Installing LMDE 6

ernie · October 4, 2023, 9:32pm

If you are switching from Windows (or any other OS/distribution) to LMDE 6 and you have data/files you want to keep, copy them to an external drive/USB stick before installing a new OS. I recommend taking this step even if you are going to dual-boot Windows with LMDE 6 (or any other OS), just in case something goes wrong along the way.

I installed LMDE6 on my older laptop PC (a Dell Inspiron 5555 with Secure Boot enabled) and the installation came off without a hitch. I like the new release, and it runs very well on my aged laptop, but after using it for a day, I decided to return to running Solus 4.4 with the KDE Plasma desktop environment on it, even though its slower, because I simply like it better, but that’s just me :).

I already have Ventoy installed on a USB stick so getting the live image ready for use was a simple copy and paste operation. You can get Ventoy and learn how to install it on a USB stick from their website at Ventoy.

When I booted the computer from the Ventoy USB stick, selecting the LMDE6 image, I directed Ventoy to boot in normal mode, and the live image booted successfully with Secure Boot enabled.

Note: to get screen images I installed LMDE 6 in a Virtual Box VM. This will not be a true step-by-step guide. Instead, it will show you the screens I encountered while installing it to a VM, taking all the steps I could to show you as many possibilities as I can. The installer is very well organized, and thought out. Read every screen carefully while running the installer rather than trying to follow my steps here:

In Virtual Box, after starting the VM, you will be greeted with the live images GRUB boot menu:

‘Start LMDE 6 64-bit’ will be selected by default. Unless you need Compatibility mode, press the ENTER key to continue booting the live image. When the image finishes booting up you will be greeted with the LMDE 6 desktop:

Next, I started the installer:

and clicked “Lets go”:

My language (English) was correctly detected so all I had to do was click the ‘Next’ button to continue:

My time zone was also correctly detected so I clicked the ‘Next’ button to continue:

The keyboard layout was also correctly detected (is this getting boring yet ? ) so, you guessed it, I clicked ‘Next’:

Finally! A little something to do. Enter your (full) name, your computer’s name (I used traveler2vm for this installation), the user name you want to sign in with and a password, twice (to make sure there are no typos). Double-check your entries here, then click ‘Next’ to continue:

In this screen, choose an installation method. The default is ‘Automatic’ in which the entire drive is erased and LMDE 6 is installed as the only OS on the computer. If you want to replace Windows (or any other OS) with LMDE 6, and you have already backed up any/all data you want to keep (as I suggested above), this is the option you want. On the other hand, if you want to keep using Windows (at least for a while), select the ‘Manual Partitioning’ option.

If you want to replace Windows using the Automatic Installation option, click the ‘disk’ drop-down to select the drive you want to install LMDE 6 on, then you can click the ‘Next’ button to continue now. For the purposes of this post, I’ll choose ‘Manual Partitioning’, then click the ‘Next’ button:

Because there are no partitions present on the VHD (Virtual Hard Disk), the installer wants to know if I want it to create them for me. I’ll answer ‘No’ because all data would be destroyed in a scenario where another OS is present:

then I’ll launch GParted (a partition manager) to create my partitions for LMDE 6:

Since there is no partition table on the VHD (Virtual Hard Disk), the first step is to create one by selecting ‘Device → Create Partition Table’:

The default is to create an msdos partition table, but since this VM will support Secure Boot, I’ll click the drop-down and choose ‘gpt’, then press the ‘Apply’ button:

Now, I can create my partitions, a 500MB EFI partition, formatted with the fat32 file-system, with the boot and esp flags set, an 8GB swap partition, a 40GB system partition (for the system files), formatted with the ext4 filesystem, and the remaining space as a home partition formatted with the ext4 file-system. After defining all partitions listed above, I click the green check-mark icon in the too bar at the top of the window to write my partitions to the disk:

Next, I ALT-Click the EFI partition and choose ‘Manage Flags’. In the new dialog, check-mark the boot item (the esp item will be selected automatically).

With the EFI partition flags set correctly, click the ‘Close’ button. I have chosen to name the EFI partition esp, so I ALT+Click the EFI partition and choose Name Partition. In the dialog, I enter ‘esp’ then click the ‘OK’ button to close it. Finally, I click the green Check-mark icon in the tool bar at the top of the window to write my changes to disk. With all partitions created, configured, and written to disk, I can close GParted, returning to the installer window, then click the ‘Refresh’ button to see the new drive configuration:

The EFI and swap partitions will already have their Operating system and mount points configured so there will be nothing to do for them. ALT+Click the system partition (42GB here) and select ‘Edit’ in the context menu. In the Edit Partition dialog, Click the Mount point field’s drop-down and choose ‘/’. In the Format as field, click the drop-down and choose ‘ext4’:

Click the ‘OK’ button to close the dialog. Perform similar operations on the home partition (the only remaining one), choosing ‘/home’ and /ext4’, respectively:

Now we’re ready to click the ’Next’ button. In the Advanced options screen, the default for the ‘Install GRUB boot menu on:’ is ‘/dev/sda’. Click the drop-down and choose ‘/dev/sda1’ (the EFI partition):

Click the ‘Next’ button. In the Summary screen, review all the information to make sure it’s what you want. This is your last chance to go back and make any changes, so review everything very carefully:

When you’re satisfied, click the ‘Install’ button:

The installer will install LMDE 6 on the disk. As the installation proceeds, the installer will show several informational screens describing a few of the things your new OS can do for you, and how to get help if you need it. When the installation finishes, you can choose whether to reboot into your new OS or continue using the live image:

Most of us will want to click the ‘Yes’ button:

Before the system reboots, you will be asked to remove your USB stick (media) and press the ‘ENTER’ button to continue with the reboot. When your new system boots up for the first time, you’ll be greeted with the login screen:

Enter your password to log in. You will be greeted with the Welcome app (a local web-page):

Soon after you restart the computer, LMDE 6 will want to install updates. A shield icon will appear (half white, half shaded) in the notification area near the system clock. Click it to run the system update utility to get the latest security patches as well as the latest stable versions of all installed software.

After you update the system, click the ‘First Steps’ item in the menu at the left side of the Welcome window:

Here you can configure your system to suit your preferences. You can choose Desktop Colors, configure the systems backup program (System Snapshots), install Multimedia Codecs, run the Update Manager, Configure System Settings, Install Software (Software manager), and configure the systems Firewall.

That’s about it. If you have any questions/suggestions, please post a reply to this item’ I hope this helps anyone who wants to switch to the latest release of Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) or is curoious about it,

Ernie (Oldster)

Daniel_Phillips · October 5, 2023, 12:17am

@ernie
Looks good but the only Linux I really care about is Gentoo.

nevj · October 5, 2023, 3:23am

@Ernie,
I tried to install LMDE about 6 months ago in virt-manager (qemu/kvm). I had some trouble… cant remember the details. I should try again.

7blade · October 5, 2023, 4:03am

As usual, I’m late to the party. Hey, I’m OLD.
Is the a precursor to Mint shifting away from Ubuntu?

ernie · October 5, 2023, 4:16am

I agree. Based on what an Internet search turned up, LMDE 6 was released on September 27, 2023. It looks very much like all the previous versions, but that’s a hallmark of Mint. They tend to be very consistent, even through updates. This release is based on Debian 12 so it should feel very solid and more performant than previous versions. I’d like to hear your impressions after you check it out,

Ernie

ernie · October 5, 2023, 4:26am

That’s O.K. We all have our favorite distribution(s). I used LMDE 4, then 5 for a while. After an update, I started having a few issues I couldn’t figure out, so I looked around for a bit and switched to Fedora 37, then 38. After using that for a time, I found Solus 4.4 when I saw an item about it here on ItsFOSS and so far I think it will be my main GNU/Linux driver for the foreseeable future :).

Ernie

ernie · October 5, 2023, 4:40am

No. Linux Mint has produced LMDE (based on Debian rather than Ubuntu) for as long as I can remember. Its purpose is to have something Mint users can depend on if anything bad ever happens to Ubuntu. Their logic has always made sense to me. My first GNU/Linux distribution was Mandrake which evolved through a few mergers/iterations into Mandriva, at which point the company that developed it stopped development without much notice. A few months later, several of the original Mandrake/Mandriva development team established a community based distribution they named Mageia. It still exists today, but it hasn’t evolved in a manner that suites my preferences :).

Ernie

callpaul.eu · October 5, 2023, 5:57pm

Been using LMDE since it launched the version 5 and now 6 is even better soon as it became available and no regrets.

ernie · October 6, 2023, 6:29am

I’s available now, so you can upgrade whenever you’re ready :).

danielson · October 11, 2023, 1:51pm

Have tried practically every trick in the book at installing LMDE6 in a dual boot situation with Windows 11 and nothing works. Even a wipe over the entire disk.

Could it be creating a partition table first that would make a difference?
Never did that for other distros.

p.s. btw, have posted on LM’s forum and all the possible, plausible solutions posted there failed for me.

ernie · October 11, 2023, 3:17pm

The most common problem I’ve encountered when trying to install a distribution that supports Secure Boot in a dual-boot scenario has been with the EFI partition being too small. On a UEFI-based (Secure Boot) system, each OS must have the boot loader installed on the EFI partition. Windows creates a 100MB EFI partition by default. That’s big enough for Windows, but not for anything more (like another OS). The way I solve this issue is as follows:

Wipe the entire drive using GParted from a live distribution. I use System Rescue (https://www.system-rescue.org/) here. To boot it, you will have to disable Secure Boot. System Rescue boots to a command prompt. To get to the graphical user interface, enter ‘startx’ at the prompt then press ENTER. There is a GParted icon (hard disk image) on the panel at the bottom of the screen.
Create a 500MB partition formatted with the Fat32 filesystem. You can name it esp, and label it EFI if you want (optional).
Write your changes to disk by clicking the green check-mark icon in the tool bar near the top of the GParted window.
ALT+Click the new partition and choose “manage flags” from the context menu. Check-mark the ‘boot’ and ‘esp’ flags in the resulting dialog (Note that when you check-mark the ‘boot’ flag, the ‘esp’ flag is automatically check-marked too)
Click the green check-mark icon again to ensure all changes have been written to disk (I don’t know if this is needed, but I do it anyway).
Enable Secure Boot.
Install Windows 11 consuming the entire disk. Since the EFI partition is already created and meets all the requirements for the UEFI system, Windows will use it.
When the Windows installation is finished, install the GNU/Linux distribution of your choice. All the GNU/Linux distributions I have installed offer an option to resize the Windows partition to make room for itself.

LMDE6 has an option to resize your Windows partition to make room for itself too. Keep Secure Boot enabled. LMDE6 supports it.

I hope this helps,

Ernie

callpaul.eu · October 11, 2023, 3:18pm

Just drop windows and go with mint

danielson · October 11, 2023, 3:26pm

Sure is a tall order!

danielson · October 11, 2023, 3:27pm

Easy to say…

When you have two scanners and a few shareware that work only in Windows…

nevj · October 11, 2023, 4:02pm

There is an easy way. Buy another computer for LMDE.
A cheap refurbished desktop is fine for any Linux.

ernie · October 11, 2023, 4:36pm

@Daniel,

Doing it is easier than reading/writing it :). Whether you do as I suggest or not is up to you. There are alternatives. I was simply responding to your comment :

I should have made that more clear, sorry . . .

Ernie

danielson · October 11, 2023, 5:39pm

You’re good, no problem!

Daniel_Phillips · October 15, 2023, 12:33pm

@danielson
For myself, the easiest way to run Linux with W11 is with a VirtualBox VM, have Gentoo and Mint running in VM,s. Like you I have devices that require Windows.

davg · October 18, 2023, 10:07pm

Thanks for that. I was following it through but because ,as a Green beginner, I currently see VHD as an extra complication I’d like to know what the procedure is if I choose Automation whereas you posted thereafter for someone choosing ManualPartitioning
Can you run through some guidance on finishing with automation and getting on to the LMDE welcome screen?

I have before starting with this LMDE shift done as you sensibly suggested copied everything off the Windows set up I am then about to erase so if it all goes pear shaped with the ISO file and Ventoy I at least have my earlier Windows data/files on a separate drive as you suggested…

If I accomplish getting LMDE up and running as a replacement for Windows on one of my laptops then I’ll take some time out to learn more about why and how best to use VHD which does sound very useful.

DavG@duck.com

ernie · October 21, 2023, 4:10am

I’m sorry this took so long, but I was busy with another project. I have written another tutorial about replacing the current OS with LMDE 6. You can read it at Installing LMDE 6 - tutorial 2: Replacing Windows (or any other OS).

I hope it’s what you’re looking for,

Ernie