LMDE 5 “Elsie” – BETA Release

This is the BETA release for LMDE 5 “Elsie”.

LMDE 5 Elsie

LMDE is a Linux Mint project which stands for “Linux Mint Debian Edition”. Its goal is to ensure Linux Mint would be able to continue to deliver the same user experience, and how much work would be involved, if Ubuntu was ever to disappear. LMDE is also one of our development targets, to guarantee the software we develop is compatible outside of Ubuntu.

LMDE aims to be as similar as possible to Linux Mint, but without using Ubuntu. The package base is provided by Debian instead.

Important info:

The release notes provide important information about known issues, as well as explanations, workarounds and solutions.

To read the release notes, please visit:

Release Notes for LMDE 5

System requirements:

  • 2GB RAM (4GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
  • 20GB of disk space (100GB recommended).
  • 1024×768 resolution (on lower resolutions, press ALT to drag windows with the mouse if they don’t fit in the screen).

Upgrade instructions:

  • This BETA release might contain critical bugs, please only use it for testing purposes and to help the Linux Mint team fix issues prior to the stable release.
  • It will be possible to upgrade from this BETA to the stable release.
  • Upgrade instructions will be published after the stable release.

Bug reports:

  • Bugs in this release should be reported on Github at https://github.com/linuxmint/lmde-5-cinnamon-beta/issues.
  • Create one issue per bug.
  • As described in the Linux Mint Troubleshooting Guide, do not report or create issues for observations.
  • 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.
  • The BETA phase is literally a bug squashing rush, where the team is extremely busy and developers try to fix as many bugs as fast as possible.
  • There usually are a huge number of reports and very little time to answer everyone or explain why a particular report is not considered a bug, or won’t get fixed. Don’t let this frustrate you, whether it’s acknowledged or not, we appreciate everyone’s help.

Download links:

Here are the download links for the 64-bit ISO:

A 32-bit ISO image 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!

98 comments

  1. As ubuntu is continuing to accumulate hate, I might actually witch to LMDE soon. I hope this gets more love from the community. I heard only positive things on it lately, I might try this out and see if all my settings that Im used to work the same, like Japanese input, applets and so on. Wish you the best luck. If more people start using LMDE, it might become a bigger target for the devs. I think that would be a good direction. There were talks about a new driver manager or kernel manager that would make LMDE even more minty…

  2. Locked root account
    The root account is locked by default. ====> one question. In final relese this won’t be an issue ? I apologise for my poor english 😉

    1. Martin open terminal and type sudo passwd root, then put in root password.
      then you can log in to root through the terminal

  3. Thank you team. This will be the version I switch all of my machines from Mint to LMDE.
    To many Ubuntu horror stories.
    I, too, hope the community embraces this version more.

  4. I would like linux mint in the netinstall version. Which is based on debian sid. Or is a copy of arch linux but with deb packages. dream

    1. Mint relies on Python3 heavily for it’s nice tools. Hypnotix, warpinater, update manager, system report etc. While Sid was on Python3.9 Mint was on Python 3.7 or 3.8. Python3.9 broke compatibility with older versions and broke lots of Mint tools. It’s a lot of work to maintain.

      Check out the DUR though. It’s like the AUR for Debian.

    2. If you netinstall debian stretch and add sources for mint, ensure you install mint-artwork debian-system-adjustments mintsystem. Then upgrade in the debian way by changing sources (install localepurge first!).

      THEN: you can install mintsources and it will make you completely mint. I’m waiting for the LMDE 5 mintupgrade package to see if that will work.

  5. Hi Clem and Linux Mint team,
    I love LM and LMDE.
    How about a rolling release Mint, based on Manjaro? LMM (Linux Mint Manjaro), with fresh and stable softwares.
    Thanks,
    Felippe HD.

    1. Hi Felipe,

      We tried it in the past with a semi rolling model based on Debian Testing and update packs. It wasn’t satisfactory both in terms of stability and in terms of security.

    2. Manjaro is essentially the Mint of Arch so basing Mint on Manjaro wouldn’t be necessary. Trust that Clem and the team know what they are doing by not going down that route.
      There are many derivatives of Arch and Manjaro already chasing the same goals so if one doesn’t fit your needs try another. However, the desktop is not always greener on the other side. Having been around the block a few times and kicked many tyres I keep coming back to Mint and LMDE inparticular. Having installed LMDE5 I am very happy with it already. I see all reported bugs have been closed too on the tracker page linked to above.

  6. WOW!! Thanks so much. With that being said and I hope this is a good question to ask, but will Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon base move from Ubuntu to Debian as well in the not-so-far off future as well? Thank you Linux Mint team for all your hard work on this operating system. Been using this as a go-to since Linux Mint 15. Take care and best wishes.

    1. No, Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu. The scope for LMDE is well defined, it’s a plan B and a technical exercise.

  7. Everything seems to work well. Only two observations, both pertaining to grub and initial splash screen.
    1. Initial grub screen is in some large, pixelated text, not clean like the 20.3 screen or the debian screen.
    2. I set up LMDE with encrypted LVM and the option on the splash screen is just a box and no text asking for password to unencrypt drive.

  8. In my post above maybe I should have said that the monitor is 4K and I’m dual booting so grub shows both options.

  9. Thanks for doing this Mint team! Is there a blog post indicating the gaps between Ubuntu and Debain, and what technological hurdles you are facing to fill the gap? I’m a software dev and have contributed to Mint before and would like to help with this effort. Thanks for all you do!

    1. Hi Ryan,

      It’s an ongoing effort. It’s hard to reply to your question because our purpose isn’t to assess the differences which are already overcome. In this particular release the bulk of the work went towards the installer. In particular LMDE 4 had issues with btrfs and pre-existing LVM setups.

  10. The best.Only 1 computer didn’t have lamd4.Because didn’t read image iso.This computer was with Una.Today ,finally, is perfect like LMDE4 in other computers.

  11. Hey Clem, looks great so far.

    I do have a request which I think applies to the main LM distribution as well. Under ‘Themes’, would it be possible to keep the “Window borders::Mint-Y” DARK when selecting “Controls::Adwaita-dark” ? Currently only “Window borders::Mint-X” gives a DARK window menu bar. This seems to be a change from the previous LMDE4 / LM-20.2 releases so I thought I’d ask.

  12. Hi.
    When it goes to Stable version; What would be the best procedure to move (and/or upgrade) from the Ubuntu based to this Debian Edition?

    1. You can’t migrate from the Ubuntu based Mint to LMDE5, you would need to do a clean install

    2. They’re different distributions and incompatible with each others. You cannot upgrade from Mint to LMDE or vice versa.

  13. Yes. I can’t wait to try this – long live LMDE and may many more people discover how polished this experiment has become!

  14. I love debian and I love linux mint but I don’t like cinnamon, one word, not accessible, I am visually impaired and while the orca screen reader is included in the lmde images the desktop doesnot work with orca, the only ones I know that work out of the box are mate, xfce, and gnome. and I love your mate customisations and it would be great to see an LMDE on mate then I do not have to go through thr process of installing vanilla debian which can be a pain, since debian at the moment is using newer packages than ubuntu

    1. Seconding accessibility problems. The deficits are very obvious. Even just navigating without a mouse can be extremely difficult, and I entirely gave up on getting a TTS set up for when I’m non-verbal (strictly better to just use my Android phone and deal with cramped hands). There’s been so much progress in accessible tech but it’s rarely implemented widely, left to the bare minimum most of the time.

      I wonder how we could get it pushed as a priority.

  15. great system, I am very happy with it. everything works perfectly at home (I am a pc elitebook)! really I love this system and encourage everyone to test and adopt this operating system which is simply great!

    Thank you to all the team for your work (I know it is a lot to manage two operating systems)

    long life to the lmde!

  16. Looks great! A couple comments:
    chromium from software center installs version 90; I had to go to command line and specify bullseye-security manually in order to get version 98 (because mint repo has priority 700 which higher than security’s 500). Other security updates weren’t preinstalled but they updated fine, but why not included in iso already?
    libreoffice 7.0 is preinstalled; I had to `sudo apt install libreoffice -t bullseye-backports` in order to get version 7.3. Maybe should include that version on iso too?

  17. Call me old fashioned but I would like to have a border option that has all square corners. I consider the rounded upper corners to be rather ugly. How about more option like mint MATE?

    1. Yes, me too, I’d love to see Mint Mate LMDE! I’m a big fan of Mate Mint Menu.

    2. Very easy to install Mate on LMDE 4 and seems to work perfectly, be sure to remove Cinnamon after you are sure it works. Heard there are possible incompatibilities. I suspect it works on and the same way on LMDE 5, too. Do a search for the directions in the forum, that’s where I foundem’.

    3. Hello old fashioned, install mint-themes-legacy and you get the old colours and square borders to choose in settings

  18. Hello from Austria!

    I would like to ask the LMDE5 team again.
    Is it possible for you to also create an edge ISO with LMDE5 and keep it up to date? I mean the 5.15 kernel.

    The problem is e.g. with LMDE4:
    Which user should, for example, install LMDE4 with the 4.19 kernel on an AMD Ryzen or Intel iX of the 11th or 12th generation?
    It is not possible. But there was and isn’t an ISO of LMDE4 with kernel 5.10.
    For LMDE5, please think about an edge ISO with currently kernel 5.15.
    Thanks very much!

    Best wishes
    Tommix

    Excuse my English.
    This is Google – Translator written German –> English.

    1. For 32 bit laptop, install:

      sudo apt install mate-session-manager mate-control-center marco –no-install-recommends

      on a fresh lmde install and you’ll have a mate desktop.
      Remap the shortcut key for screenshot, set nemo as file manager in preferences, and gnome-terminal.

      Install mate-media mate-power-manager, mate-screensaver if needed.

      Try not to install caja unless you want to uninstall nemo. Don’t install the mate desktop meta packages.

  19. Clem,
    Is there going to be a “simple” upgrade path from LMDE4 to LMDE5? The one listed here for LMDE3 to LMDE4 (https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3869) seems to be overly complex. Ubuntu has had a painless upgrade path from one release to another for many years. Why doesn’t Linux Mint? Every time I do a fresh install it takes me several hours. Thanks.

    1. Hi, random user here, IIUC the Debian Multimedia steps where only from 3 to 4.
      Unless there are other manual operations such as above. Then the upgrade from 4 to 5 will essentially be

      – backup
      – apt install mintupgrade
      – mintupgrade check
      – mintupgrade download
      – nice mintupgrade upgrade
      – cleanup steps

      It’s not with a nice GUI and doable by the general public but that might be due to lack of confidence about letting any user upgrading on their own.

  20. I am glad you release LMDE 5 ….Again Ubuntu 22.04 alpha voyager will not boot in my Toshiba Satellite (grub issue…???) so all 22.04 series will not work….thanks to you and your choice to raise Debian here, I will switch to LMDE 5 now…..hope you had WINE out of the box + GTKHASH and Veracrypt would be nice too.

  21. Clem, is there any chance of using a swap file instead of a swap partition? I hate to give up 32GB of disk space to a swap file that will be rarely, if ever used. Thanks!

    1. If you setup LUKS/ LVM with full encryption, there is a swapfile without a swap partition.
      Having done a quick installation using the defaults without encryption on ext4, the swap partition is created.
      My workaround was to boot from the installation media and run Gparted to reduce the swap partition and extend the ext4 partition. Worked a treat!

    2. Use manual partitioning, I don’t have a swap at all on my LMDE5 install. If your system has 16GB of RAM or more a swap is not really needed

  22. Hello. Any way I can use PPA’s on LMDE5. Absolutely not working and it is a show stopper for me. Found 1 solution that did not involve a human sacrifice: install the package “software-properties-common” and use PPA’s. That did not work. Anyway the package seemed empty, synaptic didnot show a download, or was so small that it did not show. Is a show stopper for me…

  23. Intel(R) Celeron(R) N4000 CPU @ 1.10GHz
    Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter

    i installed linux mint 20.3 and i kept losing internet
    i thought it maybe a hardware problem and so i tested it with windows, worked fine.
    then i installed lmde5 and again no problems, so i guess my computer hates linux mint 20.3
    i had no problems with linux mint 20.2

  24. Hey, I just want to say thanks, because ever since I put Linux Mint on my parents computers, they just don’t seem to have problems with the computer anymore. Going to switch them over to the Debian edition. They are the type who prefer fewer updates and software that doesn’t change. But I still gotta be that one weirdo who complains about the old effects options being gone, the easeinoutelastic nonsense… I know the old implementation was half baked and still overcooked, but I kind of enjoyed having my windows bounce way too slowly a couple times when I maximized them. haha, I get it though, it was probably a real unnecessary headache any time upstream changes broke them.

  25. so is their any way to switch to lmde without deleting all my files when it is out of beta on my current mint desktop

  26. Clem and team, I’ve installed LMDE 5 on my desktop and my laptop with no issues. It works wonderfully. I had to tweak a few configuration files for a couple of things I installed so they said “debian” instead of “elsie” but I expected that. This is my new daily driver.

    Thanks for the great distro!

  27. 1. Re Ethan’s reply of February 28, 2022 at 9:52 pm : “Check out the DUR though. It’s like the AUR for Debian”
    I suppose AUR and DUR mean “Arch user Repository” and “Debian User repository”, respectively?

    2. Is there an intended released date for LMDE 5 on the horizon?

    Thank you and wishing you success with all your work to make this happen.

    Rob

    1. Hi Alex,

      The subvolumes get automatically created and assigned to / and /home. If you don’t have a dedicated /home, both /@ and /@home go to /.

  28. Okay, so, I have a couple of questions if you don’t mind. First, though, please note that I am not an IT expert by any stretch of the imagination. I’m a 41 year old guy who’s been tinkering around with Linux for a couple of years and am quite happy with it. So, the questions are:

    1. It is my understanding that as a result of Ubuntu Mint turning into a modern day Windows OS, the team has decided to transition over to Debian Territory to patch a plethora of security issues. How much longer will Ubuntu Mint be supported until everyone is essentially “forced” to switch to LMDE?

    2. Regarding the Software Repositories, is everything available as in the Ubuntu Software Manager or is the Debian version a work-in-progress, being that it’s still fairly new to Mint?

    3. I am currently LMDE right now in compatibility mode (like, literally, right now) and everything seems to be working fine, although the icons will take some getting used too…lol. However, after reading the information and comments above, is it correct to say that LMDE4 is the current Stable edition while LMDE5 is still in “Beta” mode?

    Thank you in advance for your help and please, stay safe.

  29. When installing with a very small screen, for example 10″, the language selection window cannot be moved using Alt drag. Sure, I can rotate the screen 90 degrees to reach the Next button but that’s a bit awkward.
    Everything else works great as far as I can see. Thank you!

  30. Hello and thank you very much for continuing with lmde! I suppose lmde would be a fine one option, since ubuntu trees are self-contained, although not as well configured by default as mint 🙂 but my request is to edit lmde xfce, since it is lighter and more convenient than your branded cinnamon. Please do 🙂

  31. Debian Buster has EOL in August 2022. I guess it will be the same for LMDE4. Please confirm in release notes of LMDE5 final release. Thank you in advance.

    Also testing LMDE5 of course. Very favorable impression. One small bug I reported on git, but works fine. Some packages were upgraded (LO especially) and found out all my “little scripts” 🙂 customizing my desktop environment worked ok immediately meaning very good backward compatibility with LMDE4 (I’ve eyesight problems, so these customizations are not for fanciness but practical usage)

    Thanks to the team

    1. i found lmde5 very good, i had to do a little work for my scripts as well, these scripts i use are for practability, however i find lmde5 is very good

  32. Adding my vote for a MATE version. (I know some people like it, but personally, I see no point in Cinnamon.)

    1. Hi Sam,

      Cinnamon is available to all distros and we keep it as compatible as we can with all of them. We ship Cinnamon 5.2 in LMDE 5 (which is based on Bullseye), so it’s definitely able to work in pure Debian. That said, we maintain Mint, not Debian. Debian maintainers maintain Debian, it’s up to them to backport 5.2 towards bullseye/backport if they want.

  33. I am a very basic user but love LMDE. When the Beta versions come out I always check the first few comments here and then download and load that Beta version. It’s always been a pleasant experience. Thank you team, as always.

  34. The Release Notes link gives error “404! Page not found” on the downloads page.
    The link is: linuxmint.com/rel_elsie_cinnamon.php
    should be: linuxmint.com/rel_elsie.php
    The link on this page (Beta release announcement) works.

    1. They’re automatically created/assigned in LMDE 5.

      In LMDE 4 this was done by the user but it wasn’t possible to assign /@ and /@home to /. It is now.

    2. I noticed this as well, however it seems since I’ve only used the installer in non-expert mode I was creating the top-level subvolume as the second type as described on the BTRFS documentation wiki, bascially it’s not directly accessable but mountable via the subvol and subvolid options. As my main interest in BTRFS is for system snapshots via TimeShift this arrangement is fine. One thing to be aware of though: if additional LM OSes using BTRFS are added to a system disc to create a multi-boot setup, the GRUB OS-prober WILL NOT SEE THEM due to the top-level subvolume not being visible => you will have to manually create GRUB menuentries on the primary LM OS for each LM+BTRFS partition. If the primary LM OS is also using BTRFS and can be botted into one can use the GRUB-Customizer package to cut-and-paste the applicable menuentry bits into /etc/grub.d/40_custom for the other LM OSes.

  35. After updating LMDE 5 beta from 09 march 2022, and the system does not accept the user password (It looks like this: after booting into graphics mode, you need to enter a password, you enter it, and again you get a screen with a field for entering a password), then you need to press control + f1(graphic console), enter your login and then the password, (there are no problems here), run the next commands: “sudo apt update” and press enter key, input password than “sudo apt upgrade” press enter, and input password, confirm update, and sudo reboot . The system will reboot normally.

  36. I was looking forward to LMDE 5 and I am glad it was released in the Beta version. I have been very impressed with it. It is LinuxMint Cinnamon in Debian form. It works identical to the Ubunta version. When it comes out in the final release, I look forward to installing it on my desktop and laptop. I have been a LinuxMint user since 2015 and it is my goto distro.

  37. 1) Please update linux kernel to the latest available version before releasing an ISO with LMDE5 (5.10.102+) – https://dirtypipe.cm4all.com/
    2) the same for Firefox and Thunderbird 😉
    3) xwayland package is preinstalled, but Cinnamon doesn’t use wayland (at least for now); maybe it’s only “recommended” type of package instead of “required” in apt?
    4) it seems there’re c.a. 138 new packages in LMDE5 – are there all “required” or “recommended” in apt; maybe some are not needed

  38. I noticed in LDME5 you can’t update the Linux Kernel in the Update Manager. Is this a permanent design choice or just for the beta version? I installed LDME5 on my Laptop because the kernel in 20.3 is too old to support my integrated graphics (R7 4700U, two years old now), the touchpad and screen brightness change. For people buying even newer laptops the kernel in LDME5 might still be too old. I recommend updating to kernel 5.15 for the stable release.

    1. Hi Nico,

      It’s a design choice. The kernel management in mintupdate is designed around the Ubuntu kernel metapackages and kernel series support strategy.

      There are a few features like this one which aren’t part of the scope within the LMDE project, they’re either disabled or absent.

  39. Mounting Partitions Without Password

    this morning I discovered that No Password is required to open any partition on any drive.

    fresh install: first boot, Password is Required as expected
    Update and reboot, No Password Required.

    Is this behavior by design or is it a bug?

    1. @LittleScriptMan
      debian-system-adjustments 2022.03.09 is installed (and reinstalled)
      It did not correct the problem.
      Clem closed it so there is no method to report

    2. Hi Peter,

      The change makes it so sudoers can do that without a password. It’s the same policy as in Mint/Ubuntu.

  40. I was wondering are you guys, can you guys make it easier to install the latest nvidia driver on boot up like you did with lmde4. Currently having issues with installing it on lmde5 beta. Thank you guys for all the great work, I’m liking this version of it so far.

    1. Hi Igor,

      This was done in LMDE 4 to accommodate the MintBox 3 and the fact that at the time FOSS drivers couldn’t boot at all with its NVIDIA card.

  41. I’m a (mostly) retired IT person, running Linux Mint 20.3 on an old Lenovo laptop. A few days ago, LMDE 5 beta was released. I have been looking at LMDE for some time, as I have been progressively less and less pleased with the behavior of Canonical/Ubuntu. I downloaded the beta, and installed it in a Virtalbox VM, and then applied the configurations and installations I use and depend on. Everything I tried seems to work without problems, except Zenmap. After some experimentation, I found a procedure that succeeded for installing non-flatpak Zenmap in LMDE 5 (hate flatpaks, refuse to use Snaps). It’s posted under “Zenmap on LMDE” in the Software & Applications section. Other issues I found: There is no package for VirtualBox in the Software Manager, although there is a package for the VirtualBox Guest Additions .iso file – seems inconsistent. I successfully downloaded and installed a VirtualBox 6.1.32 for Debian Bullseye from the Oracle site, and its matching Extension Pack. My VM doesn’t have enough space to set up a test VM, which could be a problem doing a VM from within a VM, but at least getting it installed isn’t an issue. I also noticed that the Updates Manager under LMDE 5 doesn’t have the View/Manage section for Linux Kernels that is normal under Ubuntu Mint. All in all, my experience with this beta has been very smooth and problem-free. I’m not yet looking to depart from the Ubuntu-based Mint track, but it seems good that the LMDE version is so close to what I’m using every day for production.

  42. Hello from Austria!

    I would like to ask the LMDE5 team again.
    Is it possible for you to also create an edge ISO with LMDE5 and keep it up to date? I mean the 5.15 kernel.

    The problem is e.g. with LMDE4:
    Which user should, for example, install LMDE4 with the 4.19 kernel on an AMD Ryzen or Intel iX of the 11th or 12th generation?
    It is not possible. But there was and isn’t an ISO of LMDE4 with kernel 5.10.
    For LMDE5, please think about an edge ISO with currently kernel 5.15.
    Thanks very much!

    Best wishes
    Tommix

    Excuse my English.
    This is Google – Translator written German –> English.

  43. This is very easy with the command:

    sudo apt-get install -t bullseye-backports linux-image-amd64 linux-headers-amd64

    But you need the 5.15 for the latest AMD or Intel iX CPU of the 12th generation already in the ISO file.
    Therefore please also with LMDE5 an edge – ISO with the 5.15 kernel please!

    Thanks alot!

  44. LMDE Backgroud needs a LMDE wallpaper to replace the LM Background so that users will know that they ar using LMDE and NOT LM.

  45. This is great, but I hope to see an xfce version if possible. Specifically for 32bit machines. The 19 series regular mint will be unsupported in 2023, so this would be an ideal replacement.

  46. Thanks for continued development with LMDE5. I would prefer MATE with Caja, over Cinnamon with Nemo; but, can live with it. My normal activity is to use the OEM process to install Linux Mint MATE for friends and family. The LMDE5 installation menu does not have an OEM option that would be very useful when building LMDE5 for others.

    1. install mate-desktop-environment-extras
      MATE Desktop Environment (extra components, metapackage)
      log out, then log in with Mate
      *it will be messy with all of the Cinnamon apps, but those can be trimmed out

  47. Hi team! Any thoughts about adding some of the MX Linux + AntiX packages and having an ultra-lightweight Linux Mint IceWM (with bar on top, and a dock on bottom) for less than 100MB RAM usage?

    BUT themed all nice and Minty of course!

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