Current Status
- It is not safe to upgrade any package unless your mirror points to UP5
- Here is the current status of the LMDE mirrors:
- debian.linuxmint.com (USA): UP5
- http://debian.lth.se (Sweden): UP5
- http://mirror.rts-informatique.fr (France): UP5
- To change which mirror you’re pointing to:
- make sure “mint-debian-mirrors” is installed
- open a terminal and run the following command: mint-choose-debian-mirror
- Here is the current status of the LMDE mirrors:
- Make sure to read http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/update-pack.html
- If you experience issues or if you’re going through the update at the moment, don’t hesitate to connect to the IRC chatroom (irc.spotchat.org, #linuxmint-debian)
Introduction
Update Pack 5 was released as the “latest” update pack today. If you’re not using Linux Mint Debian, please ignore this post.
Using the Update Manager
… to update itself
The Update Manager always updates itself before other packages. If you see an update for “mintupdate-debian“, accept it and wait for the Update Manager to restart itself.
… to check your APT sources
- Click on the “Update Pack Info” button
- Make sure “Your system configuration” shows up as green and doesn’t show any warnings or errors
- If you see a warning or an error, follow the instructions given and repeat the process until they’re gone.
… to know more about Update Pack 5
In the “Update Pack Info” window, make sure to read all the information related to Update Pack 5. Some of it might be irrelevant to you, but it will only take you a minute and it might you save you hours.
… to upgrade to Update Pack 5
When you’re ready and you know all that there is to know, press the “Install Updates” button.
During the update you’ll be asked a few things. One is quite important.. the new kernel will ask you where to install Grub. Answer with the location of your current Grub menu (which on most systems is “/dev/sda“).
FAQ
Will LMDE get new ISO images with Update Pack 5?
Yes, in the coming weeks/months, the following editions will be released either with Update Pack 5 or Update Pack 6 (depending on whether UP6 is a quick/short follow-up update-pack or not):
- Cinnamon
- MATE
- Xfce
Nice job Clem. It’s good to see LMDE continue on as workable version of Debian Wheezy.
Good Job !
Thank you Clem and all the team !
Cheers Clem & co! Wonderful work! 🙂
I was just curious as to whether Cinnamon 1.6 will make it to Update Pack 6, and potentially the next set of LMDE isos? Thanks!
Edit by Clem: Well yes and no. Cinnamon doesn’t depend on the update pack… so 1.6 will come to LMDE, but on its own, not as part of an UP.
Excellent, I look forward to trying it! Thanks again Clem! 🙂
i really appreciate the info on LMDE’s current situation, and upcoming software changes. thx for that clem!
seems like after mint 14 will be the time to re-install the computers we need running at home. this one has win 7, LMDE xfce + kde on it, bloated and messy, yet functional..
Interesting… mintUpdate seems to retrieve update pack info (update-pack.html) always from the main mirror because it times out almost all the time… I’m using debian.lth.se. It’s synchronized already and it gives that info instantly if I try to get it via my browser.
Excellent! Updating now, but terribly slow, only a few kilos per second…
Wait a bit before upgrading 🙂 Massive overload right now, it could take ages to download everything.
Head over IRC for status info: #linuxmint-debian @irc.spotchat.org
i’m going to try the linux program because that is something is new for me.
Use Swedish mirror: http://debian.lth.se – I am currently updating from it with 400 kB/s 🙂
Merci! Tres bon!
Thanks Clem and the rest of the team for all their hard work. I snagged UP5 from the testing repos over the weekend and I love what you guys have put together for us, even on the KDE respin. Hopefully you guys can take a day or three off to relax, catch your breath, and smell the roses before the next task starts clamoring for your attention.
Thanks man !
I was waiting for this update since days 😉
I am currently downloading UP5 from the RTS repository at reasonnable speed. (150 kbps)
bonne soirée
Nice! I wish there was a Gnome3 DVD iso.
Congrats on the UP5 release and i have to add this….
Holy crap!!!! LMDE is running snappier than ever on my machine after the update. Amazing!
P.S.: One thing though.. gufw seems to be installed but it just doesn’t show in the menu. This is in both Mate and Cinnamon sessions.
Had to activate ufw throught the terminal. No big deal but still….
Good update pack. LMDE UD 5 with Mate desktop runs fine on my machine now. Not a single problem so far. Maybe it will even replace Mint 11 as my main system.
I will follow RTS INFORMATIQUE’s advise and I will wait some days before updating my system (besides before updating I will use my clonezille to clone my LMDE partition -just in case-).
Thanks all Mint team for this great piece of work
I heard LMDE could become the basis for all Mint variants… is it true ?
i’m getting these “file not found” errors:
W: Impossibile recuperare http://mirror.rts-informatique.fr/linuxmint/debian/latest/dists/debian/main/binary-amd64/Packages 404 Not Found [IP: 188.165.250.168 80]
W: Impossibile recuperare http://mirror.rts-informatique.fr/linuxmint/debian/latest/dists/debian/upstream/binary-amd64/Packages 404 Not Found [IP: 188.165.250.168 80]
W: Impossibile recuperare http://mirror.rts-informatique.fr/linuxmint/debian/latest/dists/debian/import/binary-amd64/Packages 404 Not Found [IP: 188.165.250.168 80]
W: Impossibile recuperare http://mirror.rts-informatique.fr/linuxmint/debian/latest/dists/testing/updates/main/binary-amd64/Packages 404 Not Found [IP: 188.165.250.168 80]
W: Impossibile recuperare http://mirror.rts-informatique.fr/linuxmint/debian/latest/dists/testing/updates/contrib/binary-amd64/Packages 404 Not Found [IP: 188.165.250.168 80]
W: Impossibile recuperare http://mirror.rts-informatique.fr/linuxmint/debian/latest/dists/testing/updates/non-free/binary-amd64/Packages 404 Not Found [IP: 188.165.250.168 80]
E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
Great work guys, this is a nice update which has fixed a few niggles with my LDME + MATE installation. Looking forward to seeing if, with 1.6, Cinnamon is ready for me yet 🙂 Cheers!
hi,
sry that i have to bother but,
cinnamon crashed during the update and the update manager stucks now at a point where it wants an answer whether or not i want to keep my initrams.conf … but i cant give him an answer because it cant open a window to ask me… i just see it in the details … what am i supposed to do here ?
thanks
Edit by Clem: You can perform the upgrade in console mode with “apt dist-upgrade”. The question will then be asked in text-mode and you can simply press Enter.
Ran update last night, was asked to pick a mirror, took a long time to list the packages so I knew something was up. Differed the download till today, 1341 files. Downloading between near 0 and 6 Mbit, around 6 Gbit so far, been at it a while, going to be at it for a while longer.
Point being, have something else to do while doing the upgrade.
Anxious to see what the outcome is going to be.
Thanks, and Cheers!
I am not amused.
This particular initial install of LMDE was from flash, and running from flash wifi and lan worked but no wifi from the install so I plug in the lan and go looking and figure it out.
Along comes the last distro update which kills the wifi so I plug in the lan and go looking and figure it out again.
Along comes THIS distro update and , yup, wifi is gone, except this time THE LAN IS ALSO GONE!
Reboot, Nope.
WTF? No lan? Yes, the lan is functional, works in Win7 because thats how this is getting posted.
Apparently I know at least the basics because I’ve figured it out before but face it, there comes a time when jumping through the hoops gets tiring, or just isn’t worth it.
Thank you Mint Team! You have provided a light, fast and adaptable operating system! I used to LOVE Ubuntu but now Mint is the way I go. Keep on chuggin out those releases! I look forward to Mint 14.
@Anomy : I’ve had pretty much the same problem. It seems it was related to libdnet / dnet-common package… I removed it and all is fine again.
Great news!
But trying to upgrade since a few days without success: slow downloads, unable to retrieve some packages…
Well I guess that this is just Mint being victim of its own success, too many users for the servers, which is sort of “good” sign…
I have a suggestion though: It seems that every time I try to upgrade, it downloads the complete list of packages again, although a lot of them have already be downloaded during any previous try (correct me if I’m wrong). Could we have an option (in MintUpdate) to keep the already downloaded packages, so we’ll only have to download the missing packages before launching the upgrade process?
Thanks again for your great work!
Ottimo lavoro, aggiornamento ok!, uso xfce ed ho notato una regressione della durata della batteria.
faccio una precisazione, uso lmde xfce sul mio portatile e prima dello UP5,la batteria del portatile aveva una buona durata, adesso noto una minore durata della batteria. Grazie di tutto, comunque!!!!!
Thanks for this great update LMDE team! 🙂
I have few problems:
– Styles doesn’t work anymore… It’s like Win 95. And for every them I select. I’ve installed the mint-meta-debian-xfce package.
– fglrx drivers doesn’t support my radeon 4870HD anymore… 🙁 Is there a way to have “legacy” drivers? I’ve tested radeon one and have bad performances/fans at 100% etc…
Thanks in advance guys! 🙂
Forget about my style problem, it’s solved now! 🙂
I almost missed announcement (Was watching ‘Community’ for ISO RC)
Anyway
Is their a list/changelog of what in UP5?
Assuming still Xfce 4.8 but what kernal? Mint Menu (for Xfce)? Other major App updates ect.
Using Mint13-Xfce now may try ‘LMDE again dreaming what UP6 might bring!
Mint-update didnt work for me.
The classical Debian-way (dist-upgrade) worked without any problem.
Eek… I stupidly forgot about the update pack info to “Always choose “keep file” (as opposed to “install new version”)” and while the install has gone ok I have a few appearance issues – black title bars for windows and maximise/minimise buttons have disappeared. Any clues as to how to resolve this?
Mint is lovely though – thanks Clem and co!
Debian 12 crashed while installing the 1200 new items, so I reinstalled Debian and then did the upgrade. I still have the same problems as before: Chromium does not load and I cannot install printers because of the “Unknown IPP” problem. Fortunately I have LMME 13 and LM KDE 13 working on other drives (but with a printer issue on KDE).
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaase add lvm based full disc encryption to the installer. It’s just a shame one has to install Debian and change the sources or unsquash the live filesystem oneself to get an installation of Lmde. Who is crazy enough to run an unencrypted system nowadays?
Lmde is really fantastic, but I just can’t believe how encryption is not a fundamental part of the installer.
well , enough rant, hope someone responsible will do sth about it. No one cares for which new eyecandy is in the wallpaper section when their system can be hacked easily by any media mafia and/or the local gvmnt. terrorists.
Made the update to v5, sadly no Compiz 🙁
Two steps forward, one step back.
This is by no means Clem’s fault but Debian (they removed compiz from wheezy), but regardless no perfect distro.
LMDE comes very close, mostly everything else is perfect.
Hi! I have an AMD APU laptop and I can’t boot into the desktop with the Update Pack 4 ISO, so please please if you guys can please release an ISO for Update Pack 5! I’ve been using Fedora while waiting for an update to this. LMDE is the best distro around!
Notice about LMDE Update Pack 5 came a little late. I already encountered the call to update last week. When the update was complete, I no longer could start X server and of course kde. So I installed Maya, leaving the LMDE version behind.
I just have one question; did anyone bother to test the update before posting it?
Just a quick question: If I want Cinnamon 1.6 now I need the romeo “howto” right? Atm I have Cinnamon 1.4 up3 marked as the update.
UP5 installs nicely, however mounting existing NFS shares takes 10 minutes extra during boot
==> there is a confirmed bug in debian initscripts:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=673936
—
Hello,
So as we’ve found out, the problem is caused by mountnfs script not
expecting –all. This can be temporarily fixed by adding this:
[ “$ADDRFAM” = “inet” ] || [ “$ADDRFAM” = “inet6” ] || exit 0
just after ‘[ “$IFACE” != “lo” ] || exit 0’
into /etc/network/if-up.d/mountnfs. This is going to be fixed in the
next initscripts upload, as I suppose.
—
@ Clem: Please consider to include this in some kind of hotfix.
Thanks!
“Always choose “keep file” (as opposed to “install new version”).” <- Yeach, right! Thanks for that advice 3h gone, good that I have backup.
After patching X server doesn't start!
The previous ISO came with both Cinnamon and MATE. If use the new ISO to install LMDE, how should I install MATE on the Cinnamon version or Cinnamon and the MATE version?
nice work , I’m using LMDE for 6 month . I dont have any problem , TY .
After upgrading I began to get something went wrong screen and a login button. I could not login to the desktop.
@Pawel: Same problem here. I tried dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg and reinstalling the AMD drivers. Still no xserver running. Why are there always so basic problems. I hate xserver….
@Pawl: I solved it now (took over an hour).
I removed xserver-*, fglrx-* (purge) (xserver-xorg might be enough) and removed /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
Then I reinstalled xserver-* and fglrx-driver (with all dependencies).
After a rebbot I’m finally back to Cinnamon. 😀
All on your own risk as I bet my solution isn’t the best. (Removing xserver-* was stupid try xerver-sorg first!)
I still hate xserver. Ever since I started with Ubuntu I had troubles with it getting into my desktop. 😉
Oh I forgot. I also had the fglrx driver previously installed by the .run file you get from AMD. If you did that too. Remove these first before reinstalling everything:
sudo ./AMD-xxx-xxx.xxx.run -uninstall=force
Other than that I like the update. The fonts are finally smooth. 😀
I go try Cinnamon 1.6 now to break my system again. *g*
Is there a way to have the newest adobe flash version via apt? I tried installing it manually but it won’t work. (Endless hours for that just to revert to the original.) the problem is that almost all youtube videos freeze. So it’s youtube bug but you can’t rely on them fixing a linux problem. 😉 (I have Win7 as dual boot and there are no freezes. So it’s a Linux + Flashversion bug. Sadly Adobe doesn’t update for Linux anymore but at least have the latest security update.)
Oh and Pawel: “–uninstall=force” sry for the mistyping above.
Took a long time to download, but things are looking good so far. However, I ran out of disk space during the upgrade, so I was scrambling to free up sufficient space to keep an operational system. This makes me wonder if a ‘sanity check’ could be included in the future to avoid this risk?
Any chance of getting fglrx legacy drivers for my ATI HD4200 video GPU soon. Need driver for playing Widelands with better screen size options. Otherwise UP5 works great for me.
Thanks
I love Mint-Debian. It is always sad when things like this happen. I hope they are corrected.
Just curious, is RTS Informatique Richard Stallman? By any chance did you allow Richard Stallman to work on the distro here?
I just want to be clear. Richard is a man of principle who believes in what he is doing, but he is somebody who has an agenda that is contrary to the goals of most Mint users.
Max says “W: Impossibile recuperare http://mirror.rts-informatique.fr/linuxmint/debian/latest/dists/testing/updates/non-free/binary-amd64/Packages 404 Not Found [IP: 188.165.250.168 80]”
….Is it a mere coincidence that the missing packages are the NON-free packages that Linux Mint depends on? People use Linux Mint as opposed to something like Aptosid or vanilla Debian or one of those completely free distros that never get popular, because Linux Mint has a philosophy of ‘just working’ out of the box. It favors a shallow learning curve to get your foot in the door, over the so called “freedom” to hack every package on the system.
If RTS Informatique wishes to be a mirror, he should respect the community he is helping by providing the non-free packages whether he agrees with them or not…..Or he should not volunteer to be a mirror.
I dislike having to choose between a mirror that routinely works with various military and intelligence communities at the University, and a mirror that wants to control what packages I can install without warning.
There are a few solutions however before going back to Ubuntu.
1. Stick with the old ISO (don’t loose it), and skip upgrading to the broken update package. Point to Debian Testing directly, and ignore the Mint mirrors.
2. Upgrade along the path of another similar debian based distro. Siduction lacks many of the drivers in Linux Mint, but they have a fairly polished collection of vanilla unstable packages….useful if you want to upgrade OUT of dependency hell, and sneak out some invasive packages during the transition. You can continue pointing to Debian Testing non-free for media codecs and such. Kanotix has a pretty decent kernel and supports non-free drivers….as much if not more than Mint even. Live CD runs in persistent mode, and I could use multiple screens to stream to my TV in live persistent mode. Drivers worked out of the box.
3. If you must switch, there are a few worthy alternatives to going back to Ubuntu based versions. Epidemic is a new distro that intentionally and explicitly makes it easy to install non-free software, and hardware support is decent. Kanotix, unlike Knoppix, is made to be installed to disk. I love that it runs well in persistent mode as a live USB. Mepis is still a great little distro, and you can pull in other desktops from Debian Testing.
Just putting 2 and 2 together, a guy named RTS shows up and the non-free packages are mysteriously missing, and peoples computers are now broken after they were working great. I hope I am wrong, but if this is the case it seems a little underhanded and dishonest to the users.
Edit by Clem: Richard Stallman is “RMS”, not “RTS” 🙂 Anyway, the mirrors are exact replicas of our own repository, they do not filter packages.
I would be willing to pitch $10-20 a year for using a dedicated server hosted by the Mint team. Maybe more, but most people would pitch at least that much I think. I would rather deal with that than with mirrors that I am unsure of.
Somebody needs to find a way to combine elements of a source base distro while also being compatible with Debian packages….and the only reason I say debian, really the only reason at all, is that it is currently the most popular base for home-distros. Some lesser known package managers are actually superior, but with debian you get the best package choices…..and RPMs kind of suck with their poor graphical tools and non-intuitive non-memorable command line tools.
While you ‘can’ build packages from source in Debian, it is not a lot of fun. It is a huge pain, and more difficult than it needs to be. It is bad enough that you have to cd to the right directory and give it a special folder, but there is like 4 different command line steps you have to follow to install just one package. Debian is great for pulling in dependencies and resolving dependencies….something Arch does not do well. However, it is kind of poor if you want to deviate from what Debian thinks you should have on your machine, if you want to remove Selinux or packages that limit your wifi range.
What if somebody made a wrapper for .deb packages, allowing you to pull them in as binaries while allowing you to tweak their use-flags and dependencies? You could have as much control as you do in Gentoo, with the speed of Arch, and the binary selection of Debian, and could pull source from any distro anywhere and build the package in real time with a series of questions?….It would be the best distro ever, and you would not be forced to have things like SELinux if you did not want it…..Yeah, I know you can disable it, and the library is probably not harmful if you re-make the kernel without support for it, unless you get physical access that is…but it is just one example of not being able to do something that you would like to do with your own system, but in this case it is the policy that is restrictive rather than the license.
For the majority of administrators who run Linux but are not coding for it in C, freedom on the policy level tends to mean more than freedom on the source-code level. Now, being able to read the code means that the software can be audited, which is always better than closed software that cannot be read. That is a practical concern.
However, not every threat comes in the form of a ‘back door’. Sometimes the threat is not some piece of code that is hidden from the public that allows privilege escalation by remote users…Often it is nothing like that at all, and it is hiding right under your nose in the POLICY of the applications intended functions. An application can pass the FOSS test, be fully audited and given the ok, and still be a threat to home users if the policy is bad.
Anyway. I am not going to take my chances with a mirror that appears to be omitting drivers and packages based on prejudice.
I will continue to use Mint Debian, but I will point to Debian Testing until this gets resolved. If I get desperate, I can always go to another distro that still supports non-free wifi drivers.
@Nicks : i agree :).
Most of your pbms come with the RENAMING of (a lot of) packages by the lmde team (thus making the deps inacurate). And meant JUST renaming, even without a single modif. 🙁
This way is clearly NOT the good way…
Moreover, the ‘lmde’ project PROVED itself it was inefficace (what about “rolling release” ?). A pack 5 with +1300 updates ?!! for a rolling release ? It is a joke ?
-> Be serious, Clem, and ADMIT u just FAILED this project (which was ambitious). This is NOT a big thing, JUST record it and MOVE ON.
Concentrate ur ressources on Cinnamon & Mint, and cancel LMDE.
Just my 2 cents…
Edit by Clem: I appreciate your concern. We’re however quite proud of LMDE and many people are very happy with it. The rolling aspect doesn’t matter as much as stability and the UP concept proved very handy (note that LMDE is amongst the very few distros to make a seamless jump from Gnome 2 to stable versions of MATE and Cinnamon). As for Cinnamon, don’t worry about it, we just released 1.6.1 today. The renaming of the meta packages distinguishes them from their Mint counterpart, this makes our job easier while maintaining the two distros and it goes towards your main argument which is for us to better focus our efforts.
Update UP5 ok but screenshot shortcut keys don’t work any more (error command 33 not initialized). It is the same problem as discussed here : http://debian-facile.org/viewtopic.php?id=5571
I want Clem to try again. I do not run Debian Stable. I am not running a server with Mint-Debian. I did not choose Linux or Mint-Debian for “stability”. I chose it because it is 10x more user friendly and functional than ‘Debian’, and because it is not Ubuntu. I refuse to put another Ubuntu based distro onto my computer again.
You think Ubuntu never had problems that broke peoples machines? PulseAudio? Video drivers? Black screens? Unity?….How many times have we been forced to reinstall Ubuntu, before giving up on it entirely? How many disro’s have we tried, only to reinstall them?
And that is why we seperate our / and /home partitions, so we can install a new distro and still have all our old files.
The differently named Mint packages are not anything to be afraid of. If you are following the stable path, then you might have a point, but why would you be commenting on a distro that runs Testing or even Unstable packages if you are concerned about the small possibility of a conflict?….These conflicts are usually pretty minor, and Synaptic/aptitude does an excellent job of offering solutions. When in doubt, use ‘remove completely’ and ‘upgrade’, before re-adding software. In a worst case scenario, upgrade OUT of conflicts by defaulting to packages from unstable for all conflicts…..Give it another few weeks and those same packages will be in testing anyway. Its really not as big of a deal as people say. It is certainly the more conservative solution compared to completely erasing it with something else.
I often find myself agreeing with Stallman, and then other times I do not think I could disagree more. Stallman does not use a browser, which means he is out of touch with 99.9999999% of the population. He will not connect to a machine or network unless it is using SSH….I will not touch a computer or operating system until SSH is disabled and people like him are unable to brute-force or rainbow table their way into my system….or whatever other tricks they have. New systems should probably not allow remote login, unless they are designed for an enterprise environment or special hacking purpose where it would be practical….Allowing it on a desktop distro is just inviting hackers and spies to remote view your desktop….”Free Software” or not.
Debian Testing, unlike Stable, moves quickly. If you do find a conflict, you will probably not even notice it before the old packages are removed and upgraded anyway. If a conflict emerges, just delete the specific packages and reinstall the alternative….its easy. It is not a reason to stop using Mint.
So here is my advice. Do NOT be connected to the internet when you install. Dont do it. Do not check your email, or login to myspace. Stay offline….. su root or sudo su root, then type nano etc/apt/sources.list I think?… Use the # on every line pointing to Mint-Debian mirrors, both Stallmans and the Swedish University..
From there you can either uncomment out Debian if it is there, or add repos from Debian Testing. OR you can add repos from other distros that pull packages from Debian. Aptosid and Siduction use very vanilla packages without much modification, so they should be safe for upgrading out of repository hell. The Kanotix kernel is based on the Ubuntu kernel, but is heavily tweaked, and supports as much software as Mint and maybe even more. I would feel bad pulling from Epidemic Linux, them being a smaller Brazillian distro, but they do have a repository of last resort.
OR, you can install Kanotix to Disk, and Epidemic is a great out-of-the-box desktop distro. Kanatix has the best automatic hardware detection though, even supporting dual moniters on a live persistent DVD. Epidemic was a bit nicer looking and has tools that make it easier to use, like meta-package installers and special package installers for flash and Wine and video games….Stuff that is missing from Debian. Epidemic is a great distro based on KDE, and I like it much better than Kubuntu.
But Mint brings a lot of good tools to the table. I like being able to choose my updates. I know it seems small, but it can make a huge difference compared to how Debian does things, or ubuntu for that matter. I also respect their work on Cinnamon, trying to make Gnome3 something usable on the desktop….It is a service to Linux that we all benefit from. Makeovers are not ‘nothing’, and a lot of work goes into making Linux something appealing for the masses rather than something that scares most people off.
Certainly Mint gets money from the major search engines, though their relationship with Google is not quite on the same level as Ubuntu who runs their servers…..and that is a good thing as I can tell, that Mint maintains their autonomy. Until I see something that really offends me, I would encourage Clem to give it another shot and I will happily reinstall from a fresh DVD.
I am also building a system based on Gentoo, and trying to compile all the binary packages I will need later for when I reinstall again. The cool thing about Gentoo is that you can do pretty much anything you want with it, even turn it into a binary based distro that uses APT or RPM or entropy as the package manager and Anaconda or Kanotix as the system installer…..but vanilla, it just is not meant for noobs, and lack of a gui installer is probably a deliberate barrier to entry as it is meant for hackers and enthusiasts rather than your grandparents first PC. It will not replace what Mint is doing.
If Clem really decided to drop LMDE I would be disappointed, but I would hope that the Mint team pursues at least one mainstream desktop branch that is autonomous from Ubuntu. I do not care if it is based on Debian, and I do not even care of it uses APT. I would even give BSD/Solaris a try if Mint-team was behind it.
In my humble opinion, the future of desktop linux (as opposed to Android and copycats) is systems that are highly customizable for HOME user needs. Home use can include controlling smart appliaes from a central desktop server, but also must cater to people who are increasingly paranoid of spying and intrusion as technology gains the ability to peer inside of their own home. This requires a lot of flexibility, and not a narrow monolithic vision of what the end product should look like…..but it also should have a user-friendly base, where needed services are on demand but not needlessly running on open ports so that somebody can hack you….that includes ssh and xhost.
Something that is able to accept the benefit of ready made packages for convenience and speed, but also has the freedom to deviate from the compiled instruction-set when necessary, or rebuild from source to manage broken dependencies or do something completely different…..Besides some kind of Gentoo/Lunar/binary hybrid, Conroy looks promising…but they do not have enough binary packages or attention to get off the ground.
There are options, but anything Mint touches tends to get nicer looking and easier to use. I will try whatever they put out next, as long as it is autonomous from ubuntu.
> We’re however quite proud of LMDE and many people are very happy with it.
I did install LM 13 Xfce on my netbook the other day…and I’m *very* pleased. Using Linux since ’99 and spent most of the time with rolling distros (Gentoo and Arch), but due to my present time constraints, now I want something which just works. 🙂
> The rolling aspect doesn’t matter as much as stability and the UP concept proved very handy…
The only dilemma is whether to use LM or LMDE?
For instance, I’m accustomed to Xfce-4.10 for quite some time and using LMDE means to go back to 4.8. 🙁
I also do not have experience how smooth is the LM upgrade from one release to the other?
Well, I’m just about done updating. As usually, something went wrong and botched mate while causing a bundle of broken packages. Purging all remnants of Gnome worked well enough though. (Except that I have to log in command line and start X and MATE from there; I’ll fix that later.) Having a machine coming from a pre-MATE update pack, these updates really never go well, though I’ve had no problems on my post-MATE installs.
@Clem’s edit to Mpok’s comment: I must say, I really like LMDE. The upgrade from Gnome 2 to Mate was far from seamless though — it took 4 hours to fix everything it broke on my system… Still, I can deal with a few hours of maintenance every few months for the sake of not having any problems most other times.
I don’t want to sound paranoid, but it seems to me like Debian will be dropping compiz for good in the nearby future.
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=79892&sid=9bebf64add9a6dfa5b6e95f83ced7c63
Will it still be available for the LMDE users who are running MATE (perhaps in the mint repos)?
I’ve always disliked the idea of using third-party repos or temporary ones to get something working.
I had to do that in the past since I needed to use WINE, which of course had no packages in Debian testing for quite a while. I’d hate to have to do the same thing over again with compiz.
I am not 100% sure, but try this.
su/sudo su root
nano /etc/apt/sources.list
Add and “uncomment out” the binary sources, save with ctrl X, yes, enter. Add the key with wget. Apt-get update. Synaptic.
# XFCE – http://www.corsac.net/index.php?rub=xfce
# Debian’s XFCE Group http://pkg-xfce.alioth.debian.org/
# Secure APT: wget -O – http://debian.corsac.net/repository.gpg | sudo apt-key add –
# deb http://debian.corsac.net unstable/
# deb http://debian.corsac.net UNRELEASED/
# deb-src http://debian.corsac.net unstable/
# deb-src http://debian.corsac.net UNRELEASED/
I love LMDE, congratulations for this smashing distro ! I used to run Mandriva, and was happy with it, but when they stopped, I took the opportunity to look for a rolling release distro, being fed up of always re-installing everything every 1 year, or else being stuck in oldish software … and I found LMDE, the perfect one for me in theory, and actually it is so far, after 6 months ! (well, before giving it the 20/20 mark, I’ll wait some more months, after LMDE naturally rolls to the current Sid, when Wheezy becomes the “stable” debian 😉
If this can help someone, here’s my experience about UP5 yesterday :
– running Cinnamon desktop, on an up-to-date LMDE (UP4 ++), I started the upgrade ;
– after about 2 hours of download (about 1500 packages), the actual installation started, and has gone smoothly up to about half of the whole thing (and 1 or 2 question IIRC) … when Cinnamon (and the X server) crashed, leaving me with the X Server error log, and finally in the rescue console ;
– after rebooting to a Win XP partition (sometimes, it’s useful 🙂 and finding some tips in this page, I rebooted to LMDE,
– and ran “apt dist-upgrade” in the console, which failed but told me to run “dpkg –configure -a”, which I did … and the upgrade resumed, and went on,
– some minutes later, the X Server started again, and I could login to Cinnamon …
– but the upgrade was still going on in the background, which I discovered after being unable to run Synaptic (“apt already in use …”), and leaving the X Sessions through Ctrl-Alt-BackSpace and then Ctrl-Alt-F1, which threw me to the console again …
– where a question about where to install Grub was open, waiting for my answer,
– after answering /dev/sda (I had anticipated the question thanks to this page), and 2 or 3 more questions, + some frightening error messages while building several nvidia-driver-related (and virtual box) kernel modules, the upgrade went to its normal end,
– after rebooting to the new 3.2.0-3 kernel (and praying Saint-Tux), I was able to login to Cinnamon without any issue, and get back to the normal LMDE user’s (happy) life.
I just had to tweak a bit my Cinnamon settings, some of which had been reset to default + some other being no more usable because of some themes have been removed (Mint-X-Metal, as an ex.).
Well … not perfect update, but quite good, if you can keep cool when your X Server crashes 😉
Clem needs to publish out an ISO of LMDE v5 when he gets the chance.
I’m in love with LMDE but installing it from the old ISO and then having to install 1300+ Packages is a bit sloooow.
What a pity, I was kinda hoping the KDE respin would be assimilated into LMDE by now 😛 I installed KDE at home and once I disabled the evil trio Nepomuk+Akonadi+Strigi it ran silk-smooth. I didn’t have to update much as I keep my home computer up-to-date, but I was hoping to use LMDE UP5 to reinstall some boxes at my office currently running Isadora. Maybe I’ll use the respin, or install the XFCE variant and then KDE on top.
Apart from that, everything’s going great! Keep the minty freshness flowing! 😀
After updating LMDE with XFCE, defaul wallpaper become “LinuxMint 13 Maya”
03-21-2022
Instructions for installing FSlint on UbuntuLM 20.10 that also do the job on LMDE5.
For 20.10 the solution is a bit longer
mkdir -p ~/Downloads/fslint
cd ~/Downloads/fslint
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/libf/libffi/libffi7_3.3-4_amd64.deb
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/p/pygobject-2/python-gobject-2_2.28.6-14ubuntu1_amd64.deb
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/p/pycairo/python-cairo_1.16.2-2ubuntu2_amd64.deb
wget http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/p/pygtk/python-gtk2_2.24.0-6_amd64.deb
wget http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/p/pygtk/python-glade2_2.24.0-6_amd64.deb
wget http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/f/fslint/fslint_2.46-1_all.deb
sudo apt-get install ./*.deb
That’s it! Don’t care a bit why it works, it just does.
this system formatted my above attempt to help just to make a problem for people————— after the “mkdir -p ~/Downloads/fslint”——- command and the—————“cd ~/Downloads/fslint”—-command————–each “wget” is is typed in one wget at a time——————— FSlint then as a GUI app as it did before
interesting.
I tried that on Debian (not LMDE) and it failed.
lot’s of dependacy errors.
maybe there are some non-debian packages in the Mint creation…
fslint is one of my favorite tools, so I boot with Debain 10 to use it