There's some interesting plans ahead coming from the Linux Mint team including a new EDGE ISO for running Mint on newer hardware, info on the next Linux Mint release and their concerns with Ubuntu and Snap.
First up for fans of their LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition), it's still going and version 6 is code-named "Faye". With their plans to have all the features and changes from the main Linux Mint 21.2 but there's currently no ETA on when it will be available.
On top of that they've announced plans for a new Linux Mint EDGE ISO for Mint 21.2. The idea is to provide you with a download that has a fresher Linux kernel (6.2) for running Linux Mint on newer hardware. Seems like a sane idea, other distributions do a similar thing when refreshing their downloads. Not an entirely new thing for Mint though, they’ve done it for some previous releases.
Also the next main Linux Mint release 21.3 is planned for December, however they're likely to "reduce the scope" of it. While they have plenty planned they want to "prioritize some long-term aspects and dedicate some of our time to them" like updating their ISO production tools and fix secureboot. They're also doing some Wayland support investigation work.
Linux Mint's leader Clement "Clem" Lefebvre has also shown plenty of concern about Snap packages in Ubuntu, and it seems that issue has continued as they will be "keeping an eye on Ubuntu, their increased focus on Snap, the quality of their 24.04 package base and what this means for us going forward".
See more on the blog post.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Holzkohlen Aug 11, 2023
I can understand their concerns about the package base, though I'm using standard Mint Xfce for now. Is there any major difference for the end-user when it comes to the Debian Edition? I assume not?
"EDGE" also sounds potentially very useful!
officernice Aug 11, 2023
Why not go independent instead of relying on Debian? One thing that made me move from Mint was ages old packages.
Miss the old green Mint design, too, instead of the bland and black. :(
Linux_Rocks Aug 11, 2023
Quoting: officerniceWhy not go independentBecause it's a nearly insurmountable task.
Very briefly put; they would have to build everything themselves from scratch and deliver it via their own network, solve every bug and security issue themselves, keep everything updated and somehow manage to afford all these hardware and bandwidth costs, and it only gets worse the bigger the distro gets. Not to mention tiny details like what sort of package management system they will choose (or make their own, bonus nightmare), which init system, glibc or musl or something else? The horrible list goes on forever.
With flatpak's a lot of the key software is just as fresh as Arch, so it would just be a case of having newer versions of kernals, wayland and MESA on the EDGE.
Even the upcoming EDGE is not really EDGE as such. by Christmas it will be released with kernal 6.2. Not too far behind but then consider when is the next release after that.. etc. On my Arch machine i have 6.5 about to be released and important features (for me at least) like AMD-Pstate are being released on 6.6.
Quoting: PenglingIs there any major difference for the end-user when it comes to the Debian Edition?I've not used it but from what I've read LMDE lags behind a little with features compared to the Ubuntu based versions. However, it seems to be catching up. It was originally conceived as a backup in case they ever had to ditch Ubuntu, so I would imagine with the way things are going they might be accelerating its development.
Last edited by CountVlad on 11 August 2023 at 11:04 pm UTC
Quoting: staywithmeWhat's stopping anyone from installing the 6.2 kernel on current LM (21.2)? The option's right there in Mint's update manager!Nothing's stopping anyone from installing it. In fact, I'm always running the latest stable kernel (6.4.10 currently) on Mint and setting that up only took a couple of minutes. No need to touch the terminal even.
The point is to have an installation image that works on your brand new hardware. That's all. You can't exactly get into the update manager if the live USB doesn't even start.
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