Linux Mint Debian Edition introduces a safety net

[elija]

Linux Mint Debian Edition is based on the testing branch of Debian, this gives a true rolling release with up to date software but on occasion an incautiously applied update can break things. After all it is based on a testing distribution! It is this occasional borkage that has prevented me from recommending LMDE to complete beginners.

Now, LMDE have introduced two new repositories, incoming and latest. Both of these mirror the Debian testing repository with incoming being raw and latest being a lot more stable and *ahem* tested. Latest gets updates every month.

Honestly, Mint just gets better and better.

Would you like to know more?

[Jonathan183]

Looks good ... but it's likely to involve a lot of work.
I'm running LMDE using squeeze rather than testing, only thing which has broken since the install is firefox - just uninstalled and switched to iceweasel.

Ed: I think an option to run stable repositories at install would allow novice users to use a rock solid Mint ... switching to testing as they gain more experience. This approach would involve less effort ...

[elija]

I think an option to run stable repositories at install would allow novice users to use a rock solid Mint ... switching to testing as they gain more experience. This approach would involve less effort ...

That's a good idea, why not suggest it at http://community.linuxmint.com or if you don't mint, I'll nick it and suggest it

[sgosnell]

I switched to Unstable instead of Testing, and get a LOT less borkage. IME, Unstable is actually more stable than Testing, and the occasional borkage lasts a much shorter time. In truth, I've removed all the easily-removable Mint stuff and I'm running pretty much stock Debian Unstable. I never found any "minty goodness" and I can't abide the Mint interface, but that's a personal preference, and I know that lots of people do like it.

[dE_logics]

You should notice, before Debian's 'testing' phase, 2 more phases go by. experimental and unstable, thus testing is not that updated and unstable. Till date I've not had much problems with it.

[sgosnell]

There is a long thread on the Linux Mint forums, in the LMDE subforum, about constant breakage after every update for those tracking Testing. It mostly involves NVidia drivers, but also other video drivers as well as other apps. It may be that at least some of the problems are caused by the Mint repositories, but I can't say for sure, since I quit using those long ago. I read about the problems, but have had few of them since I started using the Sid repositories.