I decided to go for a Ubuntu based distro after living with Slackware for many years so I installed MEPIS 7 on my desktop (AMD 3800+ X2, 1 GB DDR, Nvidia 6600 GT 128 MB). On Slack I had my Desktop set to a slideshow as well as the screensaver and I had Superkaramba running. I wanted the same thing with MEPIS so I set it up and used my old config files (.themes and .superkaramba) from Slack. All the programs work, however the superkaramba hardware monitor reports that X is the top process at around 30% and one of the two CPUs is constantly at 90 - 100%. In Slack I did not see this behaviour at all. In Slack I would get X as the top process with nothing else running, but it would be at 5% and same with the CPU. Now in MEPIS things are running slow. I'm not sure where to look (kernel module?) since everything work just fine out of the box. In the meantime I am going to disable the desktop slideshow and Superkaramba when I get home later today to see if there is a difference.

Also I am a bit dissapointed that the software in the repos are out of date. My base install comes with Firefox 2.0.0.11 and Thunderbird 2.0.0.6. Mozilla says there are critical security issues with these older version and yet in the repos these are the only choices.

Hi,
The software is outdated because Mepis is built upon Etch (debian stable) and no longer Ubuntu.
For your other problem, I just can't help you.
Cheers

Is there a way to enable some up to date repos?

I'm thinking of trying it for a week or so then moving on if I can't resolve these issues.

Hi everyone, I figured this out on kubuntu, but the same is true for MEPIS:

While using MEPIS and now kubuntu I used synaptic to download the restricted NVidia driver. After restarting X I was kicked back to the command line. I starting searching and found on the Ubuntu help site this link:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Bi...7d5e794c57c9c9

At the bottom of the page it describes that if the nvidia module is loaded even though you get the error you should try to reload and start X again. This worked for me and now my CPU usage is way down. So the issue was I was not using my video card to render Superkaramba widgets.