement the nonfree drivers into the installer to provide out-of-the-box support. I think Testing would also still be stable enough (considering that non-LTS versions of Ubuntu are somewhat stable and run on Debian Unstable). Debian is a huge force in the Linux world, even if people sometimes don't know it.

Interesting post you made, too. There are some great arguments both for and against in there. I am for a Debian rebase, but I can absolutely see why it would be very difficult.