I have been using SuSE for each version from 8.2 on through 9.3. My current main hosts are amd64 machines and I have an old pentium (233 MHz!) running RH 9.0. two more are amd Athlons. SuSe is nice EXCEPT that every release has cost me untold weeks and months of agonizing to get the programs I use regularly working without error messages and crashes. All machines are at least dual boot; one is at the other end of a wireless link. I use both Samba (for the sake of the winXP machine) and NFS to make sure that my data is always backed up.
Will I have the same experience getting Mepis integrated into this network as one of the partitions in a multiple boot host?
Corel was my first introduction to Linux and I have admired the accomplishment of Knoppix; I know about apt and associated tools, but am too old and incompetent now to start from scratch.
BTW, does it make any real difference whether I get i386, i686, or x86-64? As I understand it, the AMD64 will run any of those.
TIA

I don't have enough knowledge about what you are asking as far as networks are concerned, but there doesn't seem to be any reason why Mepis will not work. Try using the live cd, test out all your hardware and then if everything is ok, install it.
I'm booting windoze XP on hda, and Mepis, Kanotix, Demudi and SUSE 9.2(not for me but for a friend-honest!) on hdb.

Any will work, but the 86_64 is optimized for your processor, so you will have better performance. Ideally, you should remove the others from your kernel for optimal performance.

I have two machines running Mepis right now. I too used SUSE through 9.3. 9.3 was such a horror that I went looking for another distro and finally ended up with Mepis. Mepis works on my AMD-64 machine and my AMD-XP2400, this includes Samba and wireless. I have an emachine that has XP on it, and my printer is connected to it so I print from the Linux boxes through the router to it. Everything works. I agree with you about the weeks of screwing around getting everything working in SUSE. Mepis takes about a half hour to get set up the way I like.

If there is a 64 bit version of Mepis, I do not use it, the 32 bit version is good enough for me, and I don't have to mess with 32-64 bit hassles.

Currently, there is no 64 bit kernel available for Mepis.. I have heard of
others using the Ubuntu 64 bit kernel.. but that may cause issues..

AFAIK, Debian does not have a 64 bit kernel.. Mepis uses Debian
repositories exclusively..

hth

Mepis is a jewel to use on a network, I have 3 desktops and a laptop and a server on a wired network through a router and all of them work flawlessly, using Smb4k they all see each other and all of them share 2 printers without any trouble. I was a Mandrake user until a few months ago and had been for 4 years, but I was so impressed with Mepis that I switched everything over.

I installed Mepis 3.3, updated and added software using synaptic. All went smoothly and Mepis holds down the main partition on one of my machines. I use a combo cd/dvd drive that is capable of writing Double Layer DVDs. The version of K3b in Mepis does not recognise the DL DVD, so I still need SuSE for such jobs.