Is MEPIS based on etch or sid

Mepis is a mixture of Sarge (stable), Etch (testing) and Sid (unstable).
I would say that at the present time, most of the packages are Etch. I think we'll find that Mepis will steer a course closer to Sarge/Etch in the future rather than Etch/Sid.
Sid based distros have been having problems with upgrades recently (ie Kanotix).
For a long time (before the recent Debian changes) unstable/Sid was a pretty stable luxury for those that wanted "bleeding edge', including on Mepis. It seems to me now that the word "bleeding" might bring some tears and hose an installed system if one is not careful

anticapitalista

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

Thank you. Just one more question:

Which debian repo version should I enable to install/upgrade new software on Mepis, etch or sid or both?

Also, regarding the mepis own repo, should it be sid or etch ?

Many thanks,
serge.

If you want to play it safe, stick with Etch/testing only. If you are the adventurous type and want up to date stuff, use sid as well.
However if the distro breaks in Sid (and Etch for that matter/though I've not heard it happen), you get to pick up the pieces.

Here is a apt sources.list from mepislovers wiki.

http://www.mepislovers-wiki.org/index.php?title=Sources.list

I am using Sid for debian and mepis reps, and have not broken my Mepis 3.3 yet. I am cautious about upgrading, in fact I only upgrade individual packages now and then. I have never done a dist-upgrade or even a apt-get upgrade, as with Sid this may cause problems.

Some general advice anyway with upgrading, do read the messages, don't just answer yes or hit the return key. The messages may be warnings of uninstalling half your system!

anticapitalista

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

Thank you very much, anticapitalista !!! Just for info, I experimented as follows:

1) Fresh install 3.3.1-1
2) enable these two repos:
mepis 3.4 unstable
debian unstable (main contrib non-free)
3) did "smart upgrade" (lucky I have high speed internet)

Not done testing the result yet, but I can boot into the new system, although the main desktop got changed quite a bit.

Best regards,
serge.

I did 'dist-upgrade' to sid because I misunderstood the order of debian releases. I thought ETCH was the bleeding edge repo and Sid was the in-between one. Turns out I got it wrong and now I have a VERY updated system. I had some glitches to work out, but everything turned out OK.

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Bob L Hunter
bicycle tourist, bookworm, linux newbie
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And can hose your system. You should do "default-upgrade" and pay attention to what gets removed.

regards,
Bad Dog
GNU/Linux User #380263
SimplyMEPIS 3.4
Kernel 2.6.12-1-p4-smp
INTEL P-IV 3.0GHz - 2X256 DDR3200