[SOLVED] LMDE disable rolling

[bamdad.khan]

hi everybody,

(i'm not sure what the big red 'not a support forum' means, if i'm not supposed to ask anything here, just move/delete me. :)

i've installed LMDE on my crappy old Thinkpad, and with a proper xorg.conf and some tweaking, it's the distro that woks best so far. now i know for a fact that once the 2.6.33 kernel and some xorg+dri updates will come, it will break support for my video card. i've seen it on Arch and others.

so i'd like to 'disable' the rolling updates, so my system will basically work as a Debian testing (and later, stable). my guess is that this can be achieved by changing the repos from 'testing' to 'stable' once Squeeze is out (and maybe disabling linuxmint repo).

am i right?

thanks,
bamdad

[linuxviolin]

If you are afraid of kernel updates or other, why not just select the updates you want to do? You just uncheck and so refuse those which can be problematic Although maybe sometimes you can have some problems with the dependencies...

[bamdad.khan]

If you are afraid of kernel updates or other, why not just select the updates you want to do? You just uncheck and so refuse those which can be problematic :idea: Although maybe sometimes you can have some problems with the dependencies...

i'm not afraid of kernel updates, not the maintenance ones, at least (the 2.6.xx updates are my concern, not the 2.6.32.xx). but this is a more complex issue. it involves lots of packages beside the kernel, like mesa-dri, xorg, so i'm better off with choosing the right repos (e.g. debian-security).

i'm fairly sure that switching to 'stable' once it's appropriate (and maybe #-ing out the mint repo) will be enough, i'm just asking for clarification to see if i've missed something.

thanks anyway. :)

[DrHu]

now i know for a fact that once the 2.6.33 kernel and some xorg+dri updates will come, it will break support for my video card

...it will break support for my video card
Well, maybe Mint will have some advice around that time..

I don't know why, since the other distributions that Mint provides could match this in terms of kernel, that you would want to use a rolling release while not enabling the rolling release function

I think you are making the incorrect choice if that is the plan
--why make it that difficult if that is your plan

Surely one of the other Linux versions that mint has works just as well..

]so i'd like to 'disable' the rolling updates, so my system will basically work as a Debian testing (and later, stable).

I am thinking that Mint release levels will follow Debian style and won't be any different, except for including the Mint functions

[bamdad.khan]

I don't know why, since the other distributions that Mint provides could match this in terms of kernel, that you would want to use a rolling release while not enabling the rolling release function

okay, here's what i've experienced:
Ubuntu 10.04 - works with a custom xorg.conf and KMS disabled.
Fedora 13 - same as above
OpenSUSE 11.3 (release much later) - can't get any direct rendering to work, with or without KMS and/or modding the xorg.conf
Arch - same as OpenSUSE

other versions of Mint are Ubuntu-based. my laptop has only 512 megs of ram. Mint 9 and Ubuntu 10.04 use ~210 megs on a fresh boot, LMDE uses ~120 (with certain things like Bluetooth disabled on all of them). i usually blame upstart for this, but i could be wrong. so.. you could ask why i'm not using vanilla Debian. it's simple, because it's hard to hunt down all the useful apps and codecs Mint has.

I think you are making the incorrect choice if that is the plan
--why make it that difficult if that is your plan

i know what i'm doing, see above. :)

I am thinking that Mint release levels will follow Debian style and won't be any different, except for including the Mint functions

so you mean that once Squeeze becomes stable, LMDE will continue to use the packages from the next 'testing' release? that would be awesome, and i could do what i'm planning to do: let it use 'testing' on my desktop, and change 'testing' to 'stable' on my laptop, so it won't break driver support.

[linuxviolin]

okay, here's what i've experienced:
Ubuntu 10.04 - works with a custom xorg.conf and KMS disabled.
Fedora 13 - same as above
OpenSUSE 11.3 (release much later) - can't get any direct rendering to work, with or without KMS and/or modding the xorg.conf
Arch - same as OpenSUSE

Have you tried also CentOS or Scientific?

so.. you could ask why i'm not using vanilla Debian. it's simple, because it's hard to hunt down all the useful apps and codecs Mint has.

Hard? Hmm, well, when I used Debian Testing on one of my PCs, I had installed all the codecs and other stuffs in just some minutes...

[alpha1]

Mint xfce and lxde are more suited for 512 MB.

May turn out to less hassle than setting up Debian and disabling updates or doing selective updates.

I ran Mint 8 xfce and Mint 9 lxde few months ago with 512MB ram - and it was plain sailing.
Never once freeze or hangup.
Infact Mint 8 xfce was better performer than Mint 9 lxde.

I expect Mint 9 xfce to be even better than 8

[Susu]

@bamdad: What you're looking for is apt-pinning:

http://www.howtoforge.com/a-short-intro ... pt-pinning
http://jaqque.sbih.org/kplug/apt-pinning.html

[linuxviolin]

I expect Mint 9 xfce to be even better than 8

Maybe yes... or not! Don't forget, it's Ubuntu!

Sorry.

P.S.= Susu, I like your avatar...

[bamdad.khan]

thank you all. apt-pinning _is_ what i was looking for. :)

in the meantime, i'll have a look at the Isadora lxde version (i really don't like xfce).. maybe you're right. these 'low resource desktop' things were horrible a few years back, but maybe the Mint developers did their magic there, too.

bamdad

[vrkalak]

To disable the 'rolling release' aspect of LMDE,

In a terminal type : sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list <enter> Enter password when prompted.

In the sources.list files, change every instance where a repro says 'testing' - change these to 'Squeeze' <save>
Then, sudo apt-get update

In the Debian image you cannot move backward, only forward ... currently, 'Squeeze' is 'testing' ... stay with Squeeze.

Also, Squeeze is in the 'freeze' stage of it's development ... around the end of the year it will be released as the new Debian 6 'stable'
Being in the 'freeze' stage Squeeze/testing is not a 'rolling release' at the moment ... after Squeeze is released as 'stable' - then a new 'testing' version will be released.
Makes sense, to stay with Squeeze through the 'freeze' as it is so close to being released ... that it is 'rock solid stable' already.
Then, after it's release - stick with Debian 6 Squeeze and not 'testing' ... as it will be the most stable and up-to-date at that time.

[bamdad.khan]

To disable the 'rolling release' aspect of LMDE,

In a terminal type : sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list <enter> Enter password when prompted.

In the sources.list files, change every instance where a repro says 'testing' - change these to 'Squeeze' <save>
Then, sudo apt-get update

you, sir, are awesome. exactly the answer i've been looking for. i'm marking the thread as solved.

[Susu]

P.S.= Susu, I like your avatar...

Haha, thank you. Me too!