Mint Debian

[Gramps50]

@secipolla Thanks for the links to the repros

[tdockery97]

After using LMDE for most of the day now, there is only one complaint. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't break it. I thought Mint 9 was stable. LMDE is well beyond my expections. It looks like LMDE will be my main desktop.

[Joylove]

Installed LMDE on an old 40gig HDD and had better video playback performance (can now use XV or XVMC since in LM9 I was stuck with X11).

Only problem was
-need to manually install the broadcom wireless driver (no hardware wizard)
-Synaptic's auto search wasn't functioning (until I checked for updates and applied patches)
-Grub2 menu has a blue vga menu portion on top of the Linux Mint wallpaper

Anyway I applied all patches (including level 4 and 5) and now I can't boot into the GUI. Tried to boot via recovery but after entering the root password and startx, I got stuck on a black screen.

Also during install I wasn't prompted where to assign the swap (made one up via gparted though along with the root and home partition)

[craig10x]

apparently direct debian has a reputation for crappy font rendering (as compared to ubuntu and kubuntu which is not quite as good as windows but far superior to debian direct)...read this year old post from the debian forums:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=46550
Mint Team TAKE NOTE!!!

[msuggs]

There is often a debate around font rendering and I've always found it a fairly subjective experience. I quite dislike the font rendering in Ubuntu.

[shayney]

Still playing around with it and generally impressed.
Still no major problems so far.

One thing I was slightly sceptical about is the claims a mint debian system is better speed and performance wise.
Although I know from running testing before that it is better than ubuntu and mint in that respect, I figured with extra mint tools and any other system startup stuff added by mint (I haven't looked into what those might be) it would probably be much the same.

Turns out resource-wise it is using much less (like, 50-75mb less depending what I'm doing).
No really noticeable difference speed wise but then ubuntu and mint both run very snappy on my comp.
Resource usage isn't really an issue for me since I have plenty of RAM and a pretty fast laptop and have never even come close to using half it's RAM but for those with older comps or those who find their comps struggling with ubuntu or mint may well love this.

I think it will be a while before I am using this as my main system though. I want to spend a while really pushing it and seeing how it holds up and what bugs (if any) rear their heads.

So enough rambling, I have a question now:
Does anyone know if ubuntu mavericks unity/netbook interface will make it back to debian?
I'm playing around with gnome-shell on mint debian and starting to like it but I still fancy unity.

[tdockery97]

I've noticed it to be 50% faster opening and closing windows and apps than Isadora did on my laptop, and cpu down about 20% on the average.

[Intio]

I've noticed it to be 50% faster opening and closing windows and apps than Isadora did on my laptop, and cpu down about 20% on the average.

Is this based on subjective estimation, or have you actually timed it?

[Joylove]

Compared with Linux Mint 9 Main Edition, the Mint Menu tends to have a delay before appearing. In LMDE its much more responsive.

Also tried to play a couple of videos. Under LM9 and 8, I was unable to switch to XV decoding whereas it was possible in LMDE, Tried to disable Frame Dropping and Hard Frame Dropping (both were necessary switches for playing 720p videos on my laptop) and was surprised to be able to play a 1280x780 video fluidly (Eclipse' encoded Kaichou wa Maidsama's OP which tend to put a strain during the petals animation scene)

Also the temp when playing a video is now 58 degrees Celsius compared to 64 degrees C during LM9 while the idle temp is now 47 degrees Celsius (was 50 C).

[Intio]

@JoyLove: Sounds good. The Mint 9 menu delay has annoyed me too, but I'm too used to MintMenu to switch now

[craig10x]

There is often a debate around font rendering and I've always found it a fairly subjective experience. I quite dislike the font rendering in Ubuntu.

interesting...you think direct debian looks BETTER then ubuntu? I don't think most people would agree with that...As someone mentioned in the debian forum thread i linked, debian looks like an old fashioned typewriter type the way it renders web pages...no "flare" no "style" at all to the look.
Although ultimately i majored in business in college, i had originally gone to a graphic arts high school (printing trade) so i know types, looks etc..have a very sharp eye for those type of things because i was trained early...

for me,if the mint team, can't make it look at least as good as ubuntu, i won't switch to the debian version, ever....and ultimately i would really love to, but that would unfortunately be a major "deal breaker" for me...
to my eye, debian looks horrible...

many others here have mentioned the same thing, so i don't think i am in the minority on this one...

even ubuntu renders different the microsoft windows and mac osx, but i still find it pretty attractive to look at...

[deibu76]

Doing the work involved in this link improved the rendering in Firefox immensely for me in Debian:

http://lovingthepenguin.blogspot.com/20 ... an_15.html

[shayney]

I believe it's because ubuntu icludes a libfreetype patch and debian does not.
In fact I notice most distros have iffy fonts compared to ubuntu and openSUSE.

Though since I switched to my smaller screen laptop full-time it isn't so noticeable so no longer a big deal for me.

[kmb42vt]

After using LMDE for most of the day now, there is only one complaint. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't break it. I thought Mint 9 was stable. LMDE is well beyond my expections. It looks like LMDE will be my main desktop.

Same experience here. Well, okay. I can break if I really want to but deliberately deleting configuration files is cheating.

[msuggs]

interesting...you think direct debian looks BETTER then ubuntu?

Yes I do

to my eye, debian looks horrible...

Like I said, these things are subjectve.

[bug67]

I did a full install on my laptop.

Man, it's quick! Everything, including wireless worked right out of the box.

The installer was a bit confusing. I had to select a mount point and it took me a while to figure out how to do that but I got it. Installation took 8 minutes! I had backed up my entire home folder, including hidden files so, it was just a matter of drag and drop. All my Firefox and Thunderbird settings were just like I had left them.

It's nice to be using a recent release of an OS.

Issues I was having with Isadora (Lucid) that kept me using Helena:

1. Custom cursors weren't working

2. My home made screen savers weren't working

3. None of my Custom window placement settings in Compiz were sticking.

Now:

1. Custom cursors work!

2. Home made screensavers work!

3. Custom window placement settings in Compiz still aren't working.

A few other things I noticed:

I don't like the Software Center. I liked the way the Linux Mint Main edition does it better. The one in the Main edition works like the old Add/Remove Software did. The new one works like, well, Software Center. Just some catagory icons to choose from with limited information. Plus, it's based on Debian's repositories and not Ubuntu's so, it's going to take me some time to get used to that.

Speaking of software, one of the first things I did was install gnome games. When I went to launch Solitaire, nothing happened. I need to investigate further. Also, I had to install GDM2 Login Setup via a downloaded .deb (couldn't install PPA like Ubuntu based). It also would not launch.

Screenlets do not appear to support transparancy like they do in Main. The Weather Channel screenlet is buggy and crashed a couple of times. Also they are not as crisp/anti-aliased as they are in Main.

Fonts are a lot rougher in appearance as well. From what I understand, this is a known issue with Debian itself.

I have a drawer in the pannel that I keep links to my most frequently used web sites in. In Helena, when I closed this drawer, it would leave a shadow of itself until a browser window opened to cover/draw over it. This no longer happens.

Overall, things feel a lot faster. I am looking forward to a lot of these bugs getting worked out with rolling releases. One of the things mentioned on Mint's web site in "known issues" was the omission of the of the Simple Compiz settings. It was mentioned this would be made available in a future rolling release. I like this model of updating. I have no doubt that the Mint team will make this the best Debian based OS they possibly can. I for one am looking forward to the future of Linux Mint Debian Edition.

[craig10x]

I believe it's because ubuntu icludes a libfreetype patch and debian does not.
In fact I notice most distros have iffy fonts compared to ubuntu and openSUSE.

Though since I switched to my smaller screen laptop full-time it isn't so noticeable so no longer a big deal for me.

Interesting If that is what makes the difference, i hope the Mint Team reads this and makes note to look into that
So that maybe they can add some of the magic "ubuntu" look to the Mint debian side

[Intio]

So it's on the homepage now... yay!

[tdockery97]

Speaking of software, one of the first things I did was install gnome games. When I went to launch Solitaire, nothing happened. I need to investigate further.

Same thing happened to me with the Aisleriot Solitaire. Please post if you figure it out.

[HaTeMe]

I think it is more useful if you tell us what the Terminal say to you when u start Solitair or something like that.
Just tested Open Arena for the Drivers and that works fine.

Sounds like a GDM issue?