Favorite: Debian Stable (For my uses, it was the least trouble)
First: Slackware (1995, installed from floppy disks, also a short stretch in 2009)
Current: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) (Using because I need to support users on stock Mint)
Distro you liked the least: Novell SuSE (Used in a corporate setting)
Distro you want to use in the future: Unknown
Distro you used for the longest time: Debian Stable (15 years)
Distro everyone likes but I don’t: Ubuntu
Honorable mention: DietPi (RaspberryPi and SBC focused OS)
Over time, I’ve used quite a lot of different distros: Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise, Scientific, CENTOS, Fedora, Mandrake, Damn Small, Puppy, CrashBang, Raspbian, Bazzite, to name just the ones I can remember off the top of my head now.
Yes as far as I’ve found so far, the features track quite well, and I’m really aiming to get proficient with the standard interface. I’ve found a few minor differences, but I tried stock Mint (which is Ubuntu 20.04 based) for a while, and I didn’t want to go backwards from Trixie (the current Stable Debian version) so I opted for LMDE which is based on Trixie. I use Debian Stable because of the “2-year cycle” (that’s why it’s called stable); Because stock Mint tracks the latest LTS release of Ubuntu, it’s actually a fair bit more out of date than Debian at this stage, and the next Mint version, based on the new LTE Ubuntu, isn’t slated to come out until December.
So far it’s not been too bad for a hybrid system - I have had a couple of issues, but this is most likely attributable to being a hybrid. I’ve found that I like Cinnamon, which stock Debian does not (as far as I know) support yet - I have used MATE for about 15 years because I don’t get on with Gnome 3 or KDE. You get all the nice things about Mint that I found impressive when I tested it - the printer and scanner support is very good, and the configuration utilities are quite reminiscent of Windows ones (good for new users, but I personally don’t care). Still not sure if I’m going to stick with it long-term, but happy with it for now - I largely stopped distro-hopping when I switched to MATE.
Favorite: Debian Stable (For my uses, it was the least trouble)
First: Slackware (1995, installed from floppy disks, also a short stretch in 2009)
Current: Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) (Using because I need to support users on stock Mint)
Distro you liked the least: Novell SuSE (Used in a corporate setting)
Distro you want to use in the future: Unknown
Distro you used for the longest time: Debian Stable (15 years)
Distro everyone likes but I don’t: Ubuntu
Honorable mention: DietPi (RaspberryPi and SBC focused OS)
Over time, I’ve used quite a lot of different distros: Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise, Scientific, CENTOS, Fedora, Mandrake, Damn Small, Puppy, CrashBang, Raspbian, Bazzite, to name just the ones I can remember off the top of my head now.
Are LMDE and stock Mint close enough in versions and features that you can always efficiently support stock Mint users?
Also, is the base Mint software updated regularly, or does it depend on the Debian 2-year cycle?
Yes as far as I’ve found so far, the features track quite well, and I’m really aiming to get proficient with the standard interface. I’ve found a few minor differences, but I tried stock Mint (which is Ubuntu 20.04 based) for a while, and I didn’t want to go backwards from Trixie (the current Stable Debian version) so I opted for LMDE which is based on Trixie. I use Debian Stable because of the “2-year cycle” (that’s why it’s called stable); Because stock Mint tracks the latest LTS release of Ubuntu, it’s actually a fair bit more out of date than Debian at this stage, and the next Mint version, based on the new LTE Ubuntu, isn’t slated to come out until December.
So far it’s not been too bad for a hybrid system - I have had a couple of issues, but this is most likely attributable to being a hybrid. I’ve found that I like Cinnamon, which stock Debian does not (as far as I know) support yet - I have used MATE for about 15 years because I don’t get on with Gnome 3 or KDE. You get all the nice things about Mint that I found impressive when I tested it - the printer and scanner support is very good, and the configuration utilities are quite reminiscent of Windows ones (good for new users, but I personally don’t care). Still not sure if I’m going to stick with it long-term, but happy with it for now - I largely stopped distro-hopping when I switched to MATE.