New ISO images for LMDE 2 “Betsy” – BETA Release

The ISO images for LMDE 2 “Betsy” are being updated. This is the BETA release for these new images.

LMDE 2 Betsy Cinnamon Edition

LMDE 2 “Betsy” was released in 2015.

If you are not familiar with it, here is an extract from its original announcement:

LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) is a very exciting distribution, targeted at experienced users, which provides the same environment as Linux Mint but uses Debian as its package base, instead of Ubuntu.

LMDE is less mainstream than Linux Mint, it has a much smaller user base, it is not compatible with PPAs, and it lacks a few features. That makes it a bit harder to use and harder to find help for, so it is not recommended for novice users.

LMDE is however slightly faster than Linux Mint. Life on the LMDE side can be exciting. There are no point releases in LMDE 2, except for bug fixes and security fixes base packages stay the same, but Mint and desktop components are updated continuously. When ready, newly developed features get directly into LMDE 2, whereas they are staged for inclusion on the next upcoming Linux Mint point release. Consequently, Linux Mint users only run new features when a new point release comes out and they opt-in to upgrade to it. LMDE 2 users don’t have that choice, but they also don’t have to wait for new packages to mature and they usually get to run them first. It’s more risky, but more exciting.

LMDE 2 received many updates in the last 2 years, including many improvements which were ported from Linux Mint as well as all the new versions of MATE, Cinnamon and the Xapps.

This release provides a new set of installation images for LMDE 2 which includes all these updates.

System requirements:

  • 512MB RAM (1GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
  • 9GB of disk space (20GB recommended).
  • Graphics card capable of 800Γ—600 resolution (1024×768 recommended).
  • DVD drive or USB port.

Notes:

  • The 64-bit ISO can boot with BIOS or UEFI.
  • The 32-bit ISO can only boot with BIOS.
  • The 64-bit ISO is recommend for all modern computers (Almost all computers sold in the last 10 years are equipped with 64-bit processors).

Upgrade instructions:

  • No upgrade is needed. If you are running LMDE 2, you already have access to all the updates included in this re-release.

Bug reports:

  • Please report bugs below in the comment section of this blog.
  • When reporting bugs, please be as accurate as possible and include any information that might help developers reproduce the issue or understand the cause of the issue:
    • Bugs we can reproduce, or which cause we understand are usually fixed very easily.
    • It is important to mention whether a bug happens “always”, or “sometimes”, and what triggers it.
    • If a bug happens but didn’t happen before, or doesn’t happen in another distribution, or doesn’t happen in a different environment, please mention it and try to pinpoint the differences at play.
    • If we can’t reproduce a particular bug and we don’t understand its cause, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to fix it.
  • Please visit https://github.com/linuxmint/Roadmap to follow the progress of the development team between the BETA and the stable release.

Download links:

Cinnamon 64-bit ISO:

MATE 64-bit ISO:

A set of 32-bit ISO images is also available at https://www.linuxmint.com/download_all.php.

Integrity and authenticity checks:

Once you have downloaded an image, please verify its integrity and authenticity.

Anyone can produce fake ISO images, it is your responsibility to check you are downloading the official ones.

Enjoy!

We look forward to receiving your feedback. Many thanks in advance for testing the BETA!

37 comments

  1. update manager complained about deb-multimedia. after enabling backports it was happy

    Edit by Clem: Hi Peter, what error did you get?

  2. Good to re-spin the ISOs now that Stretch is nearing release.

    The roadmap for LMDE+1 hasn’t changed for a while now. I note activation of jessie-backports is being considered for LMDE+1. Does this imply that LMDE+1 is this (jessie based) re-spin?

    I’d hope to see the “dmo” packages dropped at some point, as almost all have been superseded by packages in jessie-backports/stretch. I’m looking forward to LMDE3, but I guess we’ll have to wait for the roadmap..

    Edit by Clem: Hi Giles, that’s a section to put ideas for the next LMDE base. It won’t be jessie-backports obviously.

  3. Congratulation, Mr. Clem, for your work in Linux Mint and LMDE.
    I’m a user of Linux Mint 18.1 cinnamon; Debian 8.7.1 cinnamon and Arch Linux. Yesterday I installed on 16 Gb pendrive the full sistem LMDE Betsy 2 (not live).
    LMDE is just a merge between Debian stable + Mint. And the result is as rock solid as debian with the latest cinnamon de and all the mint applications. Worked like a charm without any issue.
    Two comments:
    1. To run google-chrome, unmarked “use hardware acceleracion when available” on advances settings (like debian cinnamon).
    2. Debian uses Firefox 45.7 and LMDE uses 50. But both uses Libreoffice 4.x from 2014 !
    IMHO, if LMDE uses the same Libreoffice version on Mint 18.1 will be better.

  4. In general terms, I don’t see great difficulties while I am use Betsy. The biggest disavantage is that there isn’t Driver Utility, but it’s Synaptic. However, Betsy has less requirements and on old computers gives better performance than Serena.

    Furthermore, the sources of apps are very good; for this reason, you can find the majority of apps that you need with one click on the software administrator.

    But these advantages aren’t all. On the whole circumstances, Betsy is stabler and faster than Serena because of its base, Debian Stable.

    Finally, as far as I know Betsy will be the salvation for old pcs with CPU of 32 bits, because Ubuntu 18.04 will have only 64 bits version.

    I love Betsy and I don’t see so complicated to use. Thanks for your fantastic work, Clem and Liunx Mint Team

    Edit by Clem: Thanks, I thought I’d comment as well since you mentioned 32-bit. There is one important difference between LMDE and Mint on this architecture. Mint supports SMP out of the box but cannot run without PAE. In contrast, LMDE ships with the Debian 586 kernel by default so it is compatible with non-PAE hardware (and you can add SMP support by switching to the 686-pae, this is described at https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_betsy.php).

  5. Any chance the new installer has a disk encryption option? The lack of it has been a deal-breaker for me.

    Edit by Clem: No sorry. You can encrypt your home directory post-installation of course, but there are no encryption options in the installer at the moment.

  6. 01.26.2017 – lmde-2-MATE-amd64-201701151258
    ===========================================
    Testbox:
    —————————
    AMD E-350 APU (1.6GHz Dual Core, on chip Radeon HD)
    OCZ SSD (single partition install)
    4GB RAM
    — LMDE2 install size = 4.7GiB

    Response is Excellent!!
    — some screen stuttering initially (fixed: turn off compositing and change to “Marco” only).

    =====

    1) synaptic removal of “mint-backgrounds-serena” indicates removal of:
    — mint-artwork-debian
    — mint-meta-debian-core
    — mint-meta-debian-mate

    2) file manager: “name” column size cannot be adjusted with column slider.

    3) vino is a no-go
    a) command: which vino-server
    — retuns nothing (user or root)
    — executable is at: /usr/lib/vino/vino-server

    b) adding vino-server to “Startup Applications” does not init the application at boot.

    c) vino-preferences is missing

    d) manual startup of vino-server returns:

    (vino-server:3445): EggSMClient-CRITICAL **: egg_sm_client_set_mode: assertion ‘global_client == NULL || global_client_mode == EGG_SM_CLIENT_MODE_DISABLED’ failed
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Autoprobing TCP port in (all) network interface
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Listening IPv6://[::]:5900
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Listening IPv4://0.0.0.0:5900
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Autoprobing selected port 5900
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Advertising security type: ‘TLS’ (18)
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Re-binding socket to listen for VNC connections on TCP port 5900 in (all) interface
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Listening IPv6://[::]:5900
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Listening IPv4://0.0.0.0:5900
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Clearing securityTypes
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Advertising security type: ‘TLS’ (18)
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Clearing securityTypes
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Advertising security type: ‘TLS’ (18)
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Advertising authentication type: ‘No Authentication’ (1)
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Re-binding socket to listen for VNC connections on TCP port 5900 in (all) interface
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Listening IPv6://[::]:5900
    26/01/2017 10:36:23 AM Listening IPv4://0.0.0.0:5900

    manual start of vino-server and gesettings fixes required:
    ———————————————————-
    gsettings set org.gnome.Vino enabled [**fail**]
    gsettings set org.gnome.Vino require-encryption false
    gsettings set org.gnome.Vino prompt-enabled false
    gsettings set org.gnome.Vino notify-on-connect false
    gsettings set org.gnome.Vino authentication-methods [“‘vnc'”]
    gsettings set org.gnome.Vino vnc-password “‘xxxxx'” <— (xxxxx= echo pwd |base64)

    results: gsettings list-recursively org.gnome.Vino:
    ————————————————–
    org.gnome.Vino notify-on-connect false
    org.gnome.Vino alternative-port uint16 5900
    org.gnome.Vino disable-background false
    org.gnome.Vino use-alternative-port false
    org.gnome.Vino icon-visibility 'client'
    org.gnome.Vino use-upnp false
    org.gnome.Vino view-only false
    org.gnome.Vino prompt-enabled false
    org.gnome.Vino disable-xdamage false
    org.gnome.Vino authentication-methods ['vnc']
    org.gnome.Vino network-interface ''
    org.gnome.Vino require-encryption false
    org.gnome.Vino mailto ''
    org.gnome.Vino lock-screen-on-disconnect false
    org.gnome.Vino vnc-password 'xxxxx'

    ** despite disabling encryption, server process continues to broadcast type 18 (TLS) but appears to not accept a session with type 1 (no authentication). Remote sessions appear fine once running but without the "start at boot" vino-server is broken!

    4) Great changes to the repository selection process!! (testing by proxemics)

    5) nVidia testing not available on this system.

    Clem and team:
    =============
    I'm very appreciative of the GREAT job you've done with LMDE2 Mate! As a daily driver, it's rock solid!!

  7. Hi Clem, does this release have a kernel and firmware that supports Intel Skylake processors?

    Edit by Clem: It’s shipping with 3.16. You would probably need to upgrade to a 4.4 kernel and upgrade the stack with the jessie-backports repositories.

  8. Hi Clem,
    Does this ship with Mesa 11.2?

    I only ask because i had LMDE2 running on an old Dell Optiplex – anyway every so often parts of the screen – the whole window of the active application would go black the rest of the screen was fine. Anyway, it was a Mesa 10 point something. I won’t explain how i messed up my setup trying to import Mesa 11.2 – suffice to say it is now running LM 18.2 Mate.
    But I would like to reinstall LMDE2 if it is now shipped with Mesa 11.2 as i never get black screen with this version of Mesa. (of course there could be other factors at play I accept that also).

    Thanks for all the great work guys

    Edit by Clem: Hi Gerry, it’s shipping with MESA 10.3. You can get version 12.0 from Jessie Backports.

  9. Thanks a lot for the updated ISOs! I just looked at the change log yesterday and noticed the detailed info in 2014, then nothing else other than the Betsy release, and I hoped this project this project still ticks. πŸ™‚

    Thanks to the existing comments I also know the kernel and MESA versions, which is good to know. It would be nice if this kind of info would be mentioned in the release notes in the future.

    Cheers! πŸ™‚

  10. I used to run it but stopped after I would get occasional freezes. It didn’t matter what I was doing. The entire screen would lock up and I was forced to hard reset the pc. (Pressing the power button) When I use my pc, I would put it to sleep, and come back later to use it. It wasn’t often that I would restart, but Windows 7 was outlasting the restart times. That isn’t good as I wish to move away from Windows in the future. (I refuse to use Windows 10) Don’t get me wrong, I love LMDE, but the system freezes are a deal breaker. I think I had the same problem with Mint 18 (Ubuntu Base).

    System Details:
    Dell Optiplex 380
    Intel Core 2 Duo E5700
    4 GB DDR2 Ram
    Video Card NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS (Same issue even on integrated graphics)
    Same issue on SSD and regular hard drive.

    I had a hard time finding anything in the logs about issue.

  11. When I was trying to boot comouter by linux-mate appeared this message:syslinux 4.07 edd 2013-07-25 copyright (c) 1993-2013 H. anvin et al NO DEFAULT OR UI CONFIGURATION DIRECTIVE FOUND!
    boot :
    ——–> i can’t boot my system (thanks)

    Edit by Clem: Make sure to check the integrity and authenticity of the ISO.

  12. Great news!
    I was running LMDE since version 1 and I loved it: reliable, fast, rock solid and… beautiful!
    Now, my new laptop has a core i5 skylake inside and LMDE2 had so many issues (support for skylake processors was added into kernel 4.4), so sadly I decided to install a recent ubuntu mate lts (because of linux 4.4) which is not much… mint.
    But I look forward to LMDE3 πŸ™‚

  13. Issue: Installing Sardi icons version 9.1.2 (latest version on sourceforge after cleanup of svg code) on LMDE Cinnamon and LMDE Mate look broken. Icons do not show up as they are intended.
    Older version 8 looks ok. Could you check what happens to the svg icons?
    As a point of reference Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon, Mate and XFCE the icons look just fine.http://i.imgur.com/xnusp3E.png

  14. @ 8. Mike & 14. Elio

    I’ve written a post on getting Skylake support in LMDE2 at
    https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=238&t=216678&p=1270719#p1270719

    Creating a Frankendebian isn’t generally recommended, but I’ve been careful to only pull down the minimum number of required packages from stretch (most are from jessie-backports). It works great on my i5-6200.

    Edit by Clem: It’s a pity Xorg isn’t part of the Jessie backports. I’m not keen on mixing Stretch in the mix but if it’s needed, it’s needed. If you run into trouble down the line because of the mixed sources, remember you can comment out and the stretch repository in your sources, refresh your cache and all packages coming from Stretch (basically all packages coming from sources which aren’t present in your system) will be considered “foreign” then. You can list foreign packages and even downgrade them using the Software Sources -> Maintenance -> Foreign Packages tool.

  15. There is a suggestion to consider.

    The greatest objection to use LMDE instead of Debian, is apparently being FORCED to be a guinea-pig for whatever new ‘features’ that may show.
    ! This in opposition to the main drive of potential users.

    It would not be a great effort (to me it would, as just a user) to introduce 3 install/upgrade options: Stable / Stable+Security / Testing-Safe (and Testing-Unsafe on particular Apps)

    Meaning, allowing 3 personalities to LMDE, just by choice of repositories. Something similar is done with ‘regular’ Mint. Why not with LMDE, in the distro and the upgrade system, instead of configuration tips in the forums?

    Out of the box! … Still time, while a beta.
    Hope it may happen, it would be helpful.
    DuLac.

    P.S. – Not being linxu system expert, just a user with a slow PC, I’ve dropped LMDE 2 times due to occasional nuisances. Instead, now using Trisquel (the opposite extreme, extremely fast as Slackware usually is). Don’t be offended, nor reply as “But that can be done”. Of course it can…not to be confused with what does exist. Out of the box means an immediate choice… Suggested because LMDE would be my choice as permanent sytem and work horse. That being the reason of this entry.

  16. @ Clem
    my Installer wish list:
    1. If I connect to the internet in the live session before starting the installer the Language for the _installer_ defaults to the common local language and not the language selected in the first window.
    example: I am in Mexico, I choose US English, then I get presented with choices in Spanish… very confusing for me, native English and very basic Spanish skills πŸ™‚
    –English is installed, this is just in the Installer–

    2. the partition selection window does not show the partition Labels. I have many partitions, all with labels. I need those labels to identify the destination for the / and /home …
    Other distro installers show the labels. Can this feature be added?

    Thanks! Peter
    PS: 2 new installs yesterday, it sure is sweet to not have to do that massive update. Thanks again

  17. @Noah
    With regards to the default installer not supporting encryption, you can always boot into the live CD and then use the lmdescrypt installer from http://j.mp/lmdescrypt to do a LUKS install on LVM. Nowadays it even supports full encryption (/boot partition as well). Both UEFI and regular MSDOS partitions should work.

  18. Hi everyone,

    I Met Linux Mint for the first with version 2.1. Meanwhile I discovered the rolling release distributions. Today I’m discovering LMDE 2 mate and I’d like to get more informations about this distro.
    Thanks a lot

  19. @ xanataz
    welcome. I suggest you simply install and see. Read all you can but real world use (on your hardware) is the true test
    Install usually takes less than 30 minutes
    (install alongside what you are using now, 20GB is ample)

  20. Linux Mint 2 “Betsy” – 2017 MATE BETA (32-bit)

    Dell Inspiron 1300, Celeron M 1.5GHz, HDA-Intel, Intel 82801.

    No sound πŸ™

  21. Hi clem,

    LMDE2, the stable version is not connecting to my wired ethernet on my dell laptop. All the other linux mint distros connect just fine.Any suggestions?

  22. @pjfreedom,
    Hi, I added the “nomodeset” flag in the linux-line in grub.cfg (and in /etc/default/grub –necessary, I gess, not lose this flag in a future grub-update ). With this I got rid of screen-freezing with Mint-17. (superuser!)

    Hope this works for you as well.

  23. Linux kernel 3.xx is not acceptable in 2017 for any reason !
    I don’t think debian wants to keep up even opensuse has been more bleeding edge by the years fedora also , i dont think why it even exists ? only debian testing makes sense.

    Tried move the repositories to testing and the system broke while on debian it works.
    Any way with all these linux mint/ubuntu repositories you find more software on linux mint and its easier !
    I used to prefer debian edition but not my cup of tea anymore.

  24. Wonk-wonk-wonk – I’ve been installing, testing,etc OSs since 1998. The ONLY consistently workable series has BEEN Linux Mint. I’ve tried various builds of Debian and have NEVER been successful. I figured that Mint had it figured out-WRONG. After fighting thru various obstacles to begin installation I gave up during the partition configuration phase. SHEESH!!

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