LTS

[#1]

Well it's done.  - mixed feelings though...
I had a licensed program, which used the MAC address of eth0 (and only eth0) as part of its licensing method.
Standard mint named my ethernet card as eth0 - which is good.
LMDE named it as eth1 - which is bad.
So I was forced to learn how to amend udev rules in order to change its name. 
LMDE basically works well though. 

[#2]

That is a really stupid program, I would have complained to the author.
What if you change pc's or just add a gigabit ethernet controller and disable the onboard one. Ok you could probably spoof it but still.
If you have it as stock you will be pointing at the normal repo's so you don't get many updates, which is what you wanted?
Your ppa's work ok?

[#3]

Perhaps you'd prefer the device being named enp2s3 

[#4]

I didn't bother with the ppa's as I could get the LateX binaries straight from Debian. 
So it's working O.K.
I would quite like a backup/restore which runs from disk <-> disk in a simple way.
Previously used sbackup from Ubuntu - sadly no longer available...

[#5]

What about simple backup http://simplelinuxbkup.sourceforge.net/

[#6]

Thanks - seems rather good - very similar to my old backup program.