David Hayward has a look at LMDE and Zorin, with plenty of
help from a fellow for mite
I've been chatting recently with fellow for mite and Micro
Mart regular, Bruce R, about Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE). For those of you
who aren't familiar, the Debi an Edition directly uses the Debian group of
software packages, unlike the regular Linux Mint which is based on Ubuntu,
which is in turn less directly based on Debian. In essence, with LMDE, it's
cutting out the middleman.
Linux mint
There are good points, and bad points to this. On the plus
side, you'll never have to install a new version of the system, as Debian
updates and new versions are continually rolled out. Also, Debian is generally
considered to be quicker than an Ubuntu-based distorting, as it refrains from
having all the bells and whistles attached. The bad points are that due to the
continual roll-out of new packages, things have the tendency of breaking more
frequently. However, this also means they're fixed just as frequently its
swings and roundabouts really
Testing LMDE
What Bruce has done is real-world test LMDE (the 32-bit
Mate/Cinnamon flavor) on a couple of machines: a single core 2.8GHz P4
Northwood with 1GB RAM, and on an even older 933MHz P3 Coppermine with just
512MB RAM.
His findings are quite interesting: LMDE comes over as being
a slicker beast than the default, Ubuntu-based Mint 13 bistro. However, there
were issues concerning his Momentous XT enhanced laptop, specifically regarding
the ATI mobility mini card he had in place. Plus some incompatibility issues
with a default Mint 13 MATE session, whereas Mint 13 Cinnamon appeared to be
working flawlessly.
Of course, the level of impact LMDE MATE may have on other
systems depends really on what you have and what your needs are. Although both
the Debian and Ubuntu-based editions of Linux Mint use .deb packages, they
aren't always binary compatible. This often rears its ugly head when the
package, for example, tries to talk to a driver for a particular piece of
hardware.
However, this doesn't mean that everyone will have an issue.
As with most bistros, you often have to play a little before it meets the
requirements you have for your system.
Zorin 6 RC
Zorin 6 Core RC
Thankfully, despite the issues Bruce had with LMDE MATE,
there was a light at the end of the tunnel for his laptop. He finally managed
to get the 32-bit version of Zorin 6 Core RC (Release Candidate) to install
without a hiccup (a Release Candidate is a final, pre-formal release version of
a bistro, still with bugs.)
On a previous occasion, Bruce tried to install the new Core
RC on another of his desktop machines, but instead ended up with a catalogue of
system errors. This time he installed it on his laptop and discovered a
distinct lack of problems, leading him to reason that the Zorin brothers are
more than likely doing their developmental work on laptops themselves. To quote
Bruce himself: 'you always get less compatibility problems by using the same or
similar hardware as the developers.' Which is sound advice for anyone wanting
to experiment with the latest builds, do some research and find out a little
about the deva and what kit they're using.
Forums rock!
Anyway, I have to thank Bruce for the hard work he did with
testing LMDE and Zorin 6, and for sharing it with us. If it wasn't for chaps
such as Bruce, and the other guys on the forums, then most of us would still be
stuck at the login screen.
