MEPIS where came it from 1604

Johannes Bauer

Johannes i have been using MEPIS since it first appeared in 2003. right now, i am using the latest SimplyMepis 3.3 final that i just installed last week. i gotta tell you, i am totally impressed. i used the Mepis 2003-10 version up untill last week & it has been rock solid, however, it was getting dated & i wanted to use some of the newer apps available from the debian unstable pool. i would like to add that the authour resides in the same state that i live in so that is one reason why i use & advocate. it.

now, as for why you should try it out is because of it's simplicity regarding the installation. i have tried several different distributions (mandrake 10, debian, slackware, peanut, etc) & found that mepis was the easiest so far. in fact, you run it as demo before you do the initial installation. it installs while you still have the KDE desktop showing on the screen. everything you need to do is either point & click & type a couple of things. the hardware autodetection is second to none & it has better hardware support than knoppix. the most important thing is the support, especially from the MepisLovers forums. it aint COLA, the people there are nice & really helpful.

that is most likely why Mepis has climbed to the number three spot on distrowatch.

ok, now for the technicals. mepis uses the debian "unstable" branch & all of the apt "upgrades" are also done from both "unstable" & "testing" branches. there are a couple of differences that separates mepis from debian. first, there are some custom patches that have been done to the kernal regarding mostly the hardware detection, the other, i am not sure of. mepis does use apt-get, dselect,, & it also has both Kpackage as well as synaptic. it also includes alien, so you can use rpms as well. the one thing that i do like is that upon bootup, mepis gives you a choice of what kernal you would like to use. the one sure thing about mepis that you can count on is once installed, everything just works.

IMHO, mepis gives you all of the benefits of debian without the pitfalls.

-- It's a shame Linux has such difficulty running some of the more popular Windows applications: Nimda, CodeRed, Klez, WPA, Swen, SoBig, ILOVEYOU, MyDoom, Witty, Netsky, sober, Mimail, Dumaru......

Windows was created to keep idiots away from Unix.