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LMDE 6 has been officially released. The big deal about this is that it’s based on the recently released Debian 12 and also that being based on Debian LMDE is 100% community based.
If you’ve been disappointed by what the Linux corporations have been doing lately or don’t like the all-snap future that Ubuntu has opened, then this is the distro for you.
I’m running it as my daily driver and it works exactly like the regular Mint so you don’t lose anything. Clem and team have done a great job, even newbies could use Debian now.
Personally I think LMDE is the future of Linux as Ubuntu goes it’s own way, and this is a good thing for Mint and the Linux community. Let’s get back to community distros and move away from the corps.
EDIT: LMDE is 64bit only. There is no 32bit option.
Either use Stable or Unstable. Testing is actually the most unstable of the three branches, due to how Debian works:
Updated packages are first introduced into Experimental, then into Unstable when they actually build and run. So Unstable is equivalent to Arch’s main branch.
Then they automatically enter Testing after a few weeks without anyone reporting a critical bug.
What this means: Testing is the only branch where the decision over what enters isn’t made by a human.
If someone notices critical bugs in Testing, the packages may be kicked out of Testing again until the bugs are fixed. So Testing is the only branch where packages can simply disappear when you run an update.
It’s also the most insecure branch: When a vulnerability is discovered, the packages in Stable are patched to close it. The packages in Unstable are updated to a new version that closes it. In Testing, the vulnerability stays until the new version eventually migrates down the line again after spending a while in Unstable.
I’ve run Unstable for years. IMO it’s a great rolling release distro with horrible branding.
Thanks for the info! I know what you mean that unstable is similar to Arch, but I know Arch has like a 3 day period or something like that before it hits the default “stable” repo. Is Unstable similar to that, or do they just raw dog it?
I’ve only been running Debian testing for a few weeks (hopped from Ubuntu dev), but I believe testing also has a 2 to 10 day period before pulling packages from unstable. Like after 10 days in unstable with no issues it automatically gets moved into testing, with more important updates getting a human moving it earlier.
Sid is not a rolling release distro, it’s an unstable distro. If you want a rolling release distro, you want something like Arch Linux, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed or OpenMandriva RR.
Unless you know how to deal with problems, go ahead and install Sid. It shouldn’t be a problem if you already know Linux and Debian specifics.
That’s just semantics in my opinion. Debian Sid isn’t meant to be a rolling release distro, but it works perfectly fine as one.
You have to take the same care as with other rolling release distros - actually read the changelogs, don’t automate updates, and type “No” if it wants to remove packages you need. Other than that, I’ve never had any issues, and never heard from anyone whose Sid brakes regularly.
Debian does not agree. They even warn you about packages with unfulfilled dependencies. In my experience, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed does feel like a finished, polished rolling release distro. Sid breaks sometimes, it’s okay for it to get broken. I don’t know your use case but it did for me, especially with some obscure libraries or with very specific versions of scientific ones. It’s not semantics only, Sid is fundamentally designed as an unstable distribution, not as a rolling release one.
But I insist, if it works for you as a rolling release distro, it’s great. I just feel the obligation to warn the others what’s the intention behind Sid.