The second distro of my testing marathon is LMDE -- Linux Mint Debian Edition.
Installation
For installation I've used the linuxmint-debian-201012-gnome-dvd-amd64.iso image. Booting in Live mode took a while longer than Fedora 15 or Mandriva 2010.1. After the boot process was complete I was welcomed by a polished and fancy looking Gnome 2. A few moments later I've started the installation process. It was even simpler than on Fedora 15 or Mandriva. Still, simple doesn't necessarily mean good. The partitioning part was a bit confusing but it went well after all. After a few more clicks the installation was under way.
Configuration
After the reboot I've noticed that the Grub menu wasn't so pretty but it doesn't matter much anyway. The system booted-up very quickly, I think even quicker than Fedora or Mandriva and once again I was in Gnome land.
Well, I almost was, because the desktop didn't loaded completely and I was bombarded with a plethora of errors which complained about not being able to write things from the /home partition. What I was afraid happened, the UID/GUID of the user changed (1000 instead of 500). So, I had to change them manually in /etc/passwd and /etc/group.
After the reboot and when the desktop finally loaded completely the first thing I've noticed was the menu, a pretty interesting arrangement which gives the user a nice and quick access to apps and places.
The next thing I did was to check the repo settings and update the system. Here things weren't so smooth, after the Package Manager showed up I've tried to select all the installed(upgradeable) packages and update them but I had some conflicts with with the flash-player and mint-meta-debian packages. I've deselected them and upgraded the rest. After that I've noticed that I still had a old kernel (2.6.32.x) so I've fired up a terminal and did a apt-get upgrade which gave me the latest and greatest software. Still there were some problems upon the completion of the process which necessitated a dpk –configure -a.
After the whole upgrade process was finished I rebooted the system. But, wait, something was stuck somewhere, I think kexec and the reboot hanged. I have to test again if it still happens and I'll try to fix it. A Google search gave me some answers on the matter and some things to think about (43 pages of breakages) on the LMDE forum.
I've managed to install the Nvidia driver fairly quick compared to Fedora 15. I've stopped gdm3, started the installation, the driver complained about nouveau but helped me with the blacklist and 3 minutes later I had the new driver installed and running perfectly.
Some nice things I've noticed were that I already had VLC and Mplayer installed and good to go. Same goes with the LibreOffice suite which was already there.
Feel
I like the looks of LMDE, that was one of the reasons I wanted to test this distro in the first place. The menu is very good both aesthetically and ergonomically.
One thing I find a bit annoying are the fonts, a bit bulky and the hinting is weird. I've tried to tweak the settings but I haven't found yet a good config for my taste.
I've also noticed that Nautilus has the same behavior here as on Gnome 3, it doesn't remember the Extra pane that I want.
Conclusions
After the first day I can say that LMDE is nice but not as nice as Fedora! My first impression is that Fedora was somehow more ordered, LMDE feels like a blend of two things which has it's rough edges. Still, I like to know it better and maybe I'll get a better view of things.
Fedora testing days : http://mandrivausers.ro/node/6702
