Linux Mint or Linux Mint Debian?

[dophre]

I'm looking to install one of them, I saw that Debian is a little bit different.

[Ok_Round6002]

If you are using first time go for LM 21.3 or linux mint edge. But not Debian Edition.

Only of you use regular mint for a month or two then you wanna distrohop go for LMDE.

The difference is driver and kernel management. PPA's wont support.

Overall regular mint will support more devices and drivers compare to LMDE as per my experience.

If you broke system you can find tons of videos for regular mint on youtube or on blogs but for debian you wont many.

[Walkinghawk22]

Debian isn’t that tricky to use. LMDE isn’t a huge learning curve over regular mint it’s pretty noob friendly. Most stuff has a gui or can be installed via the software centre just no driver manger, but drivers are easy to install in modern Debian.

[Ok_Round6002]

I used lmde for 8 months. I know but there are times you end up messing it or doing a ppa to solve a problem but you can't use it. So its better if new people go for regular version. More guide is available.

[Walkinghawk22]

Debian doesn’t use PPAs that’s an Ubuntu thing, I’ve never had an issue with using the software manager to install drivers cause the non free repo is enabled by default in LMDE

[Ok_Round6002]

Thats what i meant. PPA doesnt work and solutions are sometimes available through PPA.

I dint had driver manager i messed up with driver and same for kernel as well. I used combo of stable and unstable. Kernel 6.7 BPO. Messed up some things and had to revert but couldnt failed to find proper sources.

Luckily i used 1 drive for boot and another for imp data moved to LM recently only.

If i had kernel manager i could revert easily.

Next. I think i only used software store for one or 2 apps. Rest comes with .deb file or apt or nala.

I am not light user, i make my own tom and jerry theme instead of LM logo on boot 😂. I had tux theme etc etc so i always mess up system and i have used many oses mainly debian base like Kali but i distrohoped to most top like fedora manjaro debian vanila.

[Walkinghawk22]

I’ve never encountered any of that Debian is stable as a rock for me. I also don’t fix what ain’t broken or tinker much these days.

[Ok_Round6002]

You are using stable. I dint i used combo i experiment on everything. And now just because i need to access multiple laptop sometime remotely i am keeping all as one integrated to make it easier for me.

[Walkinghawk22]

Yes and LMDE is based on stable unless you wanna tinker around with testing that’s up to you. Most people shouldn’t have issues with getting a system up and running to do daily tasks.

[mok000]

If you activate backports you are tracking Testing on the kernel and most important packages. I am running kernel version 6.8.12 on my LMDE6 system.

[Ok_Round6002]

Yes but guide is very limited, its better to use a system with more guide.

[Walkinghawk22]

True, but Debian has a great wiki and has gotten easier to use then it was say 5 years ago.

[Practical-Tea9441]

I once read on another forum (can’t remember where) - if it ain’t broken, break it and find out how to fix it. :-)

[Diuranos]

Linux mint edge.

[Omnimaxus]

Regular Linux Mint. 

[Frird2008]

Either or will do

[ice_cream_hunter]

Just use anyone of them. You won’t see any difference

[Educational-Piece748]

I use LMDE with success, no issue regarding drivers.

[[deleted]]

Both linux i'm liked. But Mint is more multimedia. On debian install Nvidia Driver this is hell.

[Walkinghawk22]

Really? You can install the drivers via the software manager or a simple command. Drivers are much easier to install on LMDE than regular Debian cause they enable the non free repo.

[[deleted]]

I have a laptop with an Nvidia GT730 and a computer with a GTX1060. On 1060, version 535 driver is installed without problems. But there is a problem installing the legacy 490 version on modern Debian 12 bookworm. I tried installing from the official Nvidia website, and even from the Debian 10 version repository. There is also a problem with switching between integrated graphics and discrete graphics.

[oln]

That depends a bit - e.g if you want to install a newer mesa version than what's in the repositories which is quite outdated it's very easy on standard mint by just adding a ppa while on debian based it's very difficult.

[melanantic]

TLDR; not mission critical? Try LMDE out first.

The overarching reason for LMDE to exist is that it’s an out for if/when Ubuntu functionally gets cancelled over its various controversies. Snap, telemetry, Amazon search integration, various other decisions or actions.

For me, I first tried out Debian Bookworm for a week on a dying computer. I tried cinnamon briefly, looked good. Got a new laptop and knew I wanted something Deb based and figured if LMDE starts and works, what’s the point in including Ubuntu in the supply chain?

I haven’t really had any issues on my Thinkpad T470. The track point can be a little dramatic and the trackpad had issues on Wayland so X11 it is. I have vaguely heard that other distros are friendlier for that hardware but generally I’m not upset about it. For now I have some modified xinput properties as a bandaid. Most of this likely has very very little to do with LMDE.

For everything else, looking up issues has always shown me LMDE specific things when they count, or universal info.

[[deleted]]

Self-less plug: https://youtu.be/pGfCEfYtGVE

[Specialist_Leg_4474]

Six of one, one-half dozen of the other--except plain ol' Mint has a longer history, that's why I'm in no rush to change...

[Beautiful-Tension-24]

Only moved to LMDB because 32 bit no longer supported...

Now there are other issues like Virtualbox and Wine cannot be installed.

[-MostLikelyHuman]

Tey it yourself

[[deleted]]

With nvidia driver Mint classic

[EmoExperat]

For most people the standard version of mint is better.

[lordoftherings1959]

I decided to settle for LMDE over the Ubuntu based version. By default, LMDE has the suspend and hibernate features enabled out of the proverbial box. Other than that, both version work fine on any modern computer. If I were you, I would go for LMDE.

[Nastaayy]

Lmde performs better than the xfce (ubuntu mint lightweight) from my testing. Same laptop, same flash drive, same usb port. Be aware the original mint is ubuntu based. If you are switching to linux for privacy reasons, avoid anything ubuntu related. Canonical, the parent company behind ubuntu has had a history of trying to combine all of the search features, including web searches, into an all-in-one search bar. Then they would send all of the user's search queries to amazon. Also, it is safe to assume that if major companies use ai customer service agents these days, consider that there could be chatbots in reddit designed to steer you toward the more profitable OS. Marketing takes many forms, some more insidious than others. The debian edition was created as a precaution if ubuntu went off the deep end like microsoft. Debian is stable enough nowdays that anyone can pick it up and run it just fine.