This was bugging me for really long time, but I was quite ashamed to ask, as this looks like most basic question about Linux.Linux Mint builds on top of Ubuntu and Ubuntu on top of Debian (I know that there is LMDE but I am intentionally skipping it).If someone will create a program for Debian (that can be installed with .deb for simplicity) then it can be run on Ubuntu as well as Mint.(I am making general assumption here - ex. I had troubles installing Intel drivers on Mint, as they where intended for Ubuntu)Now, Ubuntu has some stuff, that Debian does not have BY DEFAULT (but probably can have by manual install, but that's not the point) like software-center, and Mint has stuff that Debian and Ubuntu does not have like mintupload mint-whatever.Again, I know that they can be (probably) installed on Debian too, but I am talking about default repositories only.So, it would be reasonable, if Mint would have more packages in default repo than Ubuntu, and Ubuntu than Debian, right?However, wikipedia says its not.More, wikipedia says, that in terms of number of packages: Debian > Ubuntu > Linux Mint.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Linux_distributions#Package_management_and_installationAm I missing something?At first, I thought, that that can be own packages, so Ubuntu would have number of packages equal to itself plus Debian's, but that would mean, that Ubuntu has nearly double (and Mint triple) more packages than Debian, so this looks strange too.If Ubuntu builds on Debian, then Ubuntu will always have older packages than Debian, right?The whole point of this question is to figure out a way, to have access to possibly widest (in terms of quantity) amount of packages, however in same time to possibly newest (in terms of version of software).If I am not mistaken (very much) then adding all 3 repos (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint) with their newest versions would be quite redundant and could cause problems with dependencies, right?Does Linux Mint's repository contain everything, that can be found in Ubuntu's (or at least 95%) and same for Debian/Ubuntu?If (5) is true, then why would anyone use Debian or Ubuntu? (stability could be achieved by using older versions of OS)
Repositories of Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Debian
linux;debian;ubuntu;linux mint;deb