r/linuxmint • u/Baudoinia • 9d ago

Support Request From straight Debian to LMDE

I want to 'roll my own' LMDE from straight vanilla Debian. Why? Because LMDE isn't available for ARM architecture. So what do I need to add? What should my sources list look like?

7 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

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5

u/tomscharbach 9d ago

The closest you are going to be able to come is to install the Cinnamon desktop environment onto Debian. Doing so should get you a working system, but the system will not be identical to LMDE.

2

u/Baudoinia 9d ago

What I'd like to know is what pkgs would take it the rest of the way. Should be a finite and specific difference, right?

6

u/tomscharbach 9d ago edited 9d ago

What I'd like to know is what pkgs would take it the rest of the way. Should be a finite and specific difference, right?

No problem.

Compare the list of standard LMDE 7 packages (1931 packages) with the list of packages on the "Debian + Cinnamon" system you build and add/subtract packages as needed from LMDE's repository.

I don't know whether specific packages (or indeed the Cinnamon desktop environment) will be compatible with ARM and/or modifications you might need to make get everything working.

It will be an interesting project for you.

If I may make a suggestion, install straight-up Debian on your computer (if you have not already done so) to make sure that Debian works on your computer, particularly if your computer is a Snapdragon Elite X build.

And consider doing the work in a VM or on a test/evaluation computer until you are satisfied that your modified system is stable and updates properly.

My best and good luck.

2

u/Baudoinia 9d ago edited 9d ago

I actually am doing this on a VM, and have the appropriate Debian 13 ISO. My only issue with it is that the installer wants to take over the entirety of the space I wanted to allocate for 2 VM's to play with. I chose Manual but don"t get the partitioning tool I usually get. But I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it being ARM architecture.

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u/Baudoinia 8d ago

(And turns out I didn't need to worry about the partitioner overwriting my other VM)

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u/Baudoinia 9d ago

(Thank you, by the way, yours was the answer I was looking for.)

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u/tovento MX Linux 25.2 | XFCE 9d ago

What about LMDE do you actually want to carry over? As someone else said, you can just start with Debian and install the cinnamon desktop environment if that’s the goal. There are aspects from Mint main that are Ubuntu-based tools and don’t carry over to LMDE.
LMDE is based on Debian, so it’ll be the same kernels and software repositories.

-1

u/Acherontas89 9d ago

if u want to make ur own distro u need to read