Yeah, I haven't looked at what backports has in it right now, but that's certainly a thought. I was thinking Mint might be a "first line" against any breaks that might show up in unstable, but it seems many people are very happy with unstable. I sure don't mind spending a few hours every couple years fixing some breakage - it's worth it for keeping updated. Totally agree about Ubuntu - serious bloat. I'm back in Debian stable right now, and it's incredibly more agile on the same hardware. There's not a thing I miss about Unity, either. Mint, BTW, couldn't install on an LVM/raid setup. Thanks icebraining....