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It seems Linux Mint is dropping GNU coreutils in favor of rust-coreutils following Ubuntu.
(blog.linuxmint.com)
this post was submitted on 01 May 2026
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There is the Mint version that is based directly on Debian, instead of Ubuntu: LMDE
I haven't used it myself, maybe someone with actual experience can comment on it.
I wonder why they make both Ubuntu and separate Debian based Mint. That duplicates the work.
I would probably jump from ubuntu to mint if they drop ubunutu in favor of debian. But then, debian itself is a perfectly fine distro and i could also use it directly.
Too much choice.
LMDE exists as the DR plan for if Ubuntu loses the plot again and Mint can no longer rely on Ubuntu as the upstream. Yes it does create extra work, which is one of the reasons why LMDE releases tend to lag behind the primary Mint Cinnamon, but it's worth it from the Mint perspective to have an alternative route immediately to hand.
Yes, I understand this point. LMDE is the backup plan, but is it actually inferior to regular Mint based on Ubuntu? If not LMDE could be default Mint.
It can be considered slightly inferior depending on your viewpoint. Debian tends to have older versions of software components than Ubuntu, and there's some Ubuntu tools that are quite handy (the graphics driver management tool is one I believe).
So, in my understanding there are good reasons they don't just pivot to Debian. I am not on the Mint team so you'd have to talk to them, but my recollection of a press realease or interview from a few years ago was that bringing all the ubuntu stuff into LMDE and maintaining it would be a massive effort