Has anyone tried MEPIS 12, which is currently in alpha testing? How is it different from MEPIS 11?

I'd stay away fron an alpha anything unless you're a glutton for punishment with masochistic tendencies.

Mepis 11 is perfectly good, but there are missing codecs and repositories to install. Mepis features great hardware compatibility.

Mint, another similar distro, already has these built in with one click to install.

There's an old saying in IT, "Don't get cut up by bleeding edge software."

Maybe look through

http://forum.mepiscommunity.org/viewforum.php?f=20

1 members found this post helpful.

I'm not going to try the alpha myself--that's why I'm asking what it's like. I don't have the expertise, energy, or patience to deal with something that mepis.org says is incomplete and might very possibly not work for many people.

As for Mint...I dislike what I've heard of Ubuntu's policy (treating users like children as a result of being very newbie-friendly, or so I'm told), and Distrowatch says Mint is Ubuntu-based, so I suppose its behavior is similar to Ubuntu's. Am I wrong?--I haven't actually tried Mint.

I'm at an awkward intermediate stage of Linux experience: I don't want a newbie distro but am not prepared to handle advanced distros. Complicating my problem is that I like the Debian family and don't really want to leave it (mostly because I'm very comfortable with the apt package management system), but I sort of need to. The choices in the Debian family that I know of are fairly polarized: there's Debian proper, with its annoying installer (not difficult, just time-consuming), and almost everything else I know of is a newbie distro (MEPIS, Ubuntu, or an Ubuntu-based distro). I used to be perfectly happy with MEPIS, but that changed when MEPIS decided to use KDE 4. The only exception I know of is antiX; I use antiX, but only because I can't find another Debian-based distro that installs extremely fast and doesn't use KDE 4. I have little use for all the specialized software in antiX; I remove virtually all of it immediately after installation, and replace all its light window managers with KDE Trinity. I've been looking at other distros at Distrowatch lately, but haven't found one I like. (Going to examine CrunchBang.) This was my motive for posting this: a faint hope that MEPIS will stop forcing me to use KDE 4 (or find another distro).

Not all versions of mint are based on ubuntu. There is a debian based version. I would suggest not using any repositories labeled rawhide testing and so on. With debian, you can add, disable or remove repositories. I'd suggest adding synaptic or yumex. They'll make life much easier.

Here's the link for the debian edition.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

Here's the link for mint 13, which is referred to as maya. It's plenty fast enough, especially with the lighter weight desktops.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

I wouldn't totally rule out the main version of mint. It's far more organized then ubuntu will ever be.

Hmm...isn't Ubuntu-based, doesn't use KDE. I'll take a look. I still hold a faint hope for the salvation of MEPIS, though.

By the way, Wolf, why do you use so many distros? Depending on whether "SuSe PC-BSD Mint" means three separate distros or a hybrid combination of them, you're using at least five distros and possibly seven.

Why do you say you are at an awkward stage? If you've been registered for 6 years & using Linux distros then you should have plenty of experience. Even if you used the pc once a month from then till now you would have experience.

MEPIS isn't forcing you to use it; thats just the default setting. I'm almost certain you can change that after install.

There isn't going to be a perfect distro that comes out in which you love everything about it. Some setting, configuration, option, package manager, and or tweak will have to be modified because we are all unique and like different things. Your best bet would be to try an entire new flavor. Install a VM (virtual machine) and test out as many as your heart desires. Maybe even a couple live cd's and or usb's.

I personally like diving in to new distros as much as possible, it helps me learn.

Hope this helps

Too many other pressing concerns in my life at this time. I don't have the concentration to wrestle with learning how to use an advanced distro or even a non-Debian distro. (I try, but I keep giving up.) Even if I were getting enough sleep and could think properly, I still liken it to rebuilding a car engine when I only recently learned how to change the sparkplug thingies.


MEPIS does not come with any other desktop managers, and KDE 4 is relatively difficult to get rid of--it's unpleasantly like a Microsoft product that way, only not as bad. When you delete it, it leaves some of its files and folders on the system and it's difficult to find and destroy them all. I'd rather just find a distro that doesn't include KDE 4 at all. If you want MEPIS at all, you have to deal with KDE 4 at least briefly.

MEPIS 8 was as close as possible.

Hell...the Debian Mint ISO is DVD-sized. Does it happen to have a remastering tool?

No, I doubt you could mix them like that. I've found that some worked better on various computers or one of them would piss me off.

The first one I used when getting my certs was Mandrake with KDE. Everyone has that desktop which they just can't stand. In my case it is Gnome and Unity is even worse. Mint, however fixed Gnome, making it civilized.

If you like debian, lmde is the way to go. Synaptic is the apt-get front end. I'd strongly suggest using it. I'd start with mate and/or cinnamon as the desktop.

One cavaet is to only use the stable repositories and disable the experimental ones. I would do this before going online for the first time.

As for myself, I'm using regular mint with Lxde, xfce, and KDE installed. My laptop is a lenovo 3000 N100 with 2 gigs of RAM and a 2.0 MHz core-duo + a Seagate hybrid drive. Its still faster then XP.

Depending on who or what you are addressing, you can't get all hung up on any one distro. Users and their hardware differ.

On my external USB hard drive, I have a nicely configured set-up with PC-BSD installed. This boots via the laptop. Its an orphan deserving a good home.

Posting with that installed side by side with semplice,antix,and macpup on a dual ide hard drive IBM M41 Tower.

I run different distros just to learn new ways to install packages and how to get different things going. You will see me at the vector linux forums once in a while also.

Another cool thing about multibooting. I can take a working /etc/fstab and etc/X11/xorg.conf and copy it over if need be to another install if I don't like the default install entries.

Anyhows, I am also test running/installed this on my 9" M&A companion netbook and it is not half bad
either for a Debian spinoff.

http://main.solusos.com/showthread.p...-of-West-Texas

repos were slow for me once though

http://main.solusos.com/showthread.p...sos-com-server

It has been the Only hiccup so far for me personally. I don't know though if you are a die hard kde type of guy though.
KDE and me just can't seem to click. My fault mostly though. Window Managers and xfce and gnome 2 are ok for me. I tried out Trintity and Mate in my AntiX 11 Base install M/C shop media center desktop. Trinity and Mate though are slowly catching up though to the way kde 3.5 and gnome 2 work but are still a little rough around the edges. I uninstalled Trintity and kept Mate. But I use Fluxbox as default on slim log in on that Emachine dumpster find Tower because I have it dialed in the way I like it.

Dumpster Computer

What it looks like now

I'm not--not anymore. I want nothing to do with KDE 4, and avoid distros that even include it.

Then you shouldn't use Debian derived distros at all, since it is in the Debian repositories and can be installed on almost any Debian derivative. Having said that, why don't you just go with Debian instead of trying to find a derivative that fits you?

I'd advise you to go with something that includes lxde or Xfce. Otherwise, why not try lmde mint with either or both cinnamon and mate. As I mentioned before, use only stable repositories not bleeding edge or experimental or rawhide or anything like that.

Of course, all hope isn't lost. You can put lxde on MEPIS too.


http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php?title=LXDE

I really think you can figure out that I meant Debian-based distros that have KDE 4 actually installed (e.g., MEPIS 11); why would I care whether it's available in the repositories? As for why I don't use Debian...it was mostly the installer being rather time-consuming in comparison with other installers I've used. But I think there was also some problem I created while trying to install software (probably KDE Trinity, or possibly Firefox, which I must have also installed because that's the only browser I use); my memory on that is vague. Since I can't really offer adequate explanation of that issue...I suppose I should try Debian again.

I should mention this as well. I consider myself a complete pragmatist about computers and software (unlike the Debian Project people); what I mean is that I care only about how they will accomplish some work for me, so not only do I have no objection to non-free software, but I'm even skeptical about people or organizations that refuse to accept any non-free software. I consider them pig-headed and unnecessarily inflexible. So...I'm willing to use Debian proper, but its unique characteristics and its philosophy are lost on me.

My attempt to try Mint did not work out well. Not only did i not get it installed on the hard drive; I couldn't boot into the GUI on the liveCD. First it gave an error message about trying to run two X sessions at once or something; then after asking whether I wanted to change the console number (?!), it went to the GUI login, which did not bother telling me what the password was. (A few guesses, which I shouldn't have to make, indicated it was neither "root" nor a blank password.) Very smart.