Clem, some food for thought.

[Crewp]

I saw Clem made a comment about basing LM on Ubuntu's LTS, which I think is a great idea. Just to add my 2 cents, what if you where to drop XFCE, and KDE, just like you did in LMDE. Just like there's SolydXK for those who still want those DE's with a Debian testing base. There's also Xubuntu, and Kubuntu for those who really like those DE's
This would really give you and your team the space to do all you want to do. This is just a thought, and I'm sure there's allot to consider. I'd like to see what our Mint community thinks.

[killer de bug]

There is no need of dropping XFCE and KDE. The only problem was Ubuntu support time reduction. 9 months for non LTS version is too short. Too much work for a lifetime of less than 7 months.

By basing the next version of Linux Mint in Ubuntu LTS, the team will now be able to focus more on Cinnamon and to give users very good releases with at least 1.5 years of support time.

[Crewp]

There is no need of dropping XFCE and KDE. The only problem was Ubuntu support time reduction. 9 months for non LTS version is too short. Too much work for a lifetime of less than 7 months.

By basing the next version of Linux Mint in Ubuntu LTS, the team will now be able to focus more on Cinnamon and to give users very good releases with at least 1.5 years of support time.

Killer de bug, do you think LMDE will get a little more attention if this comes to pass?

[killer de bug]

It's hard to tell. LMDE will definitely benefit from the better development of Cinnamon and Nemo. But I don't know if we will have more often access to UP.

[xenopeek]

with at least 1.5 years of support time

3.5 years. Every 2 years a new LTS, with 5 years of support, thus at least 3.5 years of support on every release.

[killer de bug]

Right... Basic math are difficult

[cyb3rc0de]

LMDE should get more attention than other distros. Less LM classic, more LMDE!

[powerhouse]

You write about more attention to Cinnamon. How about Mate?

Has Mate been replaced by Cinnamon as the primary DE? I was under the impression that Mate is still more mature than Cinnamon, for example multi-screen support.

As for XFCE, I hope it stays.

[killer de bug]

Cinnamon is developed by the team. MATE is an independent project.

[woodsman]

I am new to the Mint community, but I have decided to use LMDE as my base for me and customers.

Looking back on the history of Mint, I understand the Ubuntu base. Yet now that Mint has evolved and matured, and Cinnamon and Mate have become popular even outside Mint, I wonder why LMDE does not become the development model for all of Mint. Seems to me the time required to maintain pace with Ubuntu is not well spent.

LMDE is a semi-rolling release and well liked. Without an Ubuntu base, Mint, which essentially would become LMDE, could be maintained much more easily. Update Packs could be released more frequently and the overall size of the Update Packs would be smaller, meaning less chance of breakage. As both Cinnamon and Mint are currently fast moving projects, new features, bug fixes, and improvements would provided much faster to Mint users.

I understand the history behind Mint's association with Ubuntu, but perhaps the time has arrived for a shift?

[Distro-Don]

I am new to the Mint community, but I have decided to use LMDE as my base for me and customers.

Looking back on the history of Mint, I understand the Ubuntu base. Yet now that Mint has evolved and matured, and Cinnamon and Mate have become popular even outside Mint, I wonder why LMDE does not become the development model for all of Mint. Seems to me the time required to maintain pace with Ubuntu is not well spent.

LMDE is a semi-rolling release and well liked. Without an Ubuntu base, Mint, which essentially would become LMDE, could be maintained much more easily. Update Packs could be released more frequently and the overall size of the Update Packs would be smaller, meaning less chance of breakage. As both Cinnamon and Mint are currently fast moving projects, new features, bug fixes, and improvements would provided much faster to Mint users.

I understand the history behind Mint's association with Ubuntu, but perhaps the time has arrived for a shift?

My sentiments exactly.

[JRG]

I saw Clem made a comment about basing LM on Ubuntu's LTS, which I think is a great idea. Just to add my 2 cents, what if you where to drop XFCE, and KDE, just like you did in LMDE. Just like there's SolydXK for those who still want those DE's with a Debian testing base. There's also Xubuntu, and Kubuntu for those who really like those DE's
This would really give you and your team the space to do all you want to do. This is just a thought, and I'm sure there's allot to consider. I'd like to see what our Mint community thinks.

No, I'm not trying to start a flame war; however, why not just drop Cinnamon and MATE and keep...

Clearly most of us have our favourite desktop environment(s) — for all kinds of reasons. There is the same issue with which applications are bundled in the distribution and which have to be downloaded using the Software Manager, or synaptics or whatever.

I suspect the reason for dropping KDE and XFCE versions in LMDE was more the issue of being able to use limited resources to create the base LMDE distribution without worrying about multiple versions of anything! If (or when?) Linux Mint shifts completely to being based directly on Debian, then the resources currently being used on "Linux Mint" (based on Ubuntu) would presumably shift to LMDE (or at least I would hope not too many of the developers are so wed to Ubuntu that they would abandon ship). That would make a dramatic difference.

[SeriesOfTubes]

Please don't listen to the people saying "Get rid of MATE." I have Intel Integrated graphics on several laptops on which Cinnamon and KDE work poorly if at all, but mate has never failed me. Keep in mind that these chipsets are very common.