The Linux Mint project has announced the availability of LMDE 5 codenamed Elsie. It aims to offer the same functionality as Linux Mint 20.3 but it’s built on top of Debian rather than Ubuntu. While you can use LMDE 5 if you like, the primary purpose of the project is to ensure the continuation of the Linux Mint project if anything should ever happen to Ubuntu in the future.
On previous versions of LMDE, support for Wi-Fi drivers was a little hit or miss but LMDE 5 seems to have addressed this issue and now all cards that work in the standard Linux Mint should work in LMDE too. If you want to see what issues there are in LMDE 5, be sure to check the release notes, one notable point on there is that the installer won’t work properly if you’re using a multiboot tool like Yumi or Ventoy so write the image directly to a USB device then install it.
The team has not published upgrade instructions yet but you should be on the lookout for these if you’re currently running LMDE 4. If LMDE 4 is treated the same way as LMDE 3, it will be retired and stop receiving updates in just a couple of months. If you prefer an installation to be in place for more like five years, and not two, you’re probably best off switching to the main Linux Mint distribution.
To find out more and to download LMDE 5, head over to the Linux Mint website and choose where you want to download the ISO from, getting it from a torrent will likely be the quickest and it saves you time as you won’t have to manually verify the image.