Linux Mint Debian Review and How To

1 Overview:

After thinking long and hard about the changes that Canonical plans with their 11.04 release I finally decided it was time to move on to another distribution. The problem, finding one that suited my needs and at the same time kept a level of familiarity I was used to with Ubuntu. However, I also wanted more control over my system and its configuration.

I knew I wanted to stay with a Debian base and specifically wanted it to be based on Sid. I looked at Aptosid (formally Sidux) and a few others but many of the tools I wanted weren't available. Then I discovered Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE).

I will be straight forward, this distribution is not for beginners and should never be considered for general use in an office setting. It is usable but considered unstable so things will break here and there with the updates since its based on Debian's testing repositories. Its for those of us who look to get as close to bleeding edge as possible and enjoy challenges in solving issues in our computing environment. This distribution is definitely for tech savvy users. Once installed and setup just about anybody can use it easily, but keeping things running takes some real knowledge, and a willingness to look for and implement some pretty radical solutions. This includes compiling source code to keep things working correctly.

Now let me say this, Linux Mint has always been a solid Ubuntu based distribution, and the Debian edition is pretty solid as well. Though there are some pretty big issues to deal with once its installed.

One thing about LMDE I find highly appealing is that its a rolling release. This means, unless you have a major issue occur, that you no longer need to reinstall the OS as the updates keep it up to date with the latest version (which are snapshots taken of the current files which you should have. Providing you keep it updated.)

2 Getting And Installing Linux Mint Debian Edition:

LMDE is released as a DVD iso and can be downloaded from here - http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=66

Once you download and burn the DVD (you can also put it on a USB thumb drive if you desire) then boot from the media to the Live Desktop and double click the installer.

I discovered a minor glitch while installing, even though I used the advanced option to setup my hard drive with gparted, the installer still forced me to format the drive again and set my mount points (i.e. / /home and swap partitions.) So if you do need to use gparted to set the partitions don't bother to set the mount points or format them. Instead to just set your partitions with gparted and then do the rest with the installer.

Installation itself is smooth and very quick. The real issues occur once its installed.

3 After Initial Install (Setting Up The System):

Because of differences in Debian's system and Installer compared to Ubuntu the first thing you will have issues with is that not everything the system needs to be fully functional gets installed. Also you may find that wireless isn't working because of this as well, laptop users will have to hard plug into a network. So your first step is to install all the missing recommended files. Synaptic is installed so you can use it to select them and install. Once the recommended files gets installed and things start working right then you can go back and remove any cruft (unwanted and unneccessary files) to clean things up.

If you use a laptop and require proprietary drivers for wireless (like I do) you can then get those installed. Once you do a restart it should bring up the wireless. Be aware the drivers I used for Ubuntu are not the drivers I needed with LMDE as LMDE now follows Debian for the system and therefore driver packages aren't put together to handle several different WiFi cards and are instead packaged as they were originally developed. You will need to find out which package is appropriate for your wireless under Debian, not Ubuntu. I would like to also note my wireless actually works much better under LMDE than it did in Ubuntu.

You probably noticed by this point that LMDE has no startup splash screen by default. Plymouth is not installed but is available in the repositories.

"sudo apt-get install plymouth plymouth-themes-all v86d"

Next to get plymouth working correctly you need to setup and configure the system.

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Then copy and past the following over the current entries;

# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=15
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
#GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="splash vga=788"

# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_RECOVERY="true"

# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"

Now run the following commands;

sudo echo FRAMEBUFFER=y | sudo tee /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash
sudo update-grub2
sudo update-initramfs -u

Restart to make sure Plymouth is running correctly.

I created a Plymouth Splash for LMDE which can be found at
http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Linux+Mint+Debian+Edition+Plymouth?content=140429

To install and use this theme after downloading and unpacking it use the following commands;

sudo cp -R LMDE/ /usr/share/plymouth/themes/
sudo /usr/sbin/plymouth-set-default-theme LMDE
sudo update-initramfs -u

You will now have a complete base system with an appropriate boot splash.

Now comes the issue of repositories for software. Since its easier to just show you what repositories I use by posting my sources.list file I am going to do so;

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import backport romeo
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org testing main non-free

#############################################################
################### OFFICIAL DEBIAN REPOS ###################
#############################################################

###### Debian Main Repos
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ main contrib non-free

###### Debian Update Repos
deb http://security.debian.org/ /updates main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ -proposed-updates main contrib non-free

##############################################################
##################### UNOFFICIAL REPOS ######################
##############################################################

###### 3rd Party Binary Repos

#### Bimoid - http://bimoid.com/
## Run this command: wget -O - http://www.bimoid.com/debian/apt.key | apt-key add -
deb http://www.bimoid.com/debian/ stable non-free

#### Debian Multimedia - http://www.debian-multimedia.org/
## Run this command: apt-get update && apt-get install debian-multimedia-keyring && apt-get update
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org sid main non-free

#### Google Linux Software Repositories - http://www.google.com
## Run this command: wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | apt-key add -
deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable non-free main

#### Google Linux Software Repositories (Testing) - http://www.google.com
## Run this command: wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | apt-key add -
deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ testing non-free

#### Unofficial Maintainer - http://unofficial.debian-maintainers.org/
## Run this command: wget -q -O - http://unofficial.debian-maintainers.org/project/openpgp/archive-key.asc | apt-key add -
deb http://unofficial.debian-maintainers.org/ sid main contrib non-free restricted

#### Wine - http://www.winehq.org/
## Run this command: wget -O - http://www.lamaresh.net/apt/key.gpg | apt-key add -
deb http://www.lamaresh.net/apt sid main

# deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/shames/debian-sid/desktopfx/unstable/ ./

deb http://packages.kirya.net/debian/ sid main contrib non-free


deb http://apt.progchild.de stable main

4 Final Review:

I am extremely happy with LMDE and even though I have a lot more to do to get things working the way I want overall I'm impressed. One thing I did was replace gdm3 with gdm. This allowed me to make use of GDM themes and I am using this one,
http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Mint+Glass+GDM+Theme?content=75858

For my icons I am using the following,
http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Oxygen-Refit+2+-+Green+Version?content=84683

Finally for gtk2 I went with this theme,
http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/GreenTea+Theme+for+GNOME+2.x+%26+Metacity?content=119786

The total combined affect is impressive and very pleasent to the eyes.

The above information simply gets LMDE to a complete base system that is both functional and enjoyable. I have been able to get all the programs I use installed, including LibreOffice (instead of OpenOffice) and I am back up and running. Currently my only issue is getting Compiz and Emerald up and running. The version in the repository is older and buggy. I am going to have to compile and install the latest version myself, but that's another how to.

For experienced Linux users and those looking to step up LMDE is an excellent choice for a personal system.