Linux Mint’s greatest stregnth is its aesthetically coherent GUI whose layout makes it ideal for those who find themselves arriving from a Windows environment. Mint was the distribution on which I first rode into desktop Linux full time, and had been my first choice for no-nonsense deployments to new devices. Especially to those of relatives who had solicited me for guidance. But this usually hassle-free distribution has lately found itself the source of some support woes.
Linux Mint is a downstream distribution. Far downstream. For those who might not know, it is based on Ubuntu, which is in turn based on Debian Testing. The Mint team are very good at keeping their distro highly cohesive and well dressed, but recently I’ve hit enough minor headaches with it to justify dumping the middlemen to just go straight to the source to dress things up myself. After all, my choice to deploy Linux Mint to the devices of interested relatives was primarily driven by the graphical interface.
Install the Debian metapackage cinnamon-core.
Acquire and install the core theming packages from packages.linuxmint.com:
dpkg --install mint-themes mint-backgrounds mint-x-icons mint-y-icons
Set system fonts to:
gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.interface font-name 'Liberation Sans 9'
gsettings set org.nemo.desktop font 'Noto Sans 10'
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface document-font-name 'Cantarell 11'
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface monospace-font-name 'Monospace 11'
gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.wm.preferences titlebar-font 'Sans Bold 10'
(I might need to double check some of these, at least the title bar font is accurate to Mint)
Set Mint backgrounds on a rotating timer.
Set matching Mint-X or Mint-Y icons and applications themes.
The second reason that I used to recommend Mint was for its set-and-forget automatic updating. And while mintupdate is a well designed GUI program, I’ve found that almost nobody ever touched it or even knew it was there. So why bother making the automatic update process user facing? Debian’s unattended-upgrades package is thus far better suited to task.
apt install unattended-upgrades
dpkg-reconfigure unattended-upgrades
Configure /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades to automatically reboot following upgrades which necessitate it, such as Linux kernel upgrades, by uncommenting:
Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot "true";
And enable additional repositories besides just Debian-security:
"origin=Debian,codename=${distro_codename}-updates";
// "origin=Debian,codename=${distro_codename}-proposed-updates";
"origin=Debian,codename=${distro_codename},label=Debian";
"origin=Debian,codename=${distro_codename},label=Debian-Security";
"origin=Debian,codename=${distro_codename}-security,label=Debian-Security";
Consider removing gnome-software and replacing it with synaptic.
Configure automatic passwordless login for lightdm at /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf:
[SeatDefaults]
user-session=cinnamon
autologin-guest=false
autologin-user=$USER
autologin-user-timeout=0
I was amazed at just how much of the signature Linux Mint behavior actually just comes from Cinnamon themes. I have long thought that the Mint team should retire the Ubuntu based Linux Mint and replace it with Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE). But now seeing the straightforwardness of making a mock Linux Mint setup, even LMDE seems unnecessarily reinventing the wheel.
And by configuring on top of stock Debian, we also get the benefits of;
culminating in a much simpler system to support at a distance.
The last and final reason that I once held on to Mint was for devices which, due to facilities limitations, could only communicate over wireless during installation. And, now that Debian includes requisite device firmware in the installation media (for better or for worse), Mint has been dethroned as my “boot anywhere” flash drive maintenance distro of choice. It looks like I can finally completely part ways with Linux Mint.