Great review and nail on head
Posts: 2299
Another reviewer who 'discovers' MEPIS. He hits the nail on the head: MEPIS is possibly the best distro out there for people that want it to 'just work', yet it is quite unknown.... We should start selling MEPIS tattoos on people's foreheads....
http://shiftbackspace.com/2007/06/15/simplemepis-65-a-review
My vote would be the novice
Posts: 244
My vote would be the novice community. It is a wonderful distro for people who are just starting out with linux.
I tried about 50 different livecd's and STILL went back to mepis that I got first from a friend. I don't easily assume things (some folks KNOW that of me LOL), so it is saying something that mepis came out on top here.
Oh, and to add: I am not saying by voting for the novice that it is not for the experienced user. It is very suitable indeed. When I see other distros now I still don't like the way they handle, and it is only strengthened by the fact that I know what mepis is capable of now.
Mepis is not only for n00bs
Posts: 849
I think that experienced linux users, if they have heard of Mepis, wrongly consider it 'only' a n00bs distro. Sure that is the most important Mepis consideration, but Mepis offers much, much more for experienced users too.
anticapitalista
Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.
I agree with you on that
Posts: 244
I agree with you on that Anticapitalista! 
An Unfortunate Situation
Posts: 5513
I agree with you malanrich, that Mepis sometimes appears invisible. Here is a quotation from the latest "Linux Format Magazine", July 2007, Number 94. This edition is their "famous" "Distro Showdown" (pg 40):
Over the next eight pages we've compared eight top distros to see how they rate in terms of security, performance, compatibility, community and software availability, so that you can find the perfect distro for your needs. Of course everyone's idea of 'top distros' is differrent, so we've chosen eight of the most popular Linux distros at the time of writing: Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, Sabayon, Slackware, OpenSUSE, and Ubuntu. Yes, some didn't make the cut: SimplyMepis and Linspire were left out because of their close similarity to Ubuntu; Gentoo ws left out because its fork, Sabayon, seems to have overtaken it in terms of popularity; and distros targeted at the enterprise were left out because they really are in a league of their own.
So here we have a situation where Mepis, though well known is disregarded because of "its similarity to Ubuntu". So during the "showdown" all of the things that Mepis is known to be good at, "performance, compatibilty, and community" will never be seen.
And though you can go out and read the entire article for yourself, I will ruin the suspense by telling you that, according to all of LXF'x tests, the three winners (in order) are:
1) Ubuntu
2) SUSE
3) Debian
Is it any wonder that people around the world are wetting themselves over how good Ubuntu is?
Jon
No computer is magic, no operating system is magic, no website is magic. They all require human interaction, thought, and responsibility to work.
Mepis user in Ubuntu land
Posts: 275
Well, Jon, this conflation of Mepis with Ubuntu is strange indeed--considering that my brief foray into Ubuntu land left me feeling alien and disoriented.
What the editors of the "showdown" need to clarify is what they mean by "similarity to Ubuntu." Fine, if they're talking about an underlying code base or collection of repositories (which are aspects the average user will hardly be conscious of). In the experience of the average user, though, they seem as different as peanut butter and jelly.
Agreed
Posts: 5513
Agreed malanrich.
I have gotten the uncomfortable feeling these last months that various on-line and in-print journals are just figuring out "How do we write an article that uses the word 'Ubuntu' in it?" Not that U* should not be mentioned, but DANG, it is becoming the "End All" that is being made out to be "Bigger, Better, Faster Than Ever, And Everything" of Debian, Knoppix, Mepis, whatever. No one appears to want to remember than *buntu, Knoppix, Mepis, and a number of other Linux distros had their genesis with Debian.
So then, once they (the journals) mention *buntu, it then gives them reason to "ignore all the others". I think an interesting article would be not a "Distro Showdown", but a "Debian-ish Showdown". How about a fair comparison (as fair as it can be) of many of the current Debian-based/created/modified/derived-from distributions?
Jon
No computer is magic, no operating system is magic, no website is magic. They all require human interaction, thought, and responsibility to work.
Invisible Mepis
Posts: 275
The strange thing is *where* Mepis is "quite unknown."
As a relatively new user, I ventured nervously into my first local LUG meeting last weekend. It's a great group of guys, mostly sysadmin types. All kinds of distros came up for discussion but never Mepis. They're in love with Ubuntu and heavily "biased" toward Debian, and in a couple of months are planning a distro cook-off (bringing in all the major players to demonstrate their distro's ability to deal with peripherals and such)--but no mention of Mepis. Not even once.
As a new guy, I can't be an effective evangelist in this kind of setting. All I'm pointing out is that you're right, carlops. For some reason, Mepis has managed to keep itself invisible. The best-kept secret on DistroWatch. I can see how this happens among the general population, but why it's the case among the hard-core Linux users is somewhat mysterious.
Does there need to be some sort of publicity campaign? And if so, should the novice or expert community be the target?