POLL: LMDE or Linux Mint 17 Xfce?

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Which Mint to try: LMDE or Mint 17 Xfce?

LMDE
8
33%
Mint 17 Xfce
16
67%
 
Total votes: 24

Lazy8

Re: POLL: LMDE or Linux Mint 17 Xfce?

Post by Lazy8 »

Linux Mint 17 LTS will be supported until 2019. After that you'll have to reinstall up to whatever version follows.

Regarding LMDE. It is only potentially better if you are an advanced linux user. Ubuntu based Linux Mint is more accessible to less advanced computer users, and is a great alternative for the MILLIONS of XP based PC owners. In this economy, Mint can be a better alternative than having to buy a new PC because Win 7 or 8 doesn't support one's current hardware. The cost versus benefits is even less favorable with a Mac.

For most people, there's no reason for them to HAVE to buy a new PC when Linux Mint is available. But no one in the mainstream media ever mentions Mint as an option. Everyone is exclusively being told that a new Windows or Mac machine are their only options.

This is why I'm installing Mint 17 on as many PC's as I can. Except for one PC, Mint has turned out to be a better overall experience, and I'm a newbie.
Fixer1234

Re: POLL: LMDE or Linux Mint 17 Xfce?

Post by Fixer1234 »

Ginsu543 wrote:I currently have a rock-solid Mint 17 Cinnamon 64-bit system set up and running on my main rig. However, I have 200 GB on another drive partitioned just so for another Linux install (it's being unused at the moment). I have never before run Debian or Xfce, and I'm getting the itch to try something totally new besides Cinnamon or MATE. If you were me, which would you go for, LMDE or Mint 17 Xfce?
1. Xfce is like Mate-lite. If you like the enhanced capabilities and customization of Cinnamon and its utilities, you will probably like Mate more than Xfce. Xfce is a great way to get a fairly full-featured desktop on a machine with limited resources. It is customizable in most of the important areas, but not nearly as flexible as Mate or Cinnamon. If you have plenty of resources, the only reason to go with Xfce is if you want something more on the Spartan/utilitarian side. It is a fast, light, polished package.
2. Mint 17 Xfce is as good an implementation of Xfce as I've seen. I ran it for a while on an old XP computer because I wanted an XP replacement that would run well in limited resources. I liked it until I discovered one fatal flaw:
3. The Mint 17 Xfce menu system is broken and there is no good fix. You are fine if you don't need to change anything in the menu but the menu editor has bugs. The distro actually contains two menu programs and two menu editors. None of them work with the same set of menu definition files. Some people have had limited success making limited changes to the menu. I gave up on it and loaded Mint 17 Mate, which runs fine in 1 GB RAM. Mate is like a suped-up version of Xfce, so it now feels like I'm being coddled a little.

Debian requires a more hands-on approach and Linux knowledge than Ubuntu-based Mint. LMDE offers only Cinnamon and Mate, so the only reason to switch would be for stability (Debian is less buggy than Ubuntu). SolyDXK is a spin off of LMDE Xfce and KDE desktops. They offer versions based on Debian testing and Debian stable.

If you are looking to try something different and have never tried KDE, it is worth looking at. After trying all of the other major desktops, I tried KDE almost by accident and love it. LM 17 KDE is what's loaded on my main computer. It is polished and stable. The only issues I've found are with software from the Mint/Ubuntu repository. A number of applications are buggy and there is near zero documentation (Ubuntu problems inherited by Mint). There is a very impressive distro targeted at Windows users that melds Debian stable with the latest KDE and bundles it with every imaginable piece of software including the kitchen sink. It also includes some non-free drivers, which aren't always included with Debian distros, so, out of the box, it handled hardware on my machine that gave other Debian distros indigestion. It's called Kwheezy. It's rock-solid stable and everything works almost perfectly. I've found a few insignificant bugs. However, it lacks some of the utilities that are bundled with Mint (for example, no GUI backup program that can backup a live system). There are some applications you won't find in their repository (they take "stable" very seriously). Other than the huge library bundled with Kwheezy, I don't know what the implementation differences are compared to SolyDK (LM KDE is based on Ubuntu).
Lazy8

Re: POLL: LMDE or Linux Mint 17 Xfce?

Post by Lazy8 »

Fixet,
Great posts! I really like Cinnamon and have it running on two older XP machines, dual boot. Those machines have a maximum 2 Gb of RAM and both are running at under 2 GHz, and yet Mint runs rock solid and better than XP ever could.

I'm not so impressed with Mint Xfce, which I tried on another laptop. The recommended video driver, per the DDM, didn't work, it always fails to reboot, and the Software Installrr sometimes hangs, not to mention that the wifi network interface didn't work out of the box.

What's interesting is that I have an identical laptop running SolydX, and it's the best install yet among 6 Linux machines.

I HIGHLY recommend SolydX for older, slowrer, RAM limited laptops. Mine are HP Presario V6000's with 2 Gigs of RAM and running dual-cores at 1.6 GHz. I can run two monitors, multiple applications,and download and install up to 8 application's without a hiccup. SolydX is truly amazing! I was so impressed that I also installed SolydK on a faster desktop with more RAM.

In case you don't know, SolydXK is made by former Mint developers who wanted to create Debien based distros. They got it right!
Fixer1234

Re: POLL: LMDE or Linux Mint 17 Xfce?

Post by Fixer1234 »

Thanks for the SolydX recommendation. I was just looking at the requirements for 32 bit SolydK and it says in requires only 250MB. I figured even if that was just for the OS, it ought to run on my old XP machine with 1 GB. Unfortunately, it doesn't. What little I saw of the desktop looked clean but somewhat of a "no-nonsense", barebones KDE implementation, which was fine for me. However, like a different KDE distro I tried on that machine previously, it wants working space. As soon as I tried to run anything, it went into a permanent loop with a swap file.

I was impressed, though, that it handled my WiFi dongle. It's the only link to the Internet, so if it doesn't come bundled with a non-free driver, the distro is pretty much dead in the water. Many Debian distros don't come with it by default. It not only worked, but was highly automated. The connection was just waiting for my password; no setup required.
Lazy8

Re: POLL: LMDE or Linux Mint 17 Xfce?

Post by Lazy8 »

For a low resourse machine I recommend SolydX, 32-bit, which requires only 160 MB of RAM. This is what I used on my lowest-end machine, running at 1.6 GHz, and it has been running GREAT. SolydX uses the Xfce desktop and is VERY configurable. My HP laptop has a nVidia video card that did not work right off the bat, so I had to run in the "compatibility mode" boot option (if I recall), and then I used the device driver manager (DDM) to select the right driver.

What I found interesting is that the SolydX (Xfce) DDM gave me the absolute latest driver, 304.221, whereas the Mint 17 Xfce's DDM gave me the older 304.117. The .221 is working great!

I installed SolydK on a machine running at 2.7 GHz with 4 Gib's of RAM. That machine seemed better suited for the K version, versus the X version, which I have on my 1.6 GHz machine.

Again, I'm especially impressed with SolydX, and I like the fact that SolydXK have a Linux Mint lineage, since thus far Mint is my favorite distro. I just see SolydX as the way to go for my "lessor" machines, and I see SolydXK as a sort of cousin to Mint, which I have great confidence in.

Thus far no distro that I have tried has been perfect across all machines, but the Mint/SolydXK family has worked the best. These are what I recommend for XP machine's with a hard limit of 2 GiB of RAM. And I don't care for running anything "Windows" under Linux so all my machines are dual-boot. If I HAVE to run a Windows application, like Visual Studio, then I boot to Windows, otherwise (for the most part) I LIVE in Linux.

I hope my perspective helps.
Fixer1234

Re: POLL: LMDE or Linux Mint 17 Xfce?

Post by Fixer1234 »

Lazy8 wrote:For a low resourse machine I recommend SolydX, 32-bit, which requires only 160 MB of RAM.

thus far Mint is my favorite distro.

And I don't care for running anything "Windows" under Linux so all my machines are dual-boot. If I HAVE to run a Windows application, like Visual Studio, then I boot to Windows, otherwise (for the most part) I LIVE in Linux.
Great minds think alike. I had been sticking with Xfce for my 1 GB XP machine and it was perfectly satisfactory. It was pretty comparable to XP in terms of "features" and interface, but way faster and less complicated (none of the supplemental software needed to keep XP running/running safely). When I discovered the menu problem with Mint Xfce, I wanted to stick with Mint so I tried Mate on a whim just to see how well it would run on a limited-resource machine. So far, I haven't hit any memory walls where it goes to a swap file, even running several resource-intensive applications at the same time. So, unless you prefer a utilitarian desktop, I'd say if you have 1 GB of RAM, spoil yourself with the "luxury" version of Xfce (Mate).

I'm the same way with dual boot Windows. I leave Windows there only to run the few things for which there is not yet a Linux replacement, and don't go back often. Even after support is stopped for Win 7 (a few months away), brief excursions into Windows will be minimal risk.

Unfortunately, I screwed up on my XP machine. I had been preserving it (dual boot), for some ancient hardware and software that wouldn't run with Windows after XP. On one of the Linux distros I tried and liked, I went to install it on the hard disk and misunderstood the options. It ended up repartitioning and reformating the entire hard disk and installing Linux as the only OS. The recovery partition was wiped and there is no longer anywhere to find an XP iso to put it back. I hadn't made an image backup because I didn't anticipated losing the recovery partition (let that be a lesson to others).

A ray of sunshine is that Linux supports the old printer that I really like, while no Windows after XP does. So, it wasn't a total loss. And really, there are replacements for the old software. It was, to some extent, a "matter of principle" about having to give up software I like and the time needed to recreate the templates and customization. So serendipity dragged me kicking and screaming from XP to Linux, but Linux is better, so now I'm just as happy to stay. So there, Microsoft! You don't own me! Gee, that kind of felt good.
Lazy8

Re: POLL: LMDE or Linux Mint 17 Xfce?

Post by Lazy8 »

Much to my surprise, Linux Mint runs better, and is a much better experience than XP on one of my older laptops. That was my first install over a month ago.

When I mess with important machines (or others), I first clone the entire drive. I have a spare hard-drive that I use for this.
Last edited by Lazy8 on Tue Aug 12, 2014 1:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Fixer1234

Re: POLL: LMDE or Linux Mint 17 Xfce?

Post by Fixer1234 »

Lazy8 wrote:Much to my surprise, Linux Mint runs better, and is a much better experience than XP on one of my older laptops. That was first install over a month ago.
Absolutely. Same experience.
Lazy8 wrote:When I mess with importanr machines (or others), I first clone the entire drive. I have a spare hard-drive that I use for this.
Now you tell me. :)
DrHu

Re: POLL: LMDE or Linux Mint 17 Xfce?

Post by DrHu »

I liked both LMDE and XFCE
--since Mint dropped LMDE, I went to XFCE
  • it is not as complete a desktop as the Gnome/Mate or Cinnamon versions, at least in Menu management and selections..
--although quite workable/functional

So I can vote, unless I do it twice
. LMDE
. XFCE
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excollier
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Re: POLL: LMDE or Linux Mint 17 Xfce?

Post by excollier »

When you say LMDE do you really mean LXDE?
Registered Linux user #557695
MX Linux user these days - I introduce newbies via Mint
Lazy8

Re: POLL: LMDE or Linux Mint 17 Xfce?

Post by Lazy8 »

Fixer,
Sorry for not telling you! :(
I assumed that everyone was insecure, paranoid, and anal like me. :o
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