New SimplyMEPIS 3.3 Test Release Introduces Many Changes

I am just curious as to what new features exist or bugs may have been squashed. 

That version number is very auspicious. I still have fond memories of PCDOS 3.3, the first version designed for hard drives.

There seems to be some confusion about the location of the ISO. The best thing to do is remember that Testing versions will be located in a Testing directory on the mirrors. Released versions will be located within??a Released directory on the mirrors. The links for the mirrors do not always point you directly to the correct directory. Here is the link to the directory holding the latest test release of SimplyMepis on the??Ibiblio Mirror :

ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/mepis/testing/?? - This is where to find test verisons

The name of the ISO is: SimplyMEPIS-3.3.test01.iso

I'm glad that there have been some changes to the desktop.?? One of the problems I was having with my customers was the "it doesn't look as pretty as windows" one.?? On another note, have the automount issues been fixed in the new version of MEPIS??? I ask this because I am really getting tired of explaining to my customers that they have to "unmount" each time they are finished with a removeable disk.?? They are pretty good for the most part, but them forgetting to unmount their volumes has caused me some pretty big hassles from time to time.

Is it possible to install that new bootsplash using kpackage from SimplyMepis 2004 without having to reinstall the entire system?

And second question: will ProMepis also be released twice a year? Or do you count them altogether, i.e. one Pro and one Simply per year?

I'd like have SimplyMEPIS x86_64 bit for my Athlon 64.. When Can I have it? I love SimplyMEPIS, it's fantastic.. but it's not optimized for my Athlon 64 bit processor... Please.. make SimplyMEPIS 64 bit optimized version...! Thanks MEPIS Community..!

I do have a _64 also
But to make a _64 mean to recompile all applications + the kernel. Into the 64bit system.
It will, take som time. And mepis is based on the Debian projekt there for I think we have to wait for that or do I our self

Finally! Some new mepis to try out

Cheers Warren

P.S - Any major bugs found yet??

i'm just very happy to see mepis in a new version!

thanks warren and the other who works on mepis!

i have just installed simply mepis 3.3, i still have 2004.06 and pro mepis 2005.03. the install went extremely well with nothing extra to configure even apt-get install nvidia-glx went smoothly. i am so enjoying mepis??

hippy

www.mepislovers.org/
www.mepis.org/

Many of us our having to add modules or comiple kernels for some simple power management for our laptops with Mepis. I cant see any reason why the kernel shouldnt be compiled with that built in. This would make it easier for some of us, because while adding power mangement may not be hard, adding the modules for everything else (such as wireless drivers) can be.
This looks very promising. Warren, could you build in the power management into your kernels so your laptop users can use Mepis out of the box? This is the one last thing that (for me) will make Mepis the best distro. By the way my rather obscure Laptop winmodem WORKS with this new Mepis! Way to go!

I'm amazed of the great work of Warren and the team. Almost everything (and a lot more than in other distris) works out of the box. What I'm missing is:

- an GUI for managing daemons. Mandrake has a cool tool for this.
- automount of all harddisk-partitions per default.
- I can't use my infrared-port. (This is not really important for me and I've never tried to get it work).
- Power management. This is annoying. I do not really understand how it works, wether it is a kernel problem or an application problem. I don't like to use KDE, but there are some sophisticated tools for this (and a lot of other) "problems". I had the latest ProMEPIS beta04 installed and power management seemed to work. Only - my wireless card didn't work anymore - the reason why I stay with beta02...

Hardware:
Toshiba Laptop Port??g?? 7220
WLAN-Card D-Link 650+

Go on with this great work!

Simply is a great desktop distro but for me Kanotix will keep its place on my Centrino Laptop. There is no better laptop distro out of the box than Kanotix. I have Simply installed on two desktop machines and absolutely love it, but as I am not a Linux guru, I have no idea how to get all the power management and ipw2100 compiled into a kernel on my own.

Do I understand from the article that the Pro release will not be available for download as ISOs? I'm the sys-admin for a non-profit organisation, so free redistribution is a priority.

I suspect that there is nothing in the pro version that cannot be installed on simple by apt (correct me if I am wrong in assuming this).
Personally I would be willing to pay for the pro version as even in beta it is the most stable distro I have used. Of course this all depends on cost and delivery methods. I live in the UK and having to order discs from the US would be a major pain so a way to download the iso(s) would be good.

Cheers
Ray

SimplyMEPIS 3.3 test is another winner.?? My install went as smoothly as ProMEPIS b03, everything working well, right out of the box.?? Thanks, Warren!

I have no sound at all, however the SIS card is recognized in KMIXER (SI7012 - C-Media Electronics CMI9761 ) but i don't see the master volume, only PCM and other controls, the same happens with PRO beta 4. Mobo is ASROCK 741gx.
No luck with alsaconf/alsamixer, any help?
It worls fine with my other mobo (nvidia) ASUS A7n8x-deluxe
Please view this commennt with sound config output
http://www.mepislovers.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=3664&forum=15&post_id=27595#forumpost27595

installtion went absolutely fine (but i thought i could choose a german localisation, so i think it will only be available in the final release)
nvidia-glx works fine too.

but my sound is still scratching (not allwas, but most of the time) i hope that problem would be done with the new kernel.
perhaps someone could help me, cause its getting me crazy!?

but beside this mepis works really great and i'm really happy that a "unstable" distri can run this stable

greetz, ruben

I know Warren does not agree with this, but I'm not the only one who asks about it.

Hard drives and partitions should be mounted automatically by default in SimplyMEPIS.

In Pro, it is not an issue as it is aimed at users with a greater level of skill.

SimplyMEPIS is aimed at beginners.?? People transitioning from Windows don't want to have to learn why their data doesn't show up in Konqueror File Manager.?? Suddenly they?? find an array of what apear to be EMPTY DISKS!

Also, for those of us who set MEPIS up to dual boot for people, it is fine when we install it, but if they ever do a reinstall - suddenly lots of empty drives again.

Personally, when I set up a dual boot with MEPIS and Win XP, I set a shared data partition so files can be worked on in either.?? Once again, not automounting partitions means this data partition is NOT AVAILABLE un til it is mounted.

Please, Warren, if you don't want to fix this for us, make it a choice somewhere in the install sequence.?? Something like:
Automount Partitions Y/n?? (default=Y)?? would be enough with a quick description of what it does.

Selecting Y would write from one fstab template, selecting n would write from the other.

Also, automount of removable media works in other distros, why does it not work in MEPIS?

Cheers,

RossD.

p.s.

I'd be interested to see any other comments on the pluses and minuses of automounting partitions, as well as what other people think about this.

i'm in favour of automounting. modifying/etc/fstab is something i do every time.

Couldn't agree more. I too set up automounting first thing on a new install. It's particularly important for a machine I run having an archive drive accessible from other machines on my home lan.

I also set up for sharing folders in /mnt. Much cleaner on the network.

And, I too am frustrated by the slowness in seeing Mepis and other Linux distros do autmounting of removable media. That, and the continuing failure by so many Linux distros to provide for domain authentication puzzles me no end. Sorta reminds me of the puzzlement I had with the PC being so slow to adopt decent color graphics and the 3.5" floppy while outfits like Sony had both for a loooong time before IBM and MS finally got around to it.

Bob
* only man can make the simple so complex *

Just want to say that I slipped away from Mepis for a while but am back now and have found that SM3.3-test is working perfectly on my box. Installation was fast and easy, and everything I needed from the OS worked properly right from the start. The default desktop needed very little tweaking, too. This latest version far out classes all the other distributions I've tried.

Thanks for the outstanding work, Warren!

This mepis v. 3.3, along with proMEPIS b.04, both have changed the names of my hard drives to sdax and sdbx and they used to be hde* and hdg* with other mepis versions with kernel 2.6.7. Maybe this is an issue with kernel 2.6.10. I have two serial ata hard drives hooked into my motherboard. Isn't this naming system for external hard drives? WIll this affect my system in any way? Has anyone else seen this?

... for any changelog.?? Anyone??? Anyone??? Bueller??? Bueller?

_______________________

"The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet." - Mark Twain

I actually liked the fact that Mepis didn't automount my partitions.?? I have four other partitions besides the linux / and swap and I preffer mounting those that I need, when I need them.?? Though I agree that SimplyMepis is a more beginner distro, which should be taken into account.

Warren, great distro!!! Still a problem with 2.6.10 kernel though? Multiple users cannot connect to Internet unless a total reboot is done. This problem does not arise however under the 2.4 kernel.

Tony

The principle of least surprise in user interface design would support automounting. Volumes are automounted in konqueror when accessed, but not by other applications like Kaffeine or XMMS.?? This can be disconcerting to newbies ("Omigod! my files are gone!").

arbus

Not sure if this is where to put this, but I figure it's an active topic and might get read:

Mandrake, my former bloatware distro, had auto-mounting for cameras and usb storage (iRiver music players).?? It was pretty slick: you plug it in, and it's on the desktop.?? Not only do I really miss that functionality, but now I have to hear "well it worked before" from my gf.?? I know I CAN get it working via hotplug, fstab, and either supermount or autofs scripts/edits, but I SHOULDN'T have to do that each time I upgrade.

I also know there are many schools of thought on this, but ultimately I think it'd be in the best intrest of the Mepis distro to make it work as well as Winblowze 2000 with regard to usb cameras and storage devices.

I should add to the above that I really LOVE Mepis, and it's been my distro of choice for quite a while.?? I'd love to help out, but it'd be like asking a 4 year old to help with putting a microchip together.?? If I do figure out how to hack this together, I'd be more than happy to "submit" it somewhere, but kinda hope someone who knows what they're doing will beat me to the punch

I have 2 hard drives - hda & hdc, both 40-gig Maxtors.
All of the hda is Win32, separated into C, D, E, F (10-gig each).

All of the hdc is Linuxes:
hdc2(1 gig) - swap, used by all distros.
hdc1, hdc3 and hdc5 (5-gig each) - Slackware 9.0
hdc4 - extended, contains hdc5-8.
hdc6 (8gig) - still empty.
hdc7 (8 gig) - Xandros Open Circulation.
hdc8 (8 gig) - SimplyMepis 2004.6.

Now can you imagine this automount mess - especially if you need to "find -name something" from the "/" directory? I'd better mount them in command line from Konsole, but upon boot, give me my hdc8, plus maybe floppy, and let me decide when I need the rest.

BNK (Dr.Cobalt-60)