Linux Mint Debian 201303 released!

The team is proud to announce the release of LMDE 201303.

Screenshots

LMDE 201303 Cinnamon Edition


LMDE 201303 MATE Edition

Highlights

  • Update Pack 6
  • MATE 1.4
  • Cinnamon 1.6
  • Installer improvements (graphical timezone and keyboard selection, support for installation on multiple HDD, slideshow, webcam and face picture support)
  • Device Driver Manager
  • Plymouth splash screen

If you’re new to LMDE, welcome to Linux Mint Debian!

Important links

LMDE in brief

  • Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is a semi-rolling distribution based on Debian Testing.
  • It’s available in both 32 and 64-bit as a live DVD with MATE or Cinnamon.
  • The purpose of LMDE is to look identical to the main edition and to provide the same functionality while using Debian as a base.

FAQ

1. Is LMDE compatible with Ubuntu-based Linux Mint editions?

No, it is not. LMDE is compatible with Debian, which isn’t compatible with Ubuntu.

2. Is LMDE fully compatible with Debian?

Yes, 100%. LMDE is compatible with repositories designed for Debian Testing.

3. What is a semi-rolling distribution?

Updates are constantly fed to Debian Testing, where users experience frequent regressions but also frequent bug fixes and improvements. LMDE receives “Update Packs” which are tested snapshots of Debian Testing. Users can experience a more stable system thanks to update packs, or switch their sources to follow Testing, or even Unstable, directly to get more frequent updates.

4. How does LMDE compare to the Ubuntu-based editions?

Pros:

  • You don’t need to ever re-install the system. New versions of software and updates are continuously brought to you.
  • It’s faster and more responsive than Ubuntu-based editions.

Cons:

  • LMDE requires a deeper knowledge and experience with Linux, dpkg and APT.
  • Debian is a less user-friendly/desktop-ready base than Ubuntu. Expect some rough edges.
  • No EFI, GPT or secureBoot support.

Additional notes:

  • About the installer: The live installer is developed from scratch with Debian in mind. It’s configurable and it can be re-used by other Debian-based distributions. We noticed a lack in live technologies and in live Debian installers, so we’re happy to take the lead on this. If you’re a developer and you’re interested in using it, have a look at its source repository and don’t hesitate to contact us so we can help you fork it and merge upcoming changes between our two projects.
  • About bugs: Please use this blog to report bugs.
  • Dedicated chat room: #linuxmint-debian is open to LMDE users on irc.spotchat.org.

Download links:

Torrents:

MD5 sums:

  • Cinnamon 32-bit: b82ad03d022c7ad56ef8195642494f41
  • Cinnamon 64-bit: 559d2f78c8f209eff56300d92d86458f
  • MATE 32-bit: 06ae51a79afb8cf71ebc21e78fb630b0
  • MATE 64-bit: 6f35b278e027ce6c26456f41346faf76

Cinnamon 32-bit:

Cinnamon 64-bit:

MATE 32-bit:

MATE 64-bit:

Enjoy!

We look forward to receiving your feedback. Thank you for using Linux Mint and have a lot of fun with this new release!

155 comments

  1. I noticed that LMDE apparently does not support EFI/Secure Boot. My question is: If EFI/Secure Boot are disabled and Legacy Bios mode is used, will LMDE install properly?

    Edit by Clem: Yes, unless your partition table on your HDD is using GPT (in which case you’d have to wipe it).

  2. Kudos to the Mint gang for LMDE! I had downloaded the RC and it worked awesomely and have been waiting to install it, hopefully replacing Mint Maya. The ONLY problem I have encountered is in the actual install to either a HDD or USB (with adequate memory). Despite many install attempts (over 20 in two weeks), choosing different install locations and various GRUB install attempts, have NEVER been able to install it. Have you guys had any reports of this from anyone else? It’s not a problem with the HDD or USB as I have installed on the HDD Mint Maya and install other Linux versions on the USB……thanks in advance for any help. If there is any other info that I may help, please advise!

  3. @ Charles

    I have experienced sort of same thing, but using the actual Debian 6.07 Live session installation. My situation was:

    Booted Live Debian 6.07 using USB stick.
    Did the graphical installation, but then I got an error that GRUB could not install to the ” /target/ ” directory. LILO would fail to install as well.
    Then I figured that the Debian itself should have be installed so I used LinuxMint 13 Live CD to install GRUB, which it did and it also found that Debian was on my HD. But then when I booted to Debian, neither my user name nor root name worked; the accounts were not configured (I had to cancel the installation when GRUB failed to install).

    Then I figured I would try the Text Installation from the Debian Live USB menu. The Text Installation did install GRUB and the Debian installation finished without any errors. Booting to Debian I was able to log into my user account.

    The way I see it, there’s a bug in the Debian Live GUI Installation when doing GRUB/LILO installation step; which probably carried into LinuxMint Debian installation as well.

  4. Clem, typo in Changelog: Date should read today.

    Thank you Clem and LM Team for all your LMDE work; I hope to be using LMDE for a long time. 🙂

    Edit by Clem: Thanks 🙂

  5. Congratulations, Clem and the rest of the team!

    One humble suggestion: LMDE badly needs a lightweight DE for those of us with older hardware. E17 or LXDE would be great (XFCE isn’t light enough), or maybe even Openbox or IceWM.

    Thank you!

  6. #8 I Second David for E17 (But not LXDE)! Just would love LMDE with E17; then I would switch to LMDE for all my comps. Hot Idea; excited wow!! I hope Clem would look into this.

    Vishwanath

  7. I had an issue with the older version of Cinnamon. When I run mplayer to play videos, when playing the third or fourth video it starts stoping frequently, for less than a second and the video continues as normal. It happens every three or four minutes, and I don’t experience this when running MATE.

    I would like to know if this bug is fixed.

    Thanks

  8. Don’t know if this is the right place for this or not.
    LMDE is based on Testing which is currently Wheezy correct?
    When Wheezy is finally released will LMDE continue on the Testing branch with what ever the next version of Debian is or will it stick with Wheezy?
    I would like to suggest that LMDE stick with Wheezy and maybe start an LMDE Testing to continue with the next version of Debian.

  9. I had been awaiting that starting from RC declaration! Using LMDE for a long time. Congrats and thanks for hard job.

  10. I’m loving LMDE MATE but Caja still seems to have this memory leak (once to twice a day it gets up to ~600MB) Still, I won’t be going back to Ubuntu or any other distribution. Thank you for your hard work and for offering both Debian and Ubuntu-based distros (as well as Cinnamon/Mate!)

  11. Um! Grateful for your efforts, chaps, but Xfce gains ground daily, is perfect for incomers and refugees, and, you’d be amazed how many really senior Linuxers use and recommend it as their No.1 preference. Next time, maybe?

  12. YEAH FINALLY!

    I think debian is in so many ways better than ubuntu (except bleeding edge, but this can be fixed through testing apt, as you do)

    So thanks a LOT Linux Mint team! 🙂

  13. Thank you Linux Mint Team, booted new LMDE via usb stick with no problems. Now just install on hdd. Good work.

  14. This version is way more user-friendly than the standard Debian, and the other Mint releases are also more user-friendly than Ubuntu itself

    Thanks for the hard work, I sure like Debian and Ubuntu….but not as much as Mint!!

    Unity was not my cup of tea, so having Cinnamon and/or Mate makes it a big plus in my book!!

  15. Clem and the rest of the team!
    THANKS

    Like comment 9

    One humble request:LXDE would be great &maybe even Openbox or IceWM.

  16. It runs very smooth 🙂
    PXE-Boot still not working. It try’s to mount the NFS before the network is up 🙁 Think the 15 seconds sleep for the network devices is not working.

    And 2 things would be very nice:

    1. Get steam working on LMDE
    2. A fork of compiz or compiz 0.8.8 in the download repo.

  17. I am 80 years old and came 2 years ago from windows xp wanting te try Linux. I installed ubuntu 10.10 and found it better and easiar than Windows
    Came Unity I did not like it as it is similar to Wingows, I tried Mint, found it super and later Debian squeeze and I liked it too very much and as a newboe in linux I found it very easy to install and use. Now I tried this LMDE .. and SUPER
    Thanks to Clem

  18. Thanks, Mint Team! Now that I have a new machine with an Ati Radeon 4870 gfx card I can’t use Linux anymore, and Debian won’t even boot! But I’m still grateful The Linux Mint Team is continuing with Debian!

  19. Thank you, Clem and team. I’ve been a fan and user of LMDE since the 201109 release. I tested the 2013 RC with a new install. Everything worked fine, except I was not successful installing my Brother HL-2270DW printer and could not find a solution in the forums. So, I did a fresh install of LMDE 201204, successfully installed the printer before I did anything else, then went through the upgrade from Update 4 to Update 6. Has this bug been fixed with this release? Or am I the bug? 😉

  20. I don’t think that Linux Mint is going to be based off of Ubuntu any longer!

    Since Ubuntu’s main focus is going to be on phone’s & tablet’s

    A huge mistake just walking away from the desktop market.

    Thanks team for all that you do, Keep up the great work.

  21. Well done guys, great job as always. Epecially loved the installer’s new look, definitely classier than the Ubiquity installer.
    I just have one (maybe dumb) question: Is it sure that the distro cannot be installed on GPT or am i missing something reading the ‘Cons’?
    My HDD has a GPT partition table (with 17 primary partitions and a 32 MB bios-grub partition) and i have just succesfully installed the 64bit cinnamon LMDE from which i am commenting right now.
    Althought i should note that i have a Bios system (not UEFI), do not have windows (just linux multi-boot) and my disk was pre-partitioned due to the many already installed distros.

    Edit by Clem: Sorry, you’re probably right. The ISO doesn’t include the necessary files to boot off EFI and the installer doesn’t have any knowledge of GPT (it uses the traditional MSDOS partition table when creating partitions on a new disk).. that’s all though. There’s nothing in there that goes out of its way to prevent you from using these technologies. I suppose.. if you have existing GPT partitions, or assuming gparted supports them, I suppose it could work 🙂

  22. Glad to see that others here would like to see an E17 version. How about it, Clem? 🙂

    @Simon
    I’ve looked into Swift — they’re planning to move away from LMDE base and IceWM to Debian Stable and LXDE, and I get the sense that their pace of development is pretty spotty.

  23. @Clem: In regard to my question & your response (Item #3), I decided to have a go of it and got LMDE MATE 64bit installed on a GPT partition. Great job on this release.

  24. Everything works for me apart from network printers, printers found and installed but wont print, known Debian bug. Is there a solution for this.

  25. @Kriss – If there’s a known bug for it, I suggest you follow that bugreport to see if and when a solution is present.

  26. Problem with Plymouth: I made a fresh installation of lmde mate 201303. No problems during installation.
    But after removing “Plymouth” (“splash” has been removed in boot-grub before) I’ve been presented with a black screen. System seems to run in the background (ACPI-Shutdown working, but no X-terminal session switch-over).

  27. Hello. LMDE it is best linux forever. I have a one question. If debian wheezy becomes stable, what will happen to LMDE? – What are the repositories. At what Debian based LMDE?

  28. Oh no, same problem as @43 and @46. Network printer does not work 🙁
    These thing needs to be fixed, because this is a “no go” for users that use there computers to work. 😉

  29. Why in / are symlinks libnss3.so and libsoftokn.so?
    Why is installed, but not compiled ndiswrapper-dkms and virtualbox-guest-dkms (/lib/modules/3.2.0-4-486/updates is empty)?
    Why not cleaned /var/log/*?

  30. Greetings and thank you for your hard work.

    I’m running LMDE Cinnamon 64 bit live via USB. Obviously, there may have been updates that I’m not benefiting from, but I’ve had a couple of issues.

    I received an error trying to add my wireless printer. I had to manually add the mint user to the lpadmin group. I thought maybe this was an oversite and mint should have been a member of that group by default.

    I was unable to use Network Time concerning the clock. If I select my region and turn Network Time ON, the clock is off by 4 hours. If I turn Network Time OFF and change the time manually, it is fine. But, turning Network Time back on again resets the clock to the incorrect time.

    I downloaded the Debian version of Skype from it’s website. I could not get sound working correctly, in or out, unless I manually picked the correct resource. With the main version of Mint I just had to make sure that my webcam was selected for the input in the sound settings and could leave all of the options selected as Default Device in Skype.

    On a positive note, I definitely like that when doing a Menu search in Cinnamon, the first item is preselected allowing me to simply hit enter to execute it. Unlike with MATE, where I have to down arrow once to execute the program. In MATE, items appear selected, but then the search window comes up if you hit enter. They are highlighted white, not green, and the highlight is misleading. Frustrating because it happens often, especially if there is only one item returned from the search.

  31. Three questions.

    1) Are all audio and video codecs (clean, ugly, *dss2) included?
    2) For systems using gpt (which are all my disks, Mint14 works fine, however, I would like to use LMDE and if it works, I would like to say bye bye to Mint14. Is this a good idea?
    3) Are all the debian add-ons compatable with LMDE?

  32. Glaaaaaaddd!!!

    Thank you to Clem & The Team! Will get it right away!

    Congratulations and keep up the *remarkable* work! Merci bien!

  33. I have one problem with installation on old computer. When I start installation everything is fine. I create partitions, set my name/computer name, choose picture etc. Then click to start install LMDE on my computer. Installation occurs correct but, when file copying is done, then installation windows just disappear and installation stops.

  34. Hi Clem, I tried the distro from rc and I just reinstalled the stable iso was available but I am deeply disappointed by the work done, not at all comparable to the versions based on Ubuntu that excel for completeness and sophistication. Surely you will be committed to produce “Olivia” but this release leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth …

  35. Downloading now, thanks! 😀

    To Mint team: you are total heroes. I became disillusioned with my first distro (Ubuntu) when the desktop paradigm was thrown out the window. It’s comforting and encouraging to know that someone CAN get a desktop right – and that there is a great deal of loyalty to your users. Unity destroyed unity, while Mint remains true to its MATEs 😉

    +1000000 respect for LMDE ^_^b

  36. Please be more consistent with setting up SAMBA in your distributions to be running from the beginning. Right now, I am trying to configure SAMBA to use file and printer shares, but I don’t even see nmdb in the repository! What?

  37. Ok – so I’m running this in Virtualbox right now – and it looks great and yes, it does feel faster than the ubuntu based version.

    However – I’ve tried installing some packages that I’d like to have handy… and I’m finding it strange that I’m having to install things twice to get to see them? It’s things like ‘hydrogen’ and ‘korganizer’ and a few others that are driving me spare…; I know I’ve selected them and I’ve checked the list of dependancies they’re going to install… but they just don’t show and the application search wont find them.

    I’m perservering with this for the time being… but I just don’t have these issues with any other linux… especially not the main version of Mint.

  38. Again, My most Sincere Congratulations to the Linux Mint Team. I downloaded both versions (Mate and Cinnamon) to test them again pun have done an excellent job. Although personally, I prefer Ubuntu based versions than those based upon Debian, we must not fail to recognize that they have done a great job …… Congratulations !!!!

    That if I have to say that I still find very bad they have left the Official version of Linux Mint Debian Edition XFCE ….. I still keep asking if some day will be released the official version of Linux Mint Debian Edition KDE …. Anyway, once again, I say Congratulations !!!!

  39. Hi,
    My laptop internal hard disk was broken and I don’t intend to replace it anytime soon instead of to buy new laptop. Can I install LMDE to removable devices (USB stick, portable hard disk, etc) so that my laptop boot directly from this removable devices? Thank you.

  40. could not get past “setting hostname” during install back to mint14. won’t be going back to untubu tho’

  41. @grraf cheers mate. and indeed, it’s an awesome release. congratulations to the team, and a huge thank you for your hard work.

  42. Thanks, devs! I’ll be making the switch from Nadia to the new LMDE. Is LMDE ‘the future of Mint’ as has been suggested in several places, or will the Debian and Ubuntu editions remain side-by-side for the foreseeable future?

  43. I’ve been using Mint Debian 64-bit for a few months, after more than a year using the Ubuntu-based editions. I am very comfortable. Everything works well. I love it. I have it installed on two computers, one with Mate and the other with Cinnamon. Both desktops are good but I prefer Mate. The other day I was asked to assist someone with their Windows 8 computer. What a great joy to get home to my Mint Debian. Thank you. Thank you.

  44. [bad english]

    Installer has an issue since at least 201204. So, here is my step by step installation expirience. On the first step I choose Russian language, then timezone. Next I have to choose keyboard layout, by default it is Russian and I keep it. On the next screen I enter my full name (in Russian), then I try to enter username which I want to be in English. And here is an issue. Instead of having English layout by default and adding Russian, so I can choose between them, I have only Russian. I mean, in Debian itself, in many other Linux distros (I believe in all I tried last year), in Windows I always have both English and Russian layouts. But here I need to go in settings and add English manually. So, I am in Keyboard Preferences, Layouts tab. And what I see here? Only English layout set, it’s weird… OK, adding Russian layout, adding keys to change layout (because default Shift+CapsLock is, you know, awful, at least for me). OK, enter all these usernames, passwords and stuff… The rest of installation is fine, ‘Do you want to restart?’ – Yes. And after reboot I of course see welcome screen which wants my username (which as I mentioned before I hardly enter in English). I start typing and I see russian letters, ok, trying to change layout with keys combination that I choosed before. Nothing happens, I still see russian letters, ok, maybe default Shift+Caps will work? Nope, don’t work either. So, how do I suppose to get inside my new installed system?

    [/bad english]

  45. I’m a home desktop user, single booting, and not an expert. I installed LMDE mainly because I wanted to avoid re-installing. I’ve been very pleased with it – it’s never failed and I think the Mate version of Mint is the best desktop distribution I’ve ever seen. I’m very grateful to the team for developing it.

    My question is – if the panel application says the system is up to date and has Pack 6 already, does the new distribution include anything I’d be likely to benefit by having? Is it mainly intended for new adopters who are currently running something else, or would you advise reinstalling anyway to get a cleaner operating system?

  46. Fully agree with T-Khan. There is a problem with the keyboard layouts for languages ​​other than English.

  47. Thanks for another great release of LMDE, Clem & Team!! Equally tied for my favorite distro right now with Bodhi Linux. I am definitely on the Linux Mint Debian E17 bandwagon. Wouldn’t mind an LXDE edition either, and why not make the XFCE folks happy as well? Personally I’m not seeing XFCE as relevant between MATE and LXDE, but I know it still has it’s following.

    Thanks again!

    +1 LMDE17

  48. Kudos! You guys did a great job – everything I’ve tried just works! Music, Movies, Videos, Wine they all work out of the box!

  49. I can load the new LMDE on my Nvidia based ‘puter but it doesn’t want to load on my HP Pavilion dv7; doesn’t recognize the Graphic Card which is an A8 AMD, otherwise still pleased with LMDE having used it from day 1(one) with LMDE 2012

  50. My system is playig cinnamon in spanish
    A minor bug is in initials of day in calendar
    are in english not in spanish , should be :
    L M X J V S D , o
    L M M J V S D
    Congrats

  51. hello
    I installed from usb pendrive. The grub didnt work I dont know why. Then I wanted to reinstall grub manually from live pendrive, but this is the problem:

    mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount /dev/sdb8 /mnt
    mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount -B /dev /mnt/dev
    mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount -B /proc /mnt/proc
    mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount -B /sys /mnt/sys
    mint@mint ~ $ sudo chroot /mnt
    mint / # update-grub
    GRUB >= 2.00 has been unpacked but not yet configured.
    grub-mkconfig will not work until the upgrade is complete.
    It should run later as part of configuring the new GRUB packages.

    mint / # grub-install /dev/sdb
    /usr/sbin/grub-bios-setup: error: out of memory.

    What should I do?

  52. Judging by my current torrent upload speed Cinnamon 64 is the one everyone wants… a few want Cinnamon 32 and almost no one wants Mate… Strangeness…

    Edit by Clem: Cinnamon is slightly more popular but not by much. On the torrent front, it’s a ratio of 5 to 4. Both desktops are very well supported in Linux Mint. I’m personally involved in the development team of both DEs and there’s a very close relationship between them and the distribution. Also remember that MATE users are traditionally people who like things to work and to mature incrementally, they aren’t necessarilly as vocal as fans of newer DEs and they don’t necessarily jump on the latest release, especially in the case of LMDE where the ISOs are mostly of interest to newcomers. MATE is that same desktop we’ve been working on and loving since 2006, and it continues to get getter with every iteration. Don’t be fooled by the fact that Cinnamon is developed by Mint… MATE is what we used when it was called GNOME and it’s what we needed when the name GNOME was given to something else. If it wasn’t for Perberos taking the initiative and the MATE team doing an excellent job we’d have forked GNOME 2 ourselves. Today we’re developing Cinnamon and supporting the development of MATE and both DEs are very important to us.

  53. hmm, tried to install it via USB-Stick on my Acer Aspire 3750G, but regardless what i try i stumble upon a “getpwuid_r failed due to unknown user id” … this happens with both 64bit Cinnamon and Mate on two different usb sticks.

    Adding acpi=off for the boot just leads to a black screen with some corrupt chars at the top of the screen. “nomodeset” leads to the same getpwuid_r error.

    Installing the normal Linux Mint 14 Cinnamon edition via USB a couple of weeks before worked without problems

    Any ideas?

    Thx
    Thomas

  54. I have used Ubuntu 10.10. for years. It was a great desk top. Then they
    turned into windows 2. LMDE is the best desktop out there.

  55. Tomas what did you use for geting the iso onto the usb? If it was unetbootin try something else like imagewriter…..i’m not sure if it will help but give it a try

  56. Can we have an LMDE Stable Edition? Once Wheezy is released, I propose that we maintain two branches of LMDE. One for Wheezy and another for Testing. I am willing to help maintain the LMDE stable edition. Anyone else wanna join?

  57. RE: LMDE on GPT

    As others have commented, LMDE can and does run fine on GPT (I’ve been doing it for about a year on multiple systems), at least for non-EFI boot. Clem’s point is that installer will create MSDOS partition tables if you let it do entire device. If you want GPT just gpart ahead (before install), and make sure installer targets desired PARTITION and doesn’t redo whole device. As always, if you have boot problems try reinstalling GRUB2 from Live before blowing away installation (grub-install –root-directory=…).

  58. @88:Lizbeth

    “…almost no one wants Mate…”

    Ironically, MATE may have a bigger following in other distros than it’s “home turf” of Mint(/LMDE). I’ve seen several that offer a canned MATE offering but not a Cinnamon version, and it’s received plenty of positive press from other distro users (perhaps more than Cinnamon).

  59. @Bamm: to maintain a stable LMDE you’ll probably have to fork this repo – http://packages.linuxmint.com/list.php?release=Debian – and then update it from the original repo from time to time, making sure the packages will still be compatible with Debian Stable. Are you ready for that? 🙂

    For example, there won’t be GTK+ 3.6 in Wheezy, only GTK+ 3.4. This is a major incompatibility by itself… and it’s because “responsibility” is a foreign word for GTK+/Gnome devs (see this post – http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=578718#p598007 – for more info).

  60. Hi,

    Thanks for your efforts. I used to use Linux Mint in the past but i feel more comfortable with another distro for now.

    I keep having a eye on mint works and wanted to give LMDE a try.

    Nice works indeed ! and yes the installer is a nice piece of software.
    Unfortunately LMDE appeared to be amazingly slow on my core i5 with 6GB RAM ! Normal use but the system seems “heavy”. I work with Codeblocks IDE with openFrameworks and i compiled openFrameworks in about 10 minutes where it should be less than one minute !

    Even my very old athlon64 XP is much more snappier and lighter under Gnome Shell !

  61. Thank you very much for this new release! LMDE by far is my favourite distro to install at any occasion.

    By the way I’d really like to second the plea for an additional installer with a more lighweight desktop environment, as this would help many people with older machines to have an impressively performance boosting first linux experience. My suggestion would be LXDE, but also an e17 or XFCE edition would make me perfectly happy.

    Although I haven’t been into packaging stuff yet – but working with Debian for about 15 years now – I am confident that I can offer useful help to the Mint project if this would be desired.

  62. I’ve downloaded the iso file linux mint 201303 mate, then I use unetbootin to create a live usb boot. but why can not boot from flash, just a black screen appears only when booting?

  63. Printing to my HP C4680 printer fails with 201303 and I have not been able to correct the situation. The printer enables when it is sent a job, loads the paper for printing but will not actually start printing.

    Printing to my HP C4680 works correctly with 201204 with UP6 and also with LM13 Maya.

  64. My previous 88. comment is lapsed, my second installation was succesful. But I have a question, why don’t reboot and turn off my live lmde system on the pendrive? I have to press the reset.

  65. i am trying out both the mate & cinnamon versions of lmde 201303 in virtualbox – both look very nice, but i have a couple of issues.

    1) in cinnamon going to brightness/lock, i can’t keep the screen from going off permanently, only for a maximum of 1 hour with idle. really wish a ‘never’ setting could be added for those of us watching long videos with hdmi etc. any other way to fix this?

    2) in both cinnamon & mate the display resolution that i require is not listed. is there an easy way to add 1024 x 600, 1600 x 900, etc?

    thanks for your work on a great os such as lmde.

  66. I really like LMDE 201303; however, I am totally unable to print anything. Since installing the newest version of LMDE, I have spent untold hours trying to figure out what the following error means: Option: ‘printer-resolution’ has value ‘(unknown IPP tag)’ and cannot be edited. After much research…it appears that the file python-cups needs to updated to version 1.9.62 from version 1.9.48. Supposedly this will fix my ongoing printing issue.

    Hopefully this update will appear in Update Pack 7.

    Otherwise, great job on the new release.

  67. Jim:
    Install the caffeine application:
    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:caffeine-developers/ppa
    in synaptic edit the ppa from debian to precise
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install caffeine python-glade2 gir1.2-appindicator3-0.1
    gir1.2-notify-0.7

  68. I can also confirm (see comment 104) that rebooting the pc fails (only) after successful installation. Although the computer freezes during shutdown, the installed system works fine.Thank you for the great distro.

  69. This is great. Question: do I need to update my repositories list to get the upgrade? I run ‘apt-get update’, ‘apt-get upgrade’ fairly regularly and this time after executing these commands, the only available update I got is google-chrome-stable and nothing else. Does this mean I already upgraded my LMDE installation to this latest version when I ran upgrade earlier?

  70. Awesome! About a month ago I switched from Win7 to Nadia Cinnamon and I love it to bits! Works like a charm on my laptop but when I installed on my other pc I had massive problems with nvidia card, no amount of tweaking would help, but now I got LMDE installed and my problem is fixed!

    Keep up your amazing work!

  71. Is it intentional that the changelog link takes you to a page with a link back to this Release Announcement rather than to a list of changes?

  72. @105:jim [If other/easier avenues fail.]

    For full customization/config you can still roll your own xorg.conf instead of relying on auto/default settings. This doesn’t necessarily fall under the category of “easy”; however, it does get Xorg to do things it wouldn’t otherwise do (such as force display mode Xorg doesn’t autodetect). Search on keys like [xorg custom modeline]. It’s not to be done lightly; read up first and know what you’re doing. On the bright side, you no longer have to craft a full xorg.conf; you can just have sectional overrides (in xorg.conf.d).

    Downscaling to less-than-max resolutions (by which I mean less than the max autodetected by Xorg) is fairly easy, but don’t try to upscale unless you KNOW your monitor can truly handle that exact mode (such as if Win drivers achieve it). I’ve never had to upscale an LCD/LED (only old CRTs), but I won’t vouch for ALL the crazy hardware out there.

  73. @111:Victor

    Note: You may need to Refresh first to get accurate/current info, particularly if you update by means other than UM (e.g. Synaptic Package Manager, console commands).

  74. Soon we’ll have Debian 7 officially. What would happen to LMDE 201303?
    Does it just updates and upgrades periodically from the testing branch? Do we have to re-install the next version or can we upgrade ore or less smoothly over the present one?

    Thanks.
    And go ahead with LMDE!!

  75. Clem,
    I have very large 3 terrabyte disks which are GPT. On this computer, I have another distribution with Cinnamon, booting from gpt. Grub2 knows about gpt. If I install LMDE on the gpt but use the grub.cfg from the other distribution, should it work.

    I guess the next question would be “When will Debian support GPT directly?

  76. I’m having the same problem as Jim @72 — installation consistently hangs at “Setting hostname”. Does anyone know what might be going on here? Thanks!

  77. update: my particular problem was caused because the target file-system had been mounted read-only. For others experiencing this or other errors where the installer GUI just hangs, execute it in a terminal emulator (`gksudo /usr/bin/live-installer`) and you can see when and where the process errors out.

  78. I have installed the latest Mint MATE on a 2nd attempt on a nearly 7 year old Toshiba Satellite laptop with only 1GB memory. It didn’t want to install and I decided to give it a 2nd try. Following directions always helps too! Works like a charm. It’s as fast in response time to Windows 8. And my Windows 7 OS is nicely on the boot manager menu. So far an awesome experience. Having problems updating Thunderbird though from 17.0 to 17.4, but that is not a big deal. Mint MATE seems to be the best of Windows & MAC OS all built into one. Now what would a top of the line replacement laptop cost without an OS installed (mind you, not a built from scratch computer).

  79. @117:Leslie

    I’ve run LMDE installed on GPT disks fine for the last few UPs. As indicated in @95, if you let the installer partition your entire device, it will use MSDOS partition table by default. So just create/partition your device ahead of time as GPT, then have the installer target a given partition (e.g. sda1). It’s OK if the installer wants to [re]format the partition; the device partition table will remain GPT scheme regardless of what you do to individual partitions within it.

    As for simply copying/reusing the EXACT same grub.cfg, that won’t work if your referencing by UUIDs as those will be different. Every time you format a partition, the UUID changes, so different partitions won’t have same UUIDs (that’s why they’re _U_NIVERSALLY _U_NIQUE). So minimally, you’d need to change the UUIDs in grub.cfg even if you kept the same relative layout. (As an aside, you might also need to change fstab file if you were copying/reusing that from a different device as well.) However, it’s easy to miss little details when editing grub.cfg manually, in which case you can run grub-mkconfig to generate correct grub.cfg (which should get all the UUIDs right, as well as insmods etc.). Note: If you had any non-default manual customizations (e.g. kernel options), those will be lost unless you put them in /etc/default/grub BEFORE running grub-mkconfig; otherwise, you can manually add them back afterwards.

  80. GPT DEMYSTIFIED

    [In case prior GPT posts didn’t get the job done.]

    1. GPT IS NOT EFI/UEFI. Nor does GPT require EFI(/UEFI…I’m just going to use the first part from here on). Confusion stems from the close association between EFI and GPT (like the kernel build option that enables GPT support being named CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION).

    2. GPT CAN BE USED WITH NON-EFI/UEFI SYSTEMS. HOWEVER, there is an EXTRA STEP that needs to be taken to BOOT from them. For systems without EFI (or with EFI but chosen not to use, perhaps by explicitly disabling e.g. “Legacy” boot), to boot GRUB on a GPT device, you need a BIOS Boot Partition (BBP). Web search if you want background info, but to get it to work you just need to: (A) reserve a small partition (1MB will do…and you can leave it unformatted) somewhere on GPT device (like at the end, e.g. sda2), AND set the partition flag to bios_grub. (B) [Re]run grub-install; it will detect device is GPT, see the BBP, and install GRUB Stage 2 there. You can defer this until after LMDE install.

    3. LMDE CAN BE INSTALLED TO GPT DEVICE. HOWEVER, as Clem indicated, the installer is hardwired to create a standard/legacy MSDOS partition table IF YOU LET IT (meaning if you give it the whole device to redo). Thus, if you want a GPT partition table, you have to create it yourself BEFORE INSTALL (along with aforementioned BBP), then during install ensure you target ONLY the main partition (e.g. sda1) and NOT the entire device.

    Here’s a step-by-step example as a starting point. (Caveat: This is from memory…I’m not redoing a whole install just for a post…so details like command syntax may be off a bit, and aren’t intended to exactly match your particulars anyway. ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES ONLY!)

    STEP 1: Boot LMDE Live media (e.g. USB).

    STEP 2: In gparted, select desired target device (e.g. sda), then “Create Partition Table…” (Device menu). It will default to MSDOS, so you need to change it to GPT. Note: If target device already has active partitions, you will need to delete them before gparted will let you create new partition table. Naturally, this implies blowing away all existing data.

    STEP 3: In gparted, create one or more partitions to hold LMDE system/data/etc., just as you normally would BUT leave an extra unformatted partition of at least 1MB size at the end. For example (simplest case), create sda1 1MB less than max/default, leaving sda2 as 1MB partition. Format sda1 for desired filesystem (e.g. ext4) and no flags; leave sda2 unformatted but [IMPORTANT!] set bios_grub flag to identify it as BIOS Boot Partition (BBP).

    STEP 4: Run LMDE install and target sda1 partition as root (“/”). If you created other partitions (e.g. /home etc.), specify those mount points as well; however, you MUST ensure that whatever partition you specified as BBP (sda2, or wherever you put it) is NOT used as a mount point. Remember: BBP is a special partition used by GRUB loader, not a filesystem partition used by OS.

    STEP 5: Mount whatever partition GRUB directory (/boot/grub) is on (e.g. sda1) somewhere (e.g. /mnt). Install GRUB via command, specifying target DEVICE (without partnum) and mounted directory as root (e.g. “grub-install –root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda”. Remember: Target is DEVICE! NO PARTNUM!

    STEP 6 (MAYBE): I don’t remember if target grub.cfg is correct at this point or not. You can check it for correct UUIDs and clues that it’s using GPT like “insmod part_gpt” and “set root='(/dev/sda,gpt1)'”. At any rate, if grub.cfg doesn’t look correct, run grub-mkconfig manually to regenerate (e.g. “grub-mkconfig -o /mnt/boot/grub/grub.cfg”).

  81. Using Mate version of LMDE 201303, Cinnamon is not flexible enough yet, but looks promising. So far very pleased, this is the first time I have had a working desktop from a Mint live disk without a lot of faffing about and that’s on a piece of hardware that constantly gives me grief in that department. So a big THANK YOU!

    Would it be possible to have an install option available from the live Grub menu?

    I’m often faced with a situation of trying out more than one live disk. After deciding which one to install, it seems a waste of time having to wait for a disk to fully load yet again, when I already have done so in the past and just want to install it, especially so if there is a problem that that will need sorting out post install.

    I realise that Mint per se is not aimed at people that do this sort of thing, but LMDE users and certainly Debian users will most likely be used to it. After all casual ‘lets try it’ or new to LMDE users would most likely be unaware of how to get the live Grub menu anyway, so not much would change in their experience?

    I can live without this feature, but I do miss it when it isn’t there. A network install disk would be even better, but I would be asking for the moon 😀

  82. Hi I am new to Linux. A co-worker introduced me and installed cinnamon. When I brought my computer home I noticed that firefox runs on a 1 minute delay. can you please help
    Thx

  83. Where can I learn more about Linux and the important commands to do “stuff” I notice my friend uses “sudo ….?”

  84. @114:Repozer

    Thank you for your advice. UP info says says “Your system is pointing to the ‘Linux Mint Debian Latest’ repository”

    Current update pack available: 6
    Latest update pack used by this system: 5

    On the top list is Update Pack 6 from 2012.12.19

    Multiarch. I don’t think I need multiarch update pack at this point since I don’t use any 32bit-dependent apps at this time.

    However, my main concern is whether I am set up to obtain latest updates. Based on this information I am not configured to obtain latest updates? If so, may I ask how I can configure to obtain latest updates?

    Thank you,
    Victor.

  85. Hi, I installed the 64 Bits LMDE Cinnamon and… IS THE BEST THING !!!
    Run Out of the box, Great Work.

    @Raj:

    “installed cinnamon”

    Sounds like you install Cinnamon desktop over other Distro you have (maybe Debian or Ubuntu) because mi firefox (with 4 extension load) start in 1 or 2 seconds, Super Fast, beats Ubuntu based LM 14 speed!!

  86. I installed LMDE by accident , but it has been a good accident, been reading some of the posts, I would asking the same question in regards will this always be a testing OS.
    This is from a previous comment LMDE is based on Testing which is currently Wheezy correct?
    When Wheezy is finally released will LMDE continue on the Testing branch with what ever the next version of Debian is or will it stick with Wheezy?
    Good question,

  87. so, i installed this without issues on my desktop, but on my laptop, it hangs *every* time at ‘setting hostname’. first i thought the script has a problem with my FQDN, so i shortened it, but to no avail..

    now i’ve commented out these lines in /usr/lib/live-installer/installer.py:

    # hostnamefh = open(“/target/etc/hostname”, “w”)
    # hostnamefh.write(“%s\n” % setup.hostname)
    # hostnamefh.close()
    # hostsfh = open(“/target/etc/hosts”, “w”)
    # hostsfh.write(“127.0.0.1\tlocalhost\n”)
    # hostsfh.write(“127.0.1.1\t%s\n” % setup.hostname)
    # hostsfh.write(“# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capabl$
    # hostsfh.write(“::1 localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback\n”)
    # hostsfh.write(“fe00::0 ip6-localnet\n”)
    # hostsfh.write(“ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix\n”)
    # hostsfh.write(“ff02::1 ip6-allnodes\n”)
    # hostsfh.write(“ff02::2 ip6-allrouters\n”)
    # hostsfh.write(“ff02::3 ip6-allhosts\n”)
    # hostsfh.close()

    ..but it still hangs at:

    –> Configuring MDM
    File “/usr/lib/live-installer/installer.py”, line 355, in finish_install
    mdmconffh.close()

    please fix this: it didn’t occur in the previous release, and i don’t know python well enough to do it myself. also, it seems it’s not just me, see the previous comments containing ‘hostname’..

  88. @barndad — I made a comment about the installer hanging at “setting hostname”. In my case, the problem was that the target drive had been mounted read-only, for some reason. When the installer fails like that, it will leave the target device mounted at `/target` — check and see what state that’s in, and you will get some clues. I can help if you like, but if you don’t know where to start you might be better off with the main edition of Mint.

  89. @128:Victor

    Mine said the same thing. I always use Synaptic instead of Update Manager, and have noticed that even though I’m pointing at all the right repos and all apckages are up to date, UM still reports me as not current unless/until I refresh INSIDE UM. After I refreshed UM, it didn’t offer any new updates (because all the packages really were already up to date), but it allowed UM to confirm for itself that everything was up to date and only then did it flip the UP info to say system’s indeed current on UP6. So, it would appear the UP criteria is just some high-level flagging UM does (but only when you use/refresh it).

    If refreshing UM doesn’t do the trick, double check your Software Sources to make sure you are truly pointing at LMDE latest. Also, even if your LMDE repos are correct, you may have other/external/overriding repos that might be “confusing” UM (in terms of its UP currency calculation); for instance, if you’re tracking Debian Wheezy or project nightlies for certain packages.

  90. i figured out how to add a new display resolution in an easy & straightforward way for those who may be interested :

    open terminal & enter –

    xrandr
    cvt 1024 600 (your preferred resolution)

    you may continue in terminal (etc/mdm/Init/Default – gedit or pluma)
    but i opened the file manager and navigated etc/mdm/Init/Default
    when you get to Default right click & open as administrator
    look for the following lines near the top –
    PATH=/usr/bin:$PATH
    OLD_IFS=$IFS
    then add these lines below them –
    xrandr –newmode (paste modeline from cvt output in terminal here)
    xrandr –addmode VGA1 1024x600_60.00
    xrandr –output VGA1 –mode 1024×600
    close, save, & exit – restart

    notes – VGA1 or whatever the display designation in xrandr output in terminal was(in my case it was VBOX0 – virtualbox)

    use your preferred resolution in place of 1024×600

    pluma is default text editor – i installed gedit myself – both should work equally well.

    thats it – the most straightforward & concise way of adding a new display resolution that i could figure out.

  91. LMDE has a problem with a beep during boot up and shutdown. I was able to disable by installing gnome-alsamixer, then muting the beep. Is it possible to address the issue so that doesn’t occur?

  92. LMDE has always been a project that I’ve watched closely, and tried a couple of times. I always seem to run into some crippling issue that causes me to never quite adopt LMDE as the primary system.

    As far as speed is concerned, I haven’t yet been blown away by the speed of LMDE. Depending on the process, it is indeed slower, while other things are just a touch snappier. I will emphasize, JUST A TOUCH snappier. At the end of the day, I am more productive with the Ubuntu based version.

    My conclusion in regard to the speed of LMDE or the Ubuntu version for that matter, is it simply is a matter of hardware configuration. Each of us has to determine what is best for us individually, there is no one answer to this. If one person has a blazing fast experience with LMDE, rest assured that there is at least another person who has a better experience with Ubuntu. And round and round we go.

    Bottom line: Unless extensive benchmark testing is performed on every hardware configuration out there, we will never know exactly what is absolutely the fastest performing system. We are left with our own experience, which is fine with me.

    Thanks Clem for your hard work. I haven’t given up on LMDE, just not right for me yet. I see the long list of headaches that users are going through on blogs like this, and it only brings back negative memories for me. But more power to those who love it. It highlights the Mint Team’s dedication to providing choices that work reasonably well for a wider range of users.

  93. Irv @ Comment 106… I totally agree for over a year. LMDE (and Debian Testing) is unusable to me because CUPS is ancient. I made new CUPS packages, but integrating them with the rest of the binaries proved too painful for me. — went to Mint 14 & Gentoo.

  94. @139:PB

    Hi. I am one of those distro-hoppers – I enjoy installing and trying out different LInux(es) and BSD systems and have installed and re-installed many of them on my Dell machine. *None* of them have worked as good as LMDE for me. That’s why I stopped trying out other OS(es) and have been using LMDE for over a year now because it works so well. It’s faster, more responsive, and more stable than any other OS I used. That’s why I don’t want to risk loosing it by trying other OS because I know from my experience that LMDE will be better.

    I also tried LMDE on my NCIX machine at work and it worked great on it too. LMDE has also worked great on my old Dell laptop (which made it useable again) You are right in pointing out that LMDE may not work for other hardware, but in my experience, with all the hardware I used, LMDE worked best 🙂

  95. Victor@140

    Then I would fully expect you to stay with LMDE without question. For me, it always has it’s headaches, such as the ones listed here on this blog. Yes, I’ve gotten a fully operating LMDE system a few times. However, to get it fully working, WITHOUT installing additional software for my needs, it takes far too long in my experience. Ubuntu edition is just a simpler process for me. And performance difference is mediocre at best, and sometimes actually more sluggish. Rolling distro? I’ll give you that, but I don’t care if it’s rolling, or it’s stuck in the mud, something has to work when I turn the PC on. Besides, Ubuntu’s going to start rolling here soon, and hopefully we’ll see some benefit from it. If not, oh well.

    But again, I will clarify that it’s not just LMDE that I said may not work for certain machines. I applied that to ALL operating systems, not just LMDE or Ubuntu, etc. WE have to pick what works best for US. The entire Linux community is a gigantic billboard for that truth. THERE IS NO BEST ONE. It’s up to what our individual needs, likes and dislikes are, and it’s really that simple. Nothing more.

    To clarify what I said before, if some team completely tested every single desktop Linux OS available on every single hardware configuration for performance, out of the box usability, productivity, stability and everything else you can think of, I seriously doubt LMDE would come out on top. Don’t misunderstand, this is taking ALL THINGS INTO CONSIDERATION. We’re not just talking about stability, or speed, or some other facet that may have special meaning to some user in Antarctica.

    Reality is folks, that just because some other user has a great experience with this distro or that distro, doesn’t change anything with my experience. And my experience doesn’t change yours.

  96. I run Mint14. I would like to make the transition to LMDE. There was three questions that I asked, and noone answered.

    1) Will LMDE have all the media plugins and codecs as does Mint14?
    2) Will LMDE stay with Wheezy when Wheezy becomes stable and there is another new development on the scene?
    3) If I install LMDE, as I did Debian on a GPT drive, but I boot from a MSDOS drive, Debian booted. If Debian booted in that configuration, will LMDE boot too?

    When is the GPT version scheduled to be out (32 or 64 bit)

  97. @93: Saade, i’m using the “Linux Live USB Creator” (linuxliveusb.com) since ages for every linux distribution i tried out and it never failed me, even with previous “normal” Mint dsitributions including the current Mint 14 Cinnamon

  98. i’m running previouv version of LMDE, XFCE flavour, and i like it so much!!! is it foreseen to add also the XFCE environment?

    tnx for your great job!

  99. When i tried installing say me “panic ocurred, switching back to text console”, and STOP

    Installing from a USB. MATE version.

    Netbook Computer HP, chipset Intel 945GSE, micro Atom N280 – 1,66 GHz, 1 Gbyte of RAM memory and screen of 10,1 inches WSVGA.

    ¿some idea?

  100. Hi guys! Thank you for the great work! I am a bit confused, though. What is this new release? I was running LMDE and I don’t have any notifications about any upgrades. I already have update pack 6, but I installed it a long time ago, so I don’t understand what this “new” release is. Do you just mean that now everything is available as an iso file but there is nothing new for users who had UP 6 already?

  101. @144:Leslie

    Your question is a bit nebulous, so I’ll have to make some assumptions. It sounds like you’re talking about 2 devices — one MSDOS-paritioned and one GPT-partitioned, and you want the MSDOS device to be the first stop (hold the primary boot loader).

    If the MSDOS device has GRUB2, you can do it. The default LMDE GRUB2/kernel have GPT support built-in, so you should be good-to-go (unless you’ve intentionally stripped some of that stuff out…which I doubt because it sounds like that’s what you want and have used before). As indicated several times in my prior posts (et al), the LMDE installer will NOT automatically partition you device as GPT (it will automatically default to MSDOS); however, this is easily rectified by creating the GPT partition table on the device BEFORE install, then targeting the individual partition(s) during install (see @124 for detail). You just have to make sure grub.cfg entries are correct (which you can easily do by letting grub-mkconfig generate it…with both devices attached naturally).

    If the MSDOS device has some other OS’s loader (e.g. Windows), then all bets are off. Just know that Windows has some restrictions on how it boots (especially GPT). Nevertheless, there may be a way to circumvent with clever chainloading/GRUB-4-DOS. Also, if you’re mixing bitness (one OS/loader is 32-bit and another 64-bit), there can be problems.

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