Currently I’m using Linux Mint. Hardware support is really nice, nothing to remark on that. Also, the support for .deb files is really great.
However, there’s a HUGE problem regarding the repositories… they are old. By default Linux Mint installs LibreOffice, however it’s a version from 4 years ago and, to be frank, I’m running into bugs which are bound to be fixed by now.
More recently I wanted to take a look at neovim. But for a particular version of a script I wanted, I needed nvim 0.9, in the repositories 0.6 was available, and in later repositories 0.7.something was available.
That simply doesn’t cut it for me.
Now, regarding neovim, I’ve gotten the appimage. However, regarding LibreOffice I don’t know what to do.
So, I’ve been looking at Solus, but that distribution hasn’t got .deb support. Is there a rolling release distribution, from which I can expect stability AND .deb support?
There are some packages which I like to install from the backports, Libreoffice is among them.
It may not be the most up to date, but definitely not from 4 years ago.
I use linux mint both lmde and mate, but the repositories are the same as best i can tell, so going to a rolling release will not help.
Normally just doing a system update gets the latest version but it does depend on the software house updating into the repository, I am not sure who is responsible for doing that. Advantage of the repository is the security of the software, you know its going to work and be virus or similar free. I always recommended that path.
But if you want a update
How to Upgrade LibreOffice:
Open the Terminal (Shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + T)
Type the following command to add the PPA: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
Type the following command: sudo apt-get update
Press Enter or Return and type in your password
Press Enter when prompted
Type the following command: sudo apt-get upgrade
Type Y and press Enter or Return
After a few minutes your LibreOffice will be upgraded to the newest stable version. It will contain the newest features and improvements.
This is a safer way to get the correct version for debian based linux
MX is semi-rolling… ie it rolls until there is a major release. Rolling updates are more than just security fixes, they actually update packages, including the kernel.
You can use .deb packages in Void, because there is a .deb to xbps translator. xbps is the Void package format. Void is fully rolling. Most of the things you would want from Debian are available in the Void repo anyway, and are fully up to date.
Well, I’m looking for something more end-user desktop. Kind of like install and ready to go.
So, about MX… if it rolls until there is a major release, is it easy to upgrade between major releases? I’m looking at an ease of upgrading like Linux Mint, where you just click in the update manager and your computer automatically performs the upgrade to the next major release, or is it more involved?
It has a facility, but I can not vouch for it because I did my
upgrade by installing the new release alongside the old, and reinstalling packages and migrating data…
MX is certainly like that. Void is not.
You can use Debian sid. That is about the same as a rolling release. Not sure how up to date its versions are.
There is / was a rolling version of Ubuntu.
I think it is called Rhino?
OpenSUSE has a rolling release. That is rpm not deb.
Yes, I tried tumbleweed. Yast is waaaaaaaaay too fine-grained for my tastes. Besides, I had some horrible experiences with the rpm format which give me nightmares to this day. Granted, it’s a looooooong time ago, still those experiences taught me to avoid rpm like the plague.
From what I got from youtube (yes, I know) MX doesn’t offer an upgrade path when a new release is done, instead you’ll need to do an offline upgrade, with which I’m not ok.
I have both Linux Mint and MX installed on my desktop. If for some reason Mint was no longer available MX would be the distro I would use.
MX is more up-to-date then Mint. Mint is still on kernel 5.15 where as MX is on kernel 6.1 with options to even install a more recent kernel.
Updating MX is different from Mint, but not a problem. Both distros will work “out of the box”.
No, they dont do it that way. They have some tool that automatically determines all the packages you need to reinstall … so you do the new install then use the tool to recover your personal packages. Dont know what happens with configs? Maybe it preserves /etc?
They have common pakcages, but LMDE is strictly based on Debian and does not use packages from Ubuntu repos. On the other hand, the Ubuntu based Mint (with whihever DE) uses Ubuntu repos.
AFAIK LMDE has Debian backport repos enabled by default.
If @xahodo is well familiar with the Ubuntu based Liux Mint, first I’d recommend to try LMDE, and install Libreoffice from the backports repo.
Something like
My lmde version of libreoffice from installation is the same version as mate libreoffice from the install of about 3 months back with updates performed as normal not using apt get updates.
