Linux Mint Debian Edition 6 Released

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux Mint Debian Edition 6 Released

Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 6 has been released as the latest version of this Linux Mint derivative that is based on upstream Debian rather than Ubuntu...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Mint-LMDE-6-Released

[Danny3]

No KDE Plasma, no Gnome support, no thanks!
There is absolutely no point of using a distro that doesn't properly support the first two most popular / used desktop environments that also have Wayland support, which is a much have at least for privacy and security.
And this is even more strange for a distro based on Debian, which actually support these two desktop environments.

[V1tol]

No KDE Plasma, no Gnome support, no thanks!
There is absolutely no point of using a distro that doesn't properly support the first two most popular / used desktop environments that also have Wayland support, which is a much have at least for privacy and security.
And this is even more strange for a distro based on Debian, which actually support these two desktop environments.

You are 50% right here. First of all, Gnome will never be supported since Mint was created for no-Gnome experience. Second, I agree with you that no KDE edition is a shame. I dropped Mint as soon as they dropped KDE.

[Guest]

You are 50% right here. First of all, Gnome will never be supported since Mint was created for no-Gnome experience. Second, I agree with you that no KDE edition is a shame. I dropped Mint as soon as they dropped KDE.

same here. Too bad, they are great in other aspects

[user1]

Some will probably disagree with me, but I don't see the point of Linux Mint shipping Gnome and KDE. Since the last 10+ years, Linux Mint has been focused on providing a unique and specific traditional desktop experience, which only the 3 traditional GTK desktop environments provide (Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce). Linux Mint's in house X apps (that also use GTK with traditional elements such as menu bars) are designed exactly for the paradigm that only these 3 desktops provide.

I do agree however that they should at least start working on Cinnamon Wayland support asap, because otherwise they would be left behind if it's too late.

[Danny3]

You are 50% right here. First of all, Gnome will never be supported since Mint was created for no-Gnome experience. Second, I agree with you that no KDE edition is a shame. I dropped Mint as soon as they dropped KDE.

Some will probably disagree with me, but I don't see the point of Linux Mint shipping Gnome and KDE. Since the last 10+ years, Linux Mint has been focused on providing a unique and specific traditional desktop experience, which only the 3 traditional GTK desktop environments provide (Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce). Linux Mint's in house X apps (that also use GTK with traditional elements such as menu bars) are designed exactly for the paradigm that only these 3 desktops provide.

I do agree however that they should at least start working on Cinnamon Wayland support asap, because otherwise they would be left behind if it's too late.

Well, with the time they wasted on fixing / improving Cinnamon, they could've just re-forked / rebase Gnome from a newer version of Gnome.

I bet even today they could do that and in a few months they could recreate a traditional, Cinnamon-like desktop environment again.
They've forked Gnome once, they have experience with that, with Gnome and with GTK, they could do it.

I think that would be anyway much faster than implementing from scratch Wayland support and other improvements that Gnome has made in the meantime.
But I guess Linux Mint developers strive for mediocrity.
At this rate, without re-forking / rebasing on a newer Gnome version, I think they will manage to add Wayland support to Cinnamon in 10 years, since they didn't even started and 10bit-color, HDR support in 20 years.

But it's not their fault that much, it's their users who are ok with mediocrity and not requesting Wayland support, modern DEs support or moving to other distros.

[bash2bash]

From what I understand about Mint/Cinnamon developers, is that they are too few of them, they are WAY over their heads. No matter how much effort they put, they are always behind with thousands of unfinished issues/features.

They can't even begin to comprehend the amount of work required to migrate to Wayland.

Don't expect any miracles from such a small team.

[user1]

Well, with the time they wasted on fixing / improving Cinnamon, they could've just re-forked / rebase Gnome from a newer version of Gnome.

I bet even today they could do that and in a few months they could recreate a traditional, Cinnamon-like desktop environment again.
They've forked Gnome once, they have experience with that, with Gnome and with GTK, they could do it.

I think that would be anyway much faster than implementing from scratch Wayland support and other improvements that Gnome has made in the meantime.
But I guess Linux Mint developers strive for mediocrity.
At this rate, without re-forking / rebasing on a newer Gnome version, I think they will manage to add Wayland support to Cinnamon in 10 years, since they didn't even started and 10bit-color, HDR support in 20 years.

But it's not their fault that much, it's their users who are ok with mediocrity and not requesting Wayland support, modern DEs support or moving to other distros.

While Cinnamon is a nice desktop environment regarding the features it provides, yeah, I always thought its development method is flawed from the very beginning. I remember a long time ago they said they can't just use upstream Gnome to provide all the Cinnamon features they want. So basically every few years they have to do major rebases for CJS and Muffin to newer upstream Gnome bases. At this point they've done such rebase only once because it takes a lot of time and effort. I mean the muffin rebase took more than a year. And when they're not busy with the rebases, they do all of their own downstream fixes and optimizations for Muffin for example, while upstream Mutter has also received even better optimizations and improvements.

But these days you can achieve pretty much everything with Gnome extensions, so I'm 100% sure you can recreate the Cinnamon experience in Gnome almost completely. So that's why I think the best way forward for them is to ditch Cinnamon, instead take a certain Gnome release and just recreate the Cinnamon experience with extensions. If updating every single major Gnome version is too much of a burden for them, they can update it every 2-3 versions, which is still way better than hard forking Gnome every 7-10 years for Cinnamon. Btw, that's kinda what Zorin OS already does with its custom Gnome session. If it'll come to the point when pretty much everyone has switched to Wayland, while they're still behind with their Wayland support, they'll probably have no choice but to take this route.

[reba]

Is there a reason to use LMDE instead of Debian and just install the cinnamon package?

[billyswong]

Is there a reason to use LMDE instead of Debian and just install the cinnamon package?

An example out of my head: The GUI software manager and update manager in Linux Mint and LMDE is not part of Cinnamon but a set of cross-DE application in LM ecosystem. They morph apt and flatpak into one interface for software search, installation, and update.