Linux Mint Debian Edition 5 is now available

Linux Mint Debian Edition 5 (LMDB) is now available. The Linux Mint team has released the new version of the distribution after months of public testing.

Linux Mint Debian Edition is an alternative option for the entire project. Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu by default and the latest Ubuntu version release dates back to January 2022. The team released Linux Mint 20.3 to the public in January 2022. The three versions of Linux Mint: Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce . they were released with Linux kernel 5.4 and an Ubuntu 20.04 base package.

The new version introduced improvements across the board, including a new Thingy document manager, search functionality in the Sticky Notes app, an updated look and feel, and more.

The main purpose of Linux Mint Debian Edition is to ensure that Linux Mint remains available if something happens to Ubuntu. While that seems unlikely, the team wants to be prepared for all eventualities. Linux Mint Debian Edition is that backup. The team is aiming for feature parity with Ubuntu-based versions of Linux Mint.

LMDE is a Linux Mint project which stands for “Linux Mint Debian Edition”. Its goal is to ensure that Linux Mint can continue to provide the same user experience and how much work it would entail if Ubuntu ever disappeared. LMDE is also one of our development goals, to ensure that the software we develop is compatible outside of Ubuntu.
LMDE aims to be as similar as possible to Linux Mint, but without using Ubuntu. Instead, Debian provides the base package.

The blog post on the Linux Mint website lists download links for 64-bit and 32-bit ISO images. Systems running LMDE 5 Beta can be upgraded to the final version as follows:

apt install network-manager-config-connectivity-debian plymouth-label pipewire plocate
apt remove mlocate brltty
sudo updatedb

Upgrade instructions for upgrading older versions of LMDE will be posted later, as the team is working on improving the upgrade tool used by both Linux Mint and LMDE. Linux Mint users cannot update their systems to use LMDE instead. A fresh install is required to do that.

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The Release Notes list known issues only at the time of writing, but the new version should match the features that Linux Mint 20.3 supports or introduces. The new version uses Debian GNU/Linux 11.2 as the base package and the Linux 5.10 LTS kernel.

Now you: do you use Linux Mint? If so, what version and flavor, and why?

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