Everybody talks about the new baby of the Linux family Debian Mint, and everywhere I read enthusiastic articles of this distribution, and so while I did a test on virtual machine i did a test installation myself; these are my impressions.
But what’s Debian Mint ?
Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) represents an alternative, with the same desktop, the same functionality, but a different base, and a difference in hardware support and compatibility. In the scope of our distribution, and our role, which is to provide a modern and elegant operating system, it’s important to give people a choice. We did it with many upstream components. The Software Manager gives users an easy choice when it comes to selecting their favorite applications. We maintain editions for alternative desktops such as KDE, Xfce, Fluxbox and LXDE. And we also provide a choice between 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. From a technical point of view, a package base is a huge part of an operating system. It makes the system using it a derivative of the distribution maintaining it, something that is both based and fully compatible with it. From a user and project point of view though, this is yet another component, and like any other, it can be changed and replaced with alternatives. The Linux Mint desktop which you’ve come to enjoy on top of an Ubuntu base, can be ported to alternative package bases. By the past, I expressed my enthusiasm about this and my interest in experimenting with Debian, Fedora and our own independent base. Work started on Debian about 3 years ago, it was hesitant and we didn’t have the resources to make it a priority. After the release of Linux Mint 9 LTS, we decided to set some time aside for this project, and we’re now proud to announce that Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is out, and available for download!
You boot from the live CD and choose “install to disk” and after some easy question you have the installadion done.
At the start there is a fully functional Linux system and tailored to the user desktop.
The distribution contains everything you average desktop user need:
Gnome desktop, Firefox, Thunderbird, openoffice, pidgin, brasero, The Gimp, Transmission, Rhythmbox, VLC, mplayer, Xchat and Gwibber.
In this distro you see the attention given to novice users, there aren’t additional workspace, the menu is on the lower left (like Windows) and Firefox already includes some plugins (eg flash).
An interesting feature is that this will be a rolling distro, there will be no “future” version as it happens in Ubuntu or Fedora (for example), but you just need to install it once and proceed only with updates (like Arch Linux Gentoo).
So after my first look (just played with it for 4 days) i must say that this is great alternative to Ubuntu for less experienced users.
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