I hear that Mepis is a really great distro, and I would like to try it. But first I need to know a couple of things about it...

1. Is it easy to install, and does it come with its own partition utility that works during installation?

2. Where can I get a DVD iso for it?

That is pretty much it for now. After I install it I may have more questions...

The MEPIS livecd has QTParted on it, which usually does the trick.

You cant get DVD ISOs for MEPIS, but there's a standard CD ISO here ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dist...IS-3.3.1-1.iso

yes its very easy to install and fast too. Its pretty much set as a 1-cd distro, too.

Login as root (password: root) and click the desktop icon "Install Me" and the Mepis Control Center opens. Click the installation option on the left and you're started! You can have it do its thang for you, or run QTParted which is real nice and easy (defrag any existing windows partitions before resizing them, btw) and move forward in the steps. Easy as pie.

Then, before any updates or package installs, visit www.mepislovers.org and find the link for an updated sources.list file so that the current round of Debian Unstable doesn't bork your machine.

I've found that any NVidia or ATI driver installations (using MEPISControl) work best if installed AFTER the initial setup; just go into MEPISControl after the reboot and set that up very easily. Also the time changing option in the install screens doesn't work so hot for me, so do that after-the-fact as well.

Enjoy!

I don't run windows (I dislike Microsoft and support open source), just Mandrake 10.1. Is there anything I need to do to make sure that parting out my hard drive doesnt mess with the Mandrake partition?

Surely Mandrake has its own Partitioner? Mandrake uses the same Filesystem as MEPIS (Mine does, at least) so it sould go along fine without a hitch.

2 additional things:[list=1][*]There is no DVD because you don't need a DVD. The reason MEPIS is only 1 CD is that everything else is downloaded from the 'Net. It uses APT, the Debian package tool, to do this. Essentially, all 14 of the Debian CD's are available this way, but you d/l only what you want when you want it.

If my arithmetic is correct, it would take 3 DVD's to hold all of the approximately 14,000 Debian packages available.
[*]I have yet to see a GNU/Linux installer that "plays well with others" -- they all (that I have seen) arrogantly wipe any earlier MBR's & do not give good, if any, access to earlier installations. It is relatively easy to get around this, & I have posted at length on it, search my post titles for "multi-boot" &/or "GRUB". [/list=1]

I know you don't use Winders, but for those that do, I hear that disabling swap before defragging (before re-partitioning) is another good idea.

Please don't take this wrong, but quoting the entirety of a long post is a waste of space & bandwidth. It also makes your response harder to read, & therefore less likely to be paid attention to.

I would suggest the book point and click linux as it comes with a live distro cd that can be run off the disk. if you like it you can install from there. As a newbie Mepis was simple for me to install. and it works! i tried several others and always ran into problems. some day i will try to download other software.

One reason to consistently install mepis? particularly on the first partition(s)? how easy it is to fix dual boot problems using mepis' grub. If something hoses either mepis or (at the moment) SUSE's bootloader...theyre easy to fix, then reintall the mepis grub bootloader off the live cd adding the appropriate lines for other distros to menu.1st...you cant beat -at most- a ten minute hack to restore messed up bootloaders!

Mepis has very helpful user community

Post to http://www.mepislovers.org -- very helpful forum
Mepislovers Wiki -- http://www.mepislovers-wiki.org/

Good review of Mepis

http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?s...68252&from=rss

Happy New Year

Mike