Linux Mint is a Linux distribution based on Debian and Ubuntu, with an alternative Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) based purely on Debian. Mint provides full out-of-the-box multimedia support by including some proprietary software such as Adobe Flash.
Linux Mint started in 2006 with a beta release of version 1.0, codenamed "Ada", based on Kubuntu. Following its release, version 2.0 "Barbara" was the first version to use Ubuntu as its codebase. Mint had few users from these early versions until the release of 3.0, "Cassandra."
After Linux Mint version 17 was released all future versions will be based on Long-Term-Support releases and will be supported for 5 years, while users can optionally upgrade to the next 17.x release if they so choose to do so.
Source: Wikipedia