After trying several distro's, I think for now I will use one of the three. My leanings are towards Knoppix, but the modular part of Morphix sounds good too. I would like opinions of anyone who used any of them or have used more than one. Mostly I am looking at hardware recognition since I have a few peripherals hooked up to my computer, i.e. usb printer, usb zip drive, along with the regular ide cd r/w and dvd, plus I have a pci wireless internet adapter, Plus I need to be able to edit photo's.

Well, having used Mepis and Knoppix, my vote would go to Mepis. It has better admin tools, especially for wireless.

Well it seems that 100% of respondents choose Mepis

What's the big advantage of using one of these to just installing debian sid? I never had any (big) trouble installing debian and I'm not sure if all that software that comes with these distro's is what I want. Starting with a base install and apt-get to the system I want is just cleaner I guess.....

Tried Debian a few times and can never get it running. Could be me or a corrupt ISO image. However I ran out of patience with it at the moment. When I get a little more experience with using apt-get from one of these systems, maybe I'll try again in the future. Morphix comes with a basic system is my undrstanding, and then you add more of what you want by downloading other components or using apt-get. Knoppix is the most bloated of the group, or at least that is one complaint I've heard from a few usuers.

Another Debian-based distro is Libranet, with its own separate forum.
Am trying to replace my Knoppix hd-install with another Debian-based distro to test out.
Just wondering; how do Morphix and Mepis compare with the full Libranet distro?

nycace36: i use a PII 266 with 128 mb ram. Morphix looks the best, but the ligh-gui version is slow on my machine, don't know why. MEPIS, i haven't tried, but it comes with KDE by default IIRC, so it's too heavy for me. Libranet runs great on mine, i downloaded the free 2.7 version (woody), did a minimal install, apt-getted fluxbox, apt-get update and upgrade, changed the sources.list to sarge, apt-get update, apt-get dist-upgrade and voilá. Runs fast.

Well, that may be so, but according to posts on at least 5 boards, and my own experiences, you are in a relatively small group. I tried both the CD only and the ftp net install several times, asked people on various boards what I needed to do to make one or the other work, followed the Debian install instructions, and finally tried both Morphix and Knoppix hard disk installs, and after trials that lasted better than a year, and at least three versions, I finally got Debian up and running with both Morphix and Knoppix. My present Debian system began as Knoppix, and the only thing remaining of Knoppix is the KDE logo and a menu item called Knoppix. I cannot recommend either of the standard Debian install methods, but Debian itself is the best Linux distro that I have tried so far. Many people have problems doing what seems to have worked perfectly for you. Perhaps it has something to do with the Debian install harware detection (based on several comments I have read lately) but perhaps it is the personality of the people who try it. I don't know, but I can say one thing - there are far too many people who have not had your experience, so the big advantage is that installing with either Morphix or Knoppix works for far more often than "just installing debian sid". Sorry about my apparent rant. No offense intended, just info, at best...