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Not long ago, I was told this by someone with 2k reputation (don't want to say who):

 Linux Mint is off-topic on this site (as it's not Ubuntu nor an official flavor)

Why is Linux Mint not an official flavor of Ubuntu? It is very similar to it, with the exception of not using the Unity desktop by default.

Zackary
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  • Related official links: https://www.ubuntu.com/download/flavours and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DerivativeTeam/Derivatives – Byte Commander Apr 10 '18 at 21:46
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    Because people who made Mint one day decided "We're gonna make version that suits our needs". Canonical, company behind Ubuntu has no interest in supporting Mint. – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy Apr 10 '18 at 22:17
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    As aside, Mint is also off-topic exactly because Mint is being a distro, comes with its own set of packages and maintainer of that can decide what they do with distro at 3 am in the morning. Canonical only cares about Ubuntu, and this site being Ubuntu-related, will support only what deal with Ubuntu – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy Apr 10 '18 at 22:19

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To start off with, you might want to look at https://www.ubuntu.com/download/flavours and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DerivativeTeam/Derivatives to see that Linux Mint really is not a official Ubuntu flavor.

However, the underlying reason is that while Linux Mint's codebase is Ubuntu, it does not use the Ubuntu repositories. The Linux Mint team changes software as they see fit. In the same way that Ubuntu uses Debian as its codebase, but Ubuntu isn't a flavor of Debian, Linux Mint isn't a flavor of Ubuntu.

Linux Mint has no Ubuntu branding or affiliation (other than using the codebase) with Ubuntu.

While it is similar, if you look at the nitty-gritty of the repositories, you will find that Linux Mint is very different to Ubuntu.

fosslinux
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