[chiptune and guitars intro]
Greetings, and welcome to another Minty episode of Veronica Explains!
I'm Veronica, and today I'd like to chat about two different versions of Linux Mint- the
"flagship" Ubuntu-based edition and the "alternative" Debian-based edition, or as the cool kids
say, "LMDE".
I've been using both versions off and on for the last couple of months, and that's given
me some recent perspective on the Linux Mint ecosystem...
I think I'm ready to chat about these two choices.
Now, before I get into the specifics- please note that I'm recording this at the end of 2023.
If you're watching this in the not-too-distant-future, the information here might not be the most
up-to-date.
I'll be doing some head-to-head comparisons in a moment, and those will certainly be out-of-date
in the near future.
That said, I'm going to try and cover this from a more long-term user perspective.
And full disclosure- this video isn't sponsored by anyone at all, including anyone at the
Mint team.
Like most of my videos, the only folks funding today's escapades are my supporters.
Thanks, by the way!
With that out of the way, here's a recap of the different versions:
The traditional "Linux Mint" experience is based on Ubuntu- Ubuntu 22.04 LTS as of the
time I'm making this video.
But unlike Ubuntu, Linux Mint ships with the Snap store disabled, providing support for
Flatpak instead, as well as traditional application packages.
In contrast, the "Linux Mint Debian Edition" is, unsurprisingly, based on Debian- Debian
12 as of recording.
Like the flagship version, LMDE ships with the Snap store disabled.
So, if you want something in the apt family of distros but want to avoid Snaps, the Linux
Mint family deserves to be on your radar.
If you care about Wayland vs X11 as a windowing system, Linux Mint is running X11, but has
some plans to start Wayland experiments in the very near future.
It'll likely be a while before it's fully supported, though.
The look-and-feel of both flagship Mint as well as LMDE is provided by the Cinnamon desktop
environment, a desktop born from an early chapter in the storybook of distros separating
themselves from GNOME due to disagreements.
[pause for snark]
In this case, over a decade ago, the Mint team forked GNOME 3 components into a desktop
that's perhaps a bit more familiar to folks coming from certain "alternative" operating systems.
Granted, it's not as flexible as a tiling window manager or KDE Plasma, but maybe for
you, that's fine.
Mint has always been on my short list of distributions to recommend, and for good reason- it's a
pretty great experience, both on the surface as well as under-the-hood.
In fact, I used Mint every day for about a year or so on my COBOL development desktop.
That was about 4-5 years ago, mind you, but it was a great, stable experience.
Nowadays, I'm a tiling-and-stacking person, so Mint's *quote* traditional desktop metaphor
*end-quote* - whatever that means in the roaring 2K20s- isn't exactly my cup of tea.
But you might feel different, and that's OK!
Besides, unlike Windows 11, which is pretty rigid in where you're allowed to put things,
[music: funky beats made from Windows error sounds]
Mint *is* customizable to a degree where almost anyone could create a layout which they'd love.
Anyway, the Linux Mint team says they started the Debian Edition to "ensure Linux Mint can
continue to deliver the same user experience if Ubuntu was ever to disappear."
Now, is that likely? Probably not.
But, as a project, I think it's a great thing to be prepared to rebase should it become
advantageous to do so.
Ubuntu's ever-increasing focus on Snap packages has certainly alienated a lot of Linux users.
And while I'm not going to litigate that here, I certainly think
it makes sense for the Mint team to consider Ubuntu's current standing among the community,
for better or worse, when making their plans.
Plus, one neat thing about the Debian edition is that there's a 32-bit ISO available, which
is great for older hardware.
Anyway, if you want me to cover more about the Mint project itself in a future video,
make sure to let me know in the comments.
Maybe I'll try installing Linux Mint on one of my really old laptops I have lying around.
Not "old" by any means, the laptop I made use of for my months of minty madness was
this modest Dell Latitude 5490 from 2019.
This is certainly no gaming laptop, which you'll see in a minute.
For my testing, I swapped back and forth between two idential NVMe drives, one with the Ubuntu
version and the other one with the Debian version.
Then, I just used both of them for a few weeks, bopping back and forth and testing things out.
And, side note to laptop manufacturers- now that drive media is this small, why can't
we have ejectable NVMe slots on laptops, just for nerds like me who swap OSes frequently?
Anyway, installing each of them was straight forward.
They do appear to use different installers though, probably owing to some type of upstream difference or something.
I did some research trying to figure this out, and I wasn't able to figure out *why* they use different installers.
So if you happen to know, make sure to leave me a comment.
The Ubuntu version prompts you to install multimedia codecs while you install, whereas
the Debian version gives you a prompt after installation.
But personally, I think that's a pretty minor difference.
As of a few weeks ago when I captured this footage, the Ubuntu version was on kernel
5.15, whereas the Debian Edition was on kernel 6.1.
This makes sense given where we are in the release cycle, as Debian 12 is more recent
than Ubuntu 22.04.
This also means that at the moment, it isn't just the kernel that's picking up on the more
up-to-date packages from Debian 12.
Lutris and Steam are both a bit ahead, as are some of your favorite programming languages.
Package "newness" is hardly a "gotcha" for the Debian edition though.
In a few months, Ubuntu 24.04 will be released, and downstream distros like Linux Mint will
eventually pick up those changes in new releases.
Even now, at the time I'm recording this talking head- Linux Mint 21.3 is in beta, it might
even be released by the time you're watching this video.
So barring some radical change, in the reasonably near future, newer versions of Linux Mint's
Ubuntu edition will almost certainly have many newer packages when compared against
the Debian edition.
But after that, *Debian* will release a new version upstream, and this entire process starts anew.
So again, the package differences alone aren't going to tell you the whole story.
Now, as far as Mint's very popular Cinnamon desktop environment, both were rocking 5.8.4
during my weeks testing Mint.
You might be interested to know that pure upstream Debian also packages Cinnamon, but
the current version appears to be a couple of points behind.
This also gets to a broader point- calling LMDE a "Debian clone" isn't exactly accurate.
The Cinnamon desktop environment is a Linux Mint project, so getting it directly from
the Mint team absolutely makes sense.
If Cinnamon is your jam, using Linux Mint is probably the best way to get it.
Particularly since the Mint team will be getting Cinnamon 6 out as we speak- it could take a while for
some other distributions to get it.
Anyway, this laptop might not be capable of gaming all that much, but that didn't stop me from trying!
I was able to get StarCraft Remastered installed via Lutris and it played great on both versions of Linux Mint,
but that's not terribly surprising.
On the Steam side, I had great luck getting one of my favorite games loaded: Poulet Poulet,
which played great on both the Ubuntu and Debian versions.
I did try Chex Quest, which was frankly awful on both systems, but it was equally as awful on each system.
As was Sonic via "Sega Super Collection" on Steam, or whatever they call it.
Sonic did play great via Retroarch on Lutris though.
And don't worry, I dumped this ROM myself.
Oh, want to know how?
Well I'll show you in a future video! [Windows 3.1 "ta-da" sound]
This is far from an exhaustive comparison between the two versions, and that's OK.
The direct comparison is really only a small part of the consideration here.
Now, to get my bias out there- I'm a Debian user, having switched earlier this year from
Pop!_OS.
I've been using Linux since about 2005, bopping between distros across the spectrum.
Debian based, Arch based, RPM based- I've used them all in a variety of applications
both personally and professionally.
I currently run Debian Sid on my editing desktop, but Debian stable on most of my production
servers as well as my everyday working laptop.
You might think I'm predisposed to saying that I think the Debian Edition of Linux Mint is
a great choice.
And you'd be right!
If you last tried a Debian-based distro some years ago and were put off by driver issues,
I've gotta say: it's worth trying the ecosystem again.
A lot has changed with Debian 12.
Most folks I know don't want to spend night after night configuring their desktop- they
want to start their computer, and just do computer stuff.
Since Debian 12 was released and the non-free repos became more tightly integrated, the
Debian experience has been exceptionally smooth for me on the desktop.
LMDE 6 is the same great experience- it just works.
From upstream, it gains the advantantages of the non-free and firmware repos being available,
and that means a lot of the problems running Debian on the desktop just aren't there anymore.
If you want a no-nonsense computing platform, I think it's a great choice.
Particularly if you enjoy the defaults provided by Linux Mint.
I mean, if you're going to be skinning your Debian to look more like Mint anyway, why not just
start with LMDE and be done with it?
You'd get the benefits of Mint's up-to-date Cinnamon without having to update your configuration
all that much.
Now, if you want the benefits of a more frequent release cycle, but want to stick with Mint,
you have two perfectly reasonable choices.
One would be the Linux Mint Ubuntu Edition, which is still a great choice for folks dipping
their toe in the Linux waters.
You can also use backports and LMDE to start to build whatever system you want.
Backports, of course, could be a future video on their own.
Shoot me a comment if that's something you want to see.
All that said- if you want a cutting-edge system or you're using cutting-edge hardware, Linux Mint
may not be the choice for you, Debian or otherwise.
But come on.
You knew that already.
Linux Mint isn't the choice I'd recommend if you update your GPU every single year.
That isn't me by any stretch of the imagination, and my experiences are certainly going to
reflect that.
Linux Mint's Ubuntu Edition is a somewhat-happy medium between the two year cycle of Linux
Mint Debian Edition, and a rolling release like Tumbleweed or Arch.
Releasing point releases every six months gets you a few more frequent updates, if that's
your thing.
That said: those point releases are still based off of the Ubuntu LTS releases, which
means they're skipping the semi-annual Ubuntu releases for... a two year cycle overall.
Which for me begs a question:
"why relegate the Debian edition to an 'alternative' in the first place?"
I mean, don't get me wrong- it's not like I'm arguing against continuing the Ubuntu-based
version.
I'm sure there are specific uses where it's a better fit, even if I don't see a need to
use the Ubuntu-specific repos myself personally.
And as long as "de-snappifying" Ubuntu isn't too much work for the Linux Mint team, I see
no reason why they shouldn't keep offering the Ubuntu-based distro.
I guess I just think that LMDE 6 is so good, that it deserves "equal billing" with the
Ubuntu edition.
I mean, if there's some reason LMDE deserves to be an "alternative" and not an "equal choice", I
don't think they've articulated it.
One obvious reason to consider the Debian edition as on par with the Ubuntu edition is Flatpak.
If you don't know, Flatpak is a method of deploying apps that's really making inroads
with a lot of developers, allowing sandboxed versions of apps to ship needed dependencies,
independent of the underlying release cycle.
Basically, from an end user perspective: nowadays you can get more recent versions of apps, with
a light-to-modest tradeoff in efficiency.
It's far from perfect, but it's much better than it was as a Linux user in the 2000s.
On Mint, Flatpak, and its central repository- Flathub, is incredibly well integrated into
both Ubuntu Mint and LMDE, and provides even more frequent software updates.
Even at the expense of a little extra room on your computer, it really makes the distinction
between basing your distro on Debian vs Ubuntu a lot less pronounced than it used to be.
Debian is really an awesome base for folks who want a computer to "just work".
And I like not having to update every day- it means fewer breaking changes and a lot more
time to spend on getting work done.
It's not that Ubuntu can't be that thing, but it does update more frequently- it's definitely
something to keep in mind when choosing a distro.
Now, I'd be curious to see Mint's take on MATE and Xfce paired with Debian as well, although
I have to admit, I'm not totally sure what that would accomplish over vanilla Debian
right now.
Maybe you know, and I'm sure you're about to leave a comment.
What other distros do you want me to compare?
Make sure to let me know, because I'd love to do more videos like this.
Maybe next I should compare Linux Mint Debian Edition with a bog standard Debian in a future video.
One of the things I love about Linux is how we can fork, branch, and build fantastic new
tools like Linux Mint out of many other sources, and then share those end results with the world
at large.
And that's because Linux is awesome.
And so are you.
It's time once again for "what I'm watching", where I shout out a video from another creator
which I think you'd enjoy.
Today, I'm sharing Lon.tv's great video about PeerTube.
Lon goes into a bit about how PeerTube works, and how it's a great way to counter some of
the - shall we say - lesser tendencies of YouTube.
Now, my videos are always available on PeerTube- a few weeks ago I spun up a new instance at tinkerbetter.tube.
There, my videos are available ad free and without tracking.
You can even comment and follow from a Mastodon account, which in my opinion is a pretty swell
feature.
And as always, I couldn't do this without my supporters on Patreon and Ko-Fi.
If you want to help me keep making more videos, check out the links in the description.
I don't have big sponsors like some channels do- this thing is supported by everyday viewers
like you, and the folks that you're seeing on the screen here.
To those of you who support the channel financially- you have my deepest gratitude.
And to everyone else out there, thank you so much for watching.
[child shouting] "1, 2, 3, 4!" [punk music plays in background]
[sounding far away] "Did they let you move the taskbar in Windows 95?"
"Of course they did."
"Gurr-eatings!" [repeating myself] "...that's not how you say that word."
"Anyway, this laptop might not be capable" [pausing] "this laptop..."
"...I don't need to back up so far."
"as was Sonic the Sega!" [repeating myself again, faking confidence while accepting my faults]
If any of you out there are still watching,
say "LED overload!" in the comments!