LMDE Newbie (SOLVED)

Wrinkly · Post by **Wrinkly** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 11:52 pm

Good morning.
Is there a special forum within LMDE for very basic questions?
Or should I go back to the main support list and post in Newbie Questions, even if my query relates to LMDE?
Thanks.

caf4926 · Post by **caf4926** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 12:22 am

You are in the right place
Go ahead

Wrinkly · Post by **Wrinkly** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 12:36 am

OK, thanks. I'm sure this is a really stupid question.....
I've successfully downloaded LMDE, took about 8 hours. Then I did all the updates, which took another 5 hours.
If LMDE is a "rolling release", then surely the number of updates is going to get greater and greater. Does this mean that eventually it's going to take about a month just to download all the updates?

caf4926 · Post by **caf4926** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 12:42 am

No
Don't worry
Updates work the same as any release. The first batch of updates post install is going to be big. From now on things will be much less. But rolling release means you will not need to re-install to get the next release. As the updates feed thru, you get the latest and greatest from debian.

Wrinkly · Post by **Wrinkly** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 12:49 am

Thanks, caf4926. I understand that.
But what about the person who downloads LMDE for the first time next year?
Or what happens if I have, for some reason, to completely re-install my operating system? Or if I buy a new laptop?
Will there be a more up-to-date "starting point" in the future?

caf4926 · Post by **caf4926** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 12:56 am

In the release notes, it does mention that from time to time the LMDE.iso will be updated
So you would still need to download that.

I take it your internet is somewhat limited?
In which case, isn't or wouldn't it be perhaps better to use Mint 9 which is far more conservative in updates and is LTS too. Just a thought.

Wrinkly · Post by **Wrinkly** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 1:21 am

OK, I understand. Thanks

I take it your internet is somewhat limited?

You are very polite. By African standards, I've got a good broadband connection, but it's rubbish compared with the speeds I get when I'm in UK.

Wouldn't it be perhaps better to use Mint 9 which is far more conservative in updates and is LTS too?

I've got LM9 installed too. And I was so impressed with it that I took a deep breath and deleted the original operating system (Windows Vista).
So I thought I'd try out this wonderful new LMDE. I only use my computer for simple stuff, mostly OpenOffice & email. But I've noticed that LMDE is definitely faster.

Thanks for your help,
Cheers

vincent · Post by **vincent** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 1:32 am

When you upgrade a package from the repos, it automatically chooses the most recent package (unless you've pinned your APT repositories with non-default priorities, but that's a totally different issue we're talking about here). E.g. say you had Firefox 3.6.8, and there's a package in the repo offering you an upgrade to 3.6.11. If you had just installed this distro that came with FF 3.6.8, you can upgrade straight to 3.6.11 (i.e. you don't have to upgrade to 3.6.9, then 3.6.10, then 3.6.11). Therefore, although the size of the updates will generally become greater if you haven't updated for a long period of time, it certainly won't get to the stage where it'll take you a whole month to download updates, as updates are not cumulative...all you need is the latest package from the repos, not everything in between.

caf4926 · Post by **caf4926** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 1:32 am

I took a deep breath and deleted the original operating system (Windows Vista)

No a difficult one to decide. That OS is so slow it's like treacle in Winter.

Wrinkly · Post by **Wrinkly** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 1:48 am

caf4926 wrote:That OS is so slow it's like treacle in Winter.

....except that we don't get winter in this part of the world

Wrinkly · Post by **Wrinkly** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 1:50 am

vincent wrote:When you upgrade a package from the repos, it automatically chooses the most recent package (unless you've pinned your APT repositories with non-default priorities, but that's a totally different issue we're talking about here). E.g. say you had Firefox 3.6.8, and there's a package in the repo offering you an upgrade to 3.6.11. If you had just installed this distro that came with FF 3.6.8, you can upgrade straight to 3.6.11 (i.e. you don't have to upgrade to 3.6.9, then 3.6.10, then 3.6.11). Therefore, although the size of the updates will generally become greater if you haven't updated for a long period of time, it certainly won't get to the stage where it'll take you a whole month to download updates, as updates are not cumulative...all you need is the latest package from the repos, not everything in between.

Thanks, Vincent. That makes a lot of sense. Now, I really understand.

tdockery97 · Post by **tdockery97** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 1:55 am

Just wanted to pop in and say welcome to LMDE Wrinkly.

Wrinkly · Post by **Wrinkly** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 2:11 am

Thank you very much, tdockery97. That's very civil of you. I hope you have a great weekend.

tdockery97 · Post by **tdockery97** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 3:08 am

Thanks, you too Wrinkly.

craigevil · Post by **craigevil** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 3:11 am

The updates are the biggest when you first install and Debian based distro, simply because testing and sid are updated often.That is why people that install Debian itself use the netinstall cd, it downloads straight from the repos and installs the newest packages at install. Once you get it installed you shouldn't have many updates, OpenOffice and some of the bigger games like Openarena are some of the biggest apps.

I run sid and I upgrade daily, most of the time there are around 30-70MBs to download. Even on dial-up that shouldn't take too long to download.
LMDE should be about the same.

Wrinkly · Post by **Wrinkly** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 3:23 am

Thanks for the explanation, craigevil.

rtrev · Post by **rtrev** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 11:04 am

craigevil wrote:I run sid and I upgrade daily

<heavily snipped>

I notice you say you "upgrade" daily. How do you do that? Just using MintUpdate? Sorry, I'm another newbie and have never used a rolling distro.

I've asked around and heard all kinds of stories about the best way to update a rolling distribution. Some say just use the normal updater, others say I should run a script which does an update, a dist-upgrade, an autoremove, and an autoclean.

I'm confused. Should I just use MintUpdate and accept whatever it offers? Or should I use Synaptic and take everything it will give me?

I would guess that just the MintUpdate would do it, but I'd like to make sure.

Thanks,
Bob

Wrinkly · Post by **Wrinkly** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 12:37 pm

Gosh, Bob, I'd like the answer to that question too.
I hope that the answer is MintUpdate, because I don't really understand all that sudo-stuff. (I think I was born a few decades too soon).
So I hope someone can point us in the right direction.

Wrinkly · Post by **Wrinkly** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 1:18 pm

Wrinkly wrote:I hope someone can point us in the right direction.

.... but I've just re-read the forum rules & I see that we're meant to open a new topic (is it called a "thread"?) for each new question, which I'll do now.
Also I'm going to mark this thread (?) as "SOLVED", which, I think, might be the right thing to do.

Thanks you to everybody who helped me.

secipolla · Post by **secipolla** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 2:35 pm

I know you marked this as solved, Wrinkly. But this is important.
Install the debdelta package because it allows you to not need to download the whole new packages but just the difference between the current version in your system and the new version.

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install debdelta

Then before you update your system, be it through apt-get/aptitude, Synaptic or mintupdate, you run

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get update && sudo debdelta-upgrade

This will download the deltas (differences) and create the new packages. It will save you a lot of time and bandwidth.

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