The Linux Experiment

A couple of years ago I helped a small business convert their old virus infected Windows XP computer into a Linux Mint 11 (Katya) Xfce. This was done after a long time of trying to help them keep that machine running at a half-decent speed – the virus being the last straw that finally had them make the switch to Linux. Amazingly, well maybe not to the Linux faithful but to most people, this transition not only went smoothly but was actually extremely well received. Outside of a question or two every couple of months I have heard of no issues whatsoever. Sadly Linux Mint 11 has recently reached its end of life stage and so the time has come to find a replacement.

The Situation

When I said this was an old Windows XP machine I wasn’t kidding. It sports a speedy (sarcasm) 2.4Ghz Intel Pentium 4 processor, 512 whole megabytes of RAM and an Intel integrated graphics card. With specs like those it is pretty obvious that the only two real considerations (from a technical standpoint) are low resource requirements and speed. I’d be tempted to jump to a more specialized distribution like Puppy Linux but the people using the machine are A) used to Linux Mint already and B) expected a familiar, fully featured operating system experience.

Where is Linux Mint today?

Linux Mint 13 has recently been released (including an Xfce version) based on the latest Ubuntu 12.04 stable release. This makes it an ideal candidate for an upgrade because it is something already familiar to the users and will be supported until April 2017.

The following are the steps I took, in no real order, to setup and configure Linux Mint 13 Xfce for their use:

Pre/During Install Configuration

1. Encrypt the home directory
   Because this is a work computer and will be storing sensitive financial information I configured it to encrypt everything in the home directory. Better safe than sorry.

Post Install Configuration

1. Install Google Chrome
   I removed Mozilla Firefox and installed Google Chrome for two reasons. First Chrome tends to be, or at least feel, a little bit snappier than even the latest version of Firefox and as I mentioned above speed is king. Secondly, unless something changes, Google’s Chrome (not even Chromium) will be the only Linux browser that will continue to get Adobe Flash updates in a straightforward and easy way for the user. UPDATE: ironically the only issue I found with this whole install related to Google’s embedded Adobe Flash. For some reason the audio on the particular version ran at double speed. This is apparently a known issue.
2. Install Rhythmbox
   I also removed Banshee and installed Rhythmbox instead. This was done not because I consider one better than the other (or even that these two represent the only options), but simply because the users were already familiar with Rhythmbox. They use Rhythmbox to listen to streaming Internet radio.
3. Remove unnecessary software (Pidgin, XChat, GNOME Mplayer and Totem)
   Not because they are bad applications, they just simply weren’t needed. I kept VLC because it can pretty much play all audio-video.
4. Add Trash can to desktop and remove Filesystem icon
   
5. Remove all but one workspace
   
6. Install preload to speed up commonly used packages on startup
7. Configure LibreOffice
   The goal of this step is to set up LibreOffice in such a way as to make it use less memory while still keeping most of the functionality. In order to accomplish this I changed the number of undo steps from 100 to 30 and disabled the Java components.
8. Change screensaver to blank screen
   This looks more professional and uses less memory.
9. Spin down hard drive when possible
   While I was at it I also went into power management and had the system spin down the hard drives when possible. This configuration had nothing to do with performance, in fact spinning down the drives can slow access to files, but was done because they often just leave the PC running 24-7 and it is not in use at all during the night. I’m sure this will save them a couple of cents per year or something.
10. Disabled unused startup services like Bluetooth
    The machine doesn’t even have a Bluetooth radio.
    
11. Set it so that inserting a removable drive causes the system to open a window for browsing the contents
12. Change the system tray clock time format from 24 hour time to 12 hour time.
    This was a user preference.
13. Set updates to be downloaded from best available server
    
    
14. Install Microsoft fonts (i.e. ttf-mscorefonts-installer)
15. Install 7zip, rar and unrar
    You never know what kind of random archive formats they might need to open so it is better to support them all.
16. Change login screen theme
    The default login screen is nice but it isn’t the most user friendly. I opted to install the Mint Pro (MDM) theme from GNOME-Look.org.
17. Install all updates
18. Run Grub boot profiler to speed up the boot process
    If you’re not aware of this it is a great trick. Essentially once you have everything installed (driver wise at least) you do the following:
    -Modify /etc/default/grub and change the line GRUB_CMD_LINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash” to GRUB_CMD_LINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash profile”.
    -Then run sudo update-grub2 and reboot.
    -The next reboot might be slower but once the machine comes back up simply edit that file again and remove the “profile” text. Your computer will now intelligently load drivers as the hard drive head travels across their location, instead of in some other arbitrary order which can actually shave a couple of seconds off of your total boot time.

How did it turn out?

Surprisingly well. The machine isn’t a speed demon by any stretch of the imagination but it does perform its simple tasks well enough. It remains to be seen if the computer will make it to the next long term release of Linux Mint Xfce, or even if it will be able to run it at that time, but for now the users are happy and that is what matters.

It’s easy. Simply throw “-o Acquire::http::Dl-Limit=X” in your apt-get command where X is the kb/s you wish to limit it to. So for example let’s say that you want to limit an apt-get upgrade command to roughly 50kb/s of bandwidth. Simply issue the following command:

sudo apt-get -o Acquire::http::Dl-Limit=50 upgrade

Simple right?

The laptop that I’m writing this post from has a really annoying strip of touch-response buttons above the keyboard that control things like volume and whether or not the wifi card is on. By touch-response, I mean that the buttons don’t require a finger press, but rather just a touch of the finger. As such, they provide no haptic feedback, so it’s hard to tell whether or not they work except by surveying the results of your efforts in the operating system.

The WiFi button in particular has go to be the worst of these buttons. On Windows, it glows a lovely blue colour when activated, and an angry red colour when disabled. This directly maps to whether or not my physical wireless network interface is enabled or disabled, and is a helpful indicator. Under Linux Mint 12 however, the “button” is always red, which makes it a less than helpful way to diagnose the occasional network drop.

Lately, I’ve been having trouble getting the wifi to reconnect after one of these drops. To troubleshoot, I would open up the Network Settings panel in Mint, which looks something like this:

The only problem with this window is that the ON/OFF slider that controls the state of the network interface would refuse to work. If I drag it to the ON position, it would just bounce back to OFF without changing the actual state of the card.

In the past, this behaviour has really frustrated me, driving me so far as to reboot the machine in Windows, re-activate the physical interface, and then switch back to Mint to continue doing whatever it was that I was doing in the first place. Tonight, I decided to investigate.

I started out with my old friend iwconfig:

jonf@jonf-mint ~ $ sudo iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=off
Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off

As you can see, the wireless interface is listed, but it appears to be powered off. I was able to confirm this by issuing the iwlist command, which is supposed to spit out a list of nearby wireless networks:

jonf@jonf-mint ~ $ sudo iwlist wlan0 scanning
wlan0     Interface doesn’t support scanning : Network is down

Again, you can see that the interface is not reacting as one might expect it to. Next, I attempted to enable the interface using the ifconfig command:

jonf@jonf-mint ~ $ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not possible due to RF-kill

Ah-ha! A clue! Apparently, something called rfkill was preventing the interface from coming online. It turns out that rfkill is a handy little tool that allows you to query the state of the hardware buttons (and other physical interfaces) on your machine. You can see a list of all of these interfaces by issuing the command rfkill list:

jonf@jonf-mint ~ $ rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes
1: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes

Interestingly enough, it looks like my wireless interface has been turned off by a hardware switch, which is what I had suspected all along. The next thing that I tried was the rfkill event command, which tails the list of hardware interface events. Using this tool, you can see the effect of pressing the physical switches and buttons on the chasis of your machine:

jonf@jonf-mint ~ $ rfkill event
1349740501.558614: idx 0 type 1 op 2 soft 0 hard 0
1349740505.153269: idx 0 type 1 op 2 soft 0 hard 1
1349740505.354608: idx 1 type 1 op 2 soft 0 hard 1
1349740511.030642: idx 1 type 1 op 2 soft 0 hard 0
1349740515.558615: idx 0 type 1 op 2 soft 0 hard 0

Each of the lines that the tool spits out shows a single event. In my case, it shows the button that controls the wireless interface switching the hard block setting (physical on/off) from 0 to 1 and back.

After watching this output while pressing the button a few times, I realized that the button does actually work, but that when the interface is turned on, it can take upwards of 5 seconds for the machine to notice it, connect to my home wireless, and get an ip address via DHCP. In the intervening time, I had typically become frustrated and pressed the button a few more times, trying to get it to do something. Instead, I now know that I have to press the button exactly once and then wait for it to take effect.

I stand by the fact that this is a piss-poor design, but hey, what do I know? I’m not a UX engineer for HP. At least it’s working again, and I am reconnected to my sweet sweet internet.

Once again I’ve compiled some charts to show what the major, full desktop distributions look like while running on limited hardware. Just like before I’ve decided to re-run my previous tests this time using the following distributions:

• Fedora 17 (GNOME)
• Fedora 17 (KDE)
• Kubuntu 12.04 (KDE)
• Linux Mint 13 (Cinnamon)
• Linux Mint 13 (KDE)
• Linux Mint 13 (Mate)
• Linux Mint 13 (Xfce)
• Mageia (GNOME)
• Mageia (KDE)
• OpenSUSE 12.2 (GNOME)
• OpenSUSE 12.2 (KDE)
• Ubuntu 12.04 (Unity)
• Xubuntu 12.04 (Xfce)

I will be testing all of this within VirtualBox on ‘machines’ with the following specifications:

• Total RAM: 512MB
• Hard drive: 8GB
• CPU type: x86 with PAE/NX
• Graphics: 3D Acceleration enabled

The tests were all done using VirtualBox 4.1.22, and I did not install VirtualBox tools (although some distributions may have shipped with them). I also left the screen resolution at the default (whatever the distribution chose) and accepted the installation defaults. All tests were run between September 3rd, 2012 and September 14th, 2012 so your results may not be identical.

Results

Following in the tradition of my previous posts I have once again gone through the effort to bring you nothing but the most state of the art in picture graphs for your enjoyment.

Things to know before looking at the graphs

First off if your distribution of choice didn’t appear in the list above its probably not reasonably possible to installed (i.e. I don’t have hours to compile Gentoo) or I didn’t feel it was mainstream enough (pretty much anything with LXDE). Secondly there may be some distributions that don’t appear on all of the graphs, for example Mandriva (now replaced by Mageia). Finally I did not include Debian this time around because it is still at the same version as last time. As always feel free to run your own tests.

First boot memory (RAM) usage

This test was measured on the first startup after finishing a fresh install.

Memory (RAM) usage after updates

This test was performed after all updates were installed and a reboot was performed.

Memory (RAM) usage change after updates

The net growth or decline in RAM usage after applying all of the updates.

Install size after updates

The hard drive space used by the distribution after applying all of the updates.

Conclusion

As before I’m going to leave you to drawing your own conclusions.

It’s that time again. Like before I’ve decided to re-run my previous tests this time using the following distributions:

• Debian 6.0 (GNOME)
• Kubuntu 11.10 (KDE)
• Linux Mint 12 (GNOME)
• Linux Mint 201109 LXDE (GNOME)
• Mandriva 2011 (KDE)
• OpenSUSE 12.1 (GNOME)
• OpenSUSE 12.1 (KDE)
• Sabayon 8 (GNOME)
• Sabayon 8 (KDE)
• Sabayon 8 (Xfce)
• Ubuntu 11.10 (Unity)
• Ubuntu 12.04 Beta 2 (Unity)
• Xubuntu 11.10 (Xfce)

I will be testing all of this within VirtualBox on ‘machines’ with the following specifications:

• Total RAM: 512MB
• Hard drive: 8GB
• CPU type: x86 with PAE/NX
• Graphics: 3D Acceleration enabled

The tests were all done using VirtualBox 4.1.0 on Windows 7, and I did not install VirtualBox tools (although some distributions may have shipped with them). I also left the screen resolution at the default (whatever the distribution chose) and accepted the installation defaults. All tests were run between April 2nd, 2012 and April 9th, 2012 so your results may not be identical.

Results

Following in the tradition of my previous posts I have once again gone through the effort to bring you nothing but the most state of the art in picture graphs for your enjoyment.

Things to know before looking at the graphs

First off if your distribution of choice didn’t appear in the list above its probably not reasonably possible to installed (i.e. Fedora 16 which requires 768MB of RAM) or I didn’t feel it was mainstream enough (pretty much anything with LXDE). Secondly there may be some distributions that don’t appear on all of the graphs, for example Mandriva. In the case of Mandriva the distribution would not allow me to successfully install the updates and so I only have its first boot RAM usage available. Finally when I tested Debian I was unable to test before / after applying updates because it seemed to have applied the updates during install. As always feel free to run your own tests.

First boot memory (RAM) usage

This test was measured on the first startup after finishing a fresh install.

Memory (RAM) usage after updates

This test was performed after all updates were installed and a reboot was performed.

Memory (RAM) usage change after updates

The net growth or decline in RAM usage after applying all of the updates.

Install size after updates

The hard drive space used by the distribution after applying all of the updates.

Conclusion

As before I’m going to leave you to drawing your own conclusions.

Like most people, I use my computer for multimedia. Recently I’ve discovered a multi-platform program called Veetle. It’s a pretty good program, but I ran into an issue after having installed it on my system (currently running Linux Mint 11): while I was using it to stream video, my computer basically locked up – every running process continued working, but I had no control over it. Since I was watching a full-screen video, this was pretty unfortunate. After all, it often helps to be able to maneuver your windows when you’re in a bind. I also immediately noticed that I lost all sound control on my keyboard. I rebooted my computer, but when I tried to log in, I got an error telling me that my computer could not update /home/user/.ICEauthority, followed by another error message, which I’m assuming was related but of less importance.

I actually into this exact problem before on an older machine, but before I had the chance to investigate, the hard disk died (for unrelated reasons). Luckily, I recognized the error on my newer machine and put two and two together: both failures coincided with the installation of Veetle. Now, because I’m a nerd, I have two functioning and constantly active computers right next to each other, for just such an occasion! It may also be related to the fact that websites that stream media tend to be a bit iffy so I feel more secure not using my Windows machine while exploring them, but enough about that! I Googled (or Binged, assuming “Bong” or “Bung” isn’t the past tense) a solution.

The solution

As it turns out, other people have run into this same problem, and it’s been covered on the Ubuntu forums and elsewhere. Basically, I ran the Veetle script as root (D’oh!), and this royally boned everything. This post by mjcritchie at the ubuntu Forums (which follows the advice of tommcd at LinuxQuestions.org) explained what to do:

I have had the same problem twice, both times after updating (currently running 64bit Karmic).

Tried various solutions on the net, but this is the only one that worked for me:

Open a terminal and run:

Quote:

sudo chown -R user:user /home/user/.*

Where user is your user_name. This should change ownership of all the hidden files and directories in your home directory to: user:user, as they should be.

This comes courtesy of tommcd over at this post on LinuxQuestions.org

So there you have it. My machine currently works, and now I can get back to streaming media. At least until the next time I get too adventurous when installing things.

Once again I’ve decided to re-run my previous tests this time using the following distributions:

• Debian 6.0.2 (GNOME)
• Fedora 15 (GNOME 3 Fallback Mode)
• Fedora 15 (KDE)
• Kubuntu 11.04 (KDE)
• Linux Mint 11 (GNOME)
• Linux Mint 10 (KDE)
• Linux Mint 10 (LXDE)
• Linux Mint 11 (Xfce)
• Lubuntu 11.04 (LXDE)
• Mandriva One (GNOME)
• Mandriva One (KDE)
• OpenSUSE 11.4 (GNOME)
• OpenSUSE 11.4 (KDE)
• Ubuntu 11.04 (GNOME Unity Fallback Mode)
• Xubuntu 11.04 (Xfce)

I will be testing all of this within VirtualBox on ‘machines’ with the following specifications:

• Total RAM: 512MB
• Hard drive: 8GB
• CPU type: x86

The tests were all done using VirtualBox 4.0.6 on Linux Mint 11, and I did not install VirtualBox tools (although some distributions may have shipped with them). I also left the screen resolution at the default 800×600 and accepted the installation defaults. All tests were run on August 14th, 2011 so your results may not be identical.

Results

Following in the tradition of my previous posts I have once again gone through the effort to bring you nothing but the most state of the art in picture graphs for your enjoyment.

Things to know before looking at the graphs

First off none of the Fedora 15 versions would install in 512MB of RAM. They both required a minimum of 640MB and therefore are disqualified from this little experiment. I did however run them in VirtualBox with 640MB of RAM just for comparison purposes. Secondly the Linux Mint 10 KDE distro would not even install in either 512MB or 640MB of RAM, the installer just kept crashing. I was unable to actually get it to work so it was not included in these tests. Finally when I tested Debian I was unable to test before / after applying updates because it seemed to have applied the updates during install.

First boot memory (RAM) usage

This test was measured on the first startup after finishing a fresh install.

Memory (RAM) usage after updates

This test was performed after all updates were installed and a reboot was performed.

Memory (RAM) usage change after updates

The net growth or decline in RAM usage after applying all of the updates.

Install size after updates

The hard drive space used by the distribution after applying all of the updates.

Conclusion

As before I’m going to leave you to drawing your own conclusions.

Well it’s been an interesting week. I’ve gotten to try out three new distributions and share my thoughts with everyone here. My original goal was to see which one of these distributions offered the best first impression and declare that one as the ‘winner’. However in actually working my way through these great releases I have changed my mind somewhat.

What makes a great distribution great?

This is a very interesting question that I’m sure would generate a wide array of unique and passionate responses. Some prefer ease of use, while others demand nothing less than complete control over what they can tweak. There are people who swear by using nothing but open source solutions, while others are happy to add proprietary code into the mix as well. This is the great thing about Linux, we get so many choices which means we get to decided what we want.

Unfortunately this has also resulted in a bit of distribution zealotry; like choosing Ubuntu over Fedora, or Arch over OpenSUSE is somehow taking a side in some giant war. Instead of all of the infighting we should be celebrating the fact that when Ubuntu comes out with a new piece of user-friendly software, or Fedora introduces a new awesome technology, we can share and integrate it right into all distributions.

So what makes a great distribution great? A distribution is great because it works for you, it suites your needs, fits your personality and lets you do what you want to do. At the end of the day isn’t that what open source is about?

Final thoughts

OK enough of the preachy writing. I think that all of the distributions I have tested this week were very good. They each embody the spirit of open source in their own little ways.

Kubuntu 10.10

Awards: The most improved release. Most likely to recover lost KDE fans.

I was extremely impressed with this release. The folks over at the Kubuntu project deserve a huge round of applause for their continued work on this often forgotten Ubuntu sibling. This release is unlike any other that I’ve tried from Kubuntu, and I hope it marks a turning point in the distribution’s history. If the next release sees anywhere close to the improvement that this release did it may even unseat Ubuntu as the go to Linux release. If you haven’t tried out this release I urge you to give it a shot.

Ubuntu 10.0

Awards: The most refined. Most likely to be installed on a new Linux user’s computer.

Ubuntu makes a return from its last long-term support (LTS) release with this stellar offering. For a release that is meant to experiment with changes, which might eventually be incorporated into a future LTS release, this version feels as polished as ever. The new theme, font, store and integration features make this an absolutely solid release. If you’re an Ubuntu user I’m sure you have already upgraded. If you develop for a different distribution, this might still be worth looking into if only to steal the good parts for your release of choice. Either way I think this release of Ubuntu marks a whole new level of application integration on the Linux desktop and I am excited to see where they go next with it.

Linux Mint Debian Edition

Awards: The most advanced. Most likely to see the fastest improvement.

For people who have been using Debian for a while now this release will feel right at home. It combines the best parts of Debian testing, modern software, stability and thousands of packages, with the Linux Mint team’s renown ability to iron out the kinks in any Linux distribution. I think that this release will see so much improvement in the next couple of months that it has the potential to steal users away from other rolling release distributions with its easy to use desktop. While this current iteration does have some issues I hardly think that they are anything to run away from. For technical users looking for the newest stuff, while hoping avoiding the vast majority of headaches other distributions can cause, this one is for you.

My Choice

For me personally I have been very happy with Linux Mint 9 and look forward to version 10 when it ships later this year. Until then however I think I will be sticking with the one that most closely resembles my current set up. No not Linux Mint Debian Edition, but Ubuntu 10.10. That being said I do look forward to giving Fedora 14 and Linux Mint 10 a ride soon.

To round out the week I installed the newly released Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE). Like the other posts I have made I will walk you through my first impressions as well as the general overall feel of the distribution.

Install

LMDE’s install is something quite different from the experiences I had with Ubuntu 10.10 and Kubuntu 10.10. While it is still a very polished installer (complete with a single slide slide-show even!) it does lack a couple of features that make it far less user friendly. Where the other installers basically held your hand in every way, LMDE requires at least some technical understanding in order to complete. For instance there is no friendly auto-partition step, instead LMDE leaves the user to do it manually with GParted. While hardly the end of the world it is enough of a challenge that you could no longer just hand this disc to your non-technical friend and let them have at it. However once that step is complete the installer is very straight forward and rips through the installation in a matter of minutes.

First boot and drivers (oh my!)

I have to say that my first impression of LMDE was a mixed one. On one hand it spewed text everywhere as it booted, which I assume came from its Debian heritage. On the other hand the boot was ridiculously fast. I know it’s been one of Canonical’s goals to make Ubuntu the fastest booting Linux distribution but I have to say that a stock install of LMDE (and maybe even Debian Testing) will easily give that claim a run for its money.

Once at my desktop I was presented with a very familiar Linux Mint set up. If you were to place this desktop next to Linux Mint’s Ubuntu derivative (Linux Mint 9 for instance) I would be very hard pressed to spot any differences.

Unfortunately one thing that was glaringly missing was the lack of the Ubuntu automatic driver detection and install system jockey. Without jockey I had to resort to Fedora-esque measures in order to install the correct driver which is necessary for correct display and power management on my laptop. For reference here are the steps I took in order to install the proprietary ATI driver and setup my X configuration:

1) Run the following command in order to make sure you have the most recent package list

$ sudo apt-get update

2) You may want to now install all available updates so that we start with the most recent kernel

$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

3) Install the kernel headers so that we can configure it to work with the ATI driver

$ sudo apt-get install linux-headers-2.6-$(uname -r | sed ‘s,.*-,,’)

4) Install the ATI driver and control panel

$ sudo apt-get install fglrx-control fglrx-driver

5) From there just follow the instructions on my post here in order to generate the new X configuration file and maybe even fix your vsync issues at the same time.

I have read that jockey is currently being ported and will appear in the LMDE repositories so hopefully this small issue will be solved quickly.

Rolling release = LOTS OF UPDATES

One of LMDE’s big selling points is that it is a rolling release, which means that you will continue to get new packages and updates on your system without having to reinstall at 6 month intervals like some other distributions. Strangely though LMDE does not ship with update checking enabled which I found kind of weird. A quick forced check later and I discovered why the team may have made that choice

That’s right, almost 500 updates… Almost every package on my newly installed machine had to be replaced updated. This is definitely a release for people looking for the newest software but could easily lead to update fatigue for everyone else.

32-bit working system vs PAE kernel broken system

One of the unfortunate things about this release is that it only comes in a 32-bit version. As I run a 64-bit processor with 4GB of RAM it irks me to know that I am not using the full potential of my system. I starting looking into Physical Address Extension (PAE) kernels as a solution to this problem. PAE kernels, for those who don’t know, use a system of memory indirection in order to allow a 32-bit processor access to more than 4GB of mappable memory. In the case of Linux the PAE kernel can map up to 64GB of RAM.

After a bit of googling I stumbled upon instructions to install a PAE kernel by simply installing the linux-image-686-bigmem meta-package. Unfortunately this quick fix, as most often is the case, didn’t exactly turn out well and actually broke my GDM system. Without GDM I was unable to log into my desktop and this experiment came to an end. In the interest of time I decided to just reinstall instead of trying to troubleshoot how to fix what I had inadvertently broken.

Software selection

The software selection in LMDE is impressive and in many ways is what Ubuntu’s used to be. Here you will find (pre-installed) Flash, the Java and Mono runtimes, an MP3 codec and even the Gimp. Everything, like the other Linux Mint releases, is designed to make it so that the user does not have to search for solutions to missing functionality.

Because this is a rolling release it doesn’t really make sense for me to review the included software as much as it does to just mention it. For web browsing LMDE, like Ubuntu, ships with Firefox. To send and receive e-mail it calls upon Firefox’s cousin Thunderbird. Instant messaging is handled by Pidgin and your music collection is controlled by Rhythmbox. F-Spot remains as the photo manager, unlike Ubuntu which replaced it with Shotwell, while Gwibber and Totem round out the release.

Conclusion

Currently Linux Mint Debian Edition is somewhat of an enthusiast’s release. It has the potential to be a great rolling release but it’s pretty obvious that right now it needs some work to get there. For instance, why when I updated my software, did my GDM background change to a Debian one? The team over at Linux Mint knows how to polish a distribution and so I’m confident that they will do the same for Debian Edition.

Pros:

• Rolling release which means you always have the most recent software
• Still has that Linux Mint charm to it

Cons:

• The distribution still needs a bit of polish before I could see myself recommending it to all but seasoned Linux users
• Being a rolling release might result in update fatigue

With the recent releases of Linux Mint Debian Edition, Ubuntu and Kubuntu 10.10 I am once again starting to feel that need to hop around and try something new out. That’s not to say that my current distribution of choice (Linux Mint 9) is a bad one, quite the opposite in fact. I am however curious to see what these new releases do, well, new. That being said I’ve set myself up a little experiment of sorts: try each distribution for two days each and on the 7th day choose the best from among the three. Now obviously this isn’t a very fair test, 48 hours is hardly enough to definitely test which of these distributions is truly the best. What it will, hopefully, show though is which distribution gives off the best first impression.

So buckle up and stay tuned, this week should hopefully be an interesting one.