Does LMDE have the equivalent of the Debian mini.iso? I like just installing what I need, saves time removing cruft later.
Discussion
Check the link.
https://linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php
It looks like 2.5 gigs. The Debian mini is a very good product of you are limited in Band Width.
I will also not the the Linux Mint XFCE is very fast and good and there are plenty of drivers, encoders and software choices. The Debian one and Debian itself have a tendency to be restrictive so if you are doing video production you might go for the Linux Mint XFCE.
I bought a very new laptop last year and at first sound didn't work with the Mate version but within a month a new kernel fixed this.
Anyway, you know what you are doing and what you need. The good news is most .dmg packages work because Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu based on Debian. Make sure you get as much RAM as possible for video compression.