Mepis at Critical Juncture

Thx for your comment, but I don't agree. So, we obviously have different opinions. Time will tell....

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

I don't agree either, leaving Debian would not be productive, that's the biggest attraction -- that you can install everything from Debian repos, why reinvent the wheel or duplicate the effort?

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I've used Mepis for over a year and a half but recently went to Kanotix 2005-04. I'm still here hoping but l was just having too many problems with printer and other things. I still have two partitions with Mepis installed but have had to religate Kanotix as my main working OS. Warren has done a great job in the past and l hope he can overcome this hurdle. Kanotix is Debian based and is very good so l don't know that Debian can be blamed for everything otherwise l would be having the same problems with Kanotix but I'm not.

Wayne

Wayne

Same here, hopping for a better Mepis!

Here is another viewpoint. My base system is Mepis 3.3.1. I Have upgraded it through Debian repositories to KDE 3.50 and xorg 6.8. I have the latest K3B, Amarok, Open Office and Gimp.
The system is very stable and fast on my Toshiba laptop. Everything works and works well Mepis Those who install release candidtes (rc's) should expect bugs. That is what rc's are for, to give feedback to Warren before a final release is made, so he can fix the bugs which will undoubtedly occur with the universe of hardware out there. in my opinion is tops.

Rich

I came from many years of Mandrake and rpm's
to a nice peaceful mepis
I will never go back to rpm's
Install once upgrade forever vs upgrade never and install over and over
and over and over again...

There is no difference between the non debian distros and windows other
than security....it is insane that every single time a new release comes
out you have to do a complete new install and recreate your desktop and all your apps over again....that's nuts....

Just exactly what is the problem....with installing 3.3.1-1 stable
and leaving things alone.....just exactly what specifically is the
dire need to get on that upgrade treadmill.....???

There will always be some of us who just need to have the latest and greatest. I admit I am one of those. I find KDE 3.50 nicer than KDE 3.30. That is just the way it is. At what point do you upgrade? In the Windows world there are those still running Windows 98, probably (not DOS but I would not bet on it.) It is OK with me if anyone wants to stay with what they have, but allow us bleeding edgers to experiment.

My point was when you do decide to experiment do not expect total stability. Having said that I reiterate, my updated Mepis 3.3.1 is running fine.
Rich

i'm not big on doing fanboy posts, bit mepis works perfectly for me and nothing in the world would make me move to rpm.
currently using 3 mepis boxes, one remote debian and a local windows for development.
windows one gets reinstalled every 6 months and takes a day and a half to get back my tool chain on it, only ever needed to reinstall one mepis in two+ years, and thats the compiling machine that just had a mountain of cruft installed on it for development, not because it went wrong.
nothing thats pure debian based is going to be bleeding edge, its for people who want their boxes to just work, if you want bleeding edge use gentoo, portage is way better than rpm and their forums are possibly the best in the linux world.
hats off to warren and debian, its not easy even maintaining one package, let alone coordinating/releasing a distro.

Kano does a great job with Kanotix. In fact, I installed a number of the 2005-04 Release Candidates. But, he's not *that* far ahead of Mepis (my printer wasn't fully supported until Kanotix 2005-04 Release Candiate 24, after lots of complaining on the forums about it).

My wife is running under Mepis 3.4.2 RC1 right now (I haven't upgraded her to the latest yet), and it also works with my newest printer, thanks to HPLIP and related packages being updated).

I still haven't decided what distro I'm going to use. Right now, I'm runnning mostly Windows XP, while testing various Linux distros to find one that I like.

I was seriously thinking of switching to SuSE 10, but conceptually it's not on a par with Mepis. It lacks simplicity and clarity. In that sense Mepis is the best. But it's time to get printers, scanners, ipods, and "onthego" sticks working. Yes, Mepis was a great distribution. I've been using it exclusively for the past two or more years. Is it meeting my present needs? No. My apt sources list is out of date. I can't scan with Meips, but I can with Kubuntu, and SuSE 10. Onthego doesn't work on the new Mepis release candidates. Kanotix is a great live CD but the "persistent home" is unstable. sometimes Kanotix finds it, and other times it doesn't. Kanotix doesn't scan either. As I said conceptually Mepis is great. However, Warren needs to rise to the challenge of producing a modern up to date working product.

"My apt sources list is out of date"

How is that Warren's fault? As far as I know no distro screws with apt-get sources because people customize them and usually people are able to change them for themselves -- it's just a copy&paste operation away anyway.

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I think the issue at stake here is not so much technical as political. What I mean by that is that Debian should make a proper move to enforcing its desktop ambitions, and those of its offsprings. Ubuntu is faster at implementing new desktop stuff in a 'stable' environment. I would never switch to (K)ubuntu, but I grant them that. Mepis is suffering from the debian policy with its rigid division between repos, which seems to better serve server environments than desktops.

I would very much opt for a different pool system for desktops, which would allow for different core components to co-exist (e.g. KDE 3.4 and 3.5 in different sub-pools), so that users could choose to either maintain their current setup or upgrade to the latest, without in either case breaking their system. Combine that with a 'undo' feature in apt, and you'd have a great desktop repo environment.

As long as that has not been taken care of, all Debian based distros will have to find their way to create an appealing comprehensive package for their communities.

I should also point out it is not fair to lay down all problems the current RC versions are going through as symptomatic for a crucial juncture. RC versions are not production versions, and I must say Warren has responded very fast and thoroughly. One week after RC1 we now have a Release Candidate that seems ready to hit the mirrors with a final version. That is quite an achievement, especially with as big a change as moving to udev....

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

carlops,

I agree with everything you say, except that you do now have a choice of keeping your system as is or upgrading. For example to upgrade to KDE 3.5 just add unstable repositories. If you have only etch repositories the KDE upgrade stuff does not yet appear.
Once you have done the upgrade then you can change back to etch, or keep a mixed system and just upgrade individual packages taking care to see what will be deleted.

Rich

Hi richb,

Yeah, I know. But upgrading from unstable always has a certain feeling of 'doing it the unprotected way' to it. I would like the leading edge availability of unstable combined with the worry free upgradability of testing or even stable. Of course, with security upgrades available asap...

I think that is possible, but it requires a diffent approach to repo management. And that is where the problem lies IMHO. Right now, the users need to be too aware, and if you accidentally hit that 'go ahead' button, the point of no return has been crossed. If you wish to offer a user friendly and user maintainable desktop, to me that seems to be an undesirable situation.

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

I understand your point carlops and it has good merit. It does require a deeper knowledge now of what you are doing with apt and the repositories. And that is no guarantee you won't make a mistake. There is abundant evidence that people get in trouble with the current system. One just has to read the posts.
So, after consideration, for what it is worth, (not much I am afraid), I agree with you.

Rich

I will agree with the opening comment to this thread that Mepis is at a critical juncture, but I would argue that the 3.4.3 RC releases, on the whole, have passed the test.

I have also been using Kanotix for a while alongside Mepis (I first started using Kanotix in May 2005), with Mepis 3.3 being used 99% of the time.

However, since the release of Kanotix 2005.04, I found myself booting into Kanotix as often as Mepis, not because I had any real problems with upgrading my Mepis 3.3, but mainly because Kanotix "seemed' to be more dynamic and Mepis at the time lagged behind.

I tried the Mepis 3.4.1 and 3.4.2 RC's and to be honest I wasn't impressed. To me it seemed that Mepis had started to stagnate whereas Kanotix was "boldly going where no man had gone before'.

Then the release of Mepis 3.4.3. Again I wasn't expecting much, but when I installed I was pleasently surprised. Mepis was up there with my Kanotix 2005.04 (ok an Etch based one rather than Sid Kanotix).
Super fast, snappy, up to date and stable (apart from floppy)

To conclude this rather long and probably boring post, Mepis has shown to me that it is just as good, and dynamic as the bleeding edge stuff (aka Kanotix, which is IMHO a great distro too) while erring more on stability (ie Etch).

anticapitalista

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

I can assure you that the latest release candidates are far from ready to go, and there hasn't been an updated release of Mepis for a very long time. That's why it's at a critical junction. I'm spending a lot of time looking for a distro to replace it because the Mepis product cycle is out of date. Mepis was the best. It isn't now. I really think Warren has to give serious thought to producing something that is independent of Debian, and then selling his server repository service to his customers. My feeling is that the instability of Debian is throwing him a curve ball. Warren is extremely talented and has great vision and clarity, but Mepis isn't cutting it at the moment. We have waited too long for an update, and all that come down the pipe don't seem ready for a production environment.
Posted from SuSE 10.0

Oh for God sake, if it doesn't cut it for you go and use whatever does and leave us alone -- it's good enough for us.

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I can't believe all of the negativity about Mepis. I've tried quite a few distro's and so far Mepis works very well for me. It may not have the cutting edge KDE but at least it works. I've run and used Suse 10.0 and it's far from perfect,I don't like to pay for their expensive packaging anymore.(I preferred Suse when it was Suse not a Novell money making enterprise.) I've tried Kubutu it has problems and still waiting for a release that will work on my wifi properly.(The six month turn around for their new stable releases seem more like a year). I used Ubuntu and it works well but is limited on all that it offers with Gnome. Ive used Linspire and it works but the downloads take weeks to get the system up to snuff.(Their server is slow, maybe because of the thousands of Windows users switching over to Linux.(Another money making scheme. Once your subscription runs out (1 year) you must pay to resubscribe. (Takes a full year just to download all the packages you want. Gentoo is out of the picture for
installation purposes. Debian doesn't support Wifi to my knowledge.(Could be wrong, but never got it up on the internet.) Mandrake, Redhat also have the same Wifi connectivity issues. So this leaves me with Mepis. Believe me its not as bad as alot of people would say just because it doesn't support all of the latest and greatest cutting edge stuff yet. I'm sure it will in time. Just my opionion. . .

Richard

This thread shows how spoiled we are getting in the Linux community. Windows users wait YEARS for new versions that are little more than new icons and wallpaper. And here we are griping because Mepis only puts out once or twice a year.

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Bob L Hunter
bicycle tourist, bookworm, linux newbie
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As long as it does what I want and is secure ...that's good enough!!!

There is and always will be an element out there that

Wants it all
Wants it now
Whines until they get it

The ONLY thing that will drive away the majority of Mepis users would
be to lose sight of the FREE FACTOR and start charging for it without
also offering it for free download....

I paid and every year or so pay again.....that's fine....
a man's gotta eat and a savior/hero deserves it....
as long as they don't demand it...

I was taught that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

Release candidates are glass houses - fragile - expect broken glass.

And to show some respect for the effort and energy that produces a distro, just give the developers the facts man, and they will address the the issues in subsequent release candidates, and further release candidates, and if we are good little peoples, by the time all is stable, those that ventured down the fragile release candidate path may still have a greenhouse.

Otherewise, use an issued stable Mepis candidate, do the right thing and subscribe to the distro, and SHUT THE 'UCK UP!

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I shot an arrow into the air. It stuck! Anon

I realize it's impractical to set a fixed date for the final version of Mepis 3.4, but can anybody give this newcomer a ballpark estimate?

Will it be closer to 2-3 days or 2-3 months before it's here?

fwiw, my guess is no more than a couple of weeks. There seems to be a minor issue to be sorted out (no floppy device in fstab), but for the rest, things seem to work quite nicely...

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

From my point of view it's better to work fine than to release it at a specific moment in time. So you set a schedule, does that means that the release will work as you want? Better have as many release candidates as it takes, I've seen that with other distros too.

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It occurs to me that there is a lot of antiicpation for new Mepis releases, and this is indicative of how good Mepis is. After all why all the anxious anticipation if it were not?

Rich

Hi all. I'm a relative newbie to Linux. I started looking at linux about 3 months ago. I tried about 30 different distro's and I soon reliased that there was a wonderful world outside of the Windows. What I was looking for was an OS that was point and click and where everything worked without me having to do anything. I wouldn't have known how anyway. Mepis was about no 10 on my try list and it just worked. It was the first one that did. But having an inquisitive nature I wanted to see if there was anything better. So, many ISO downloads later I came back to Mepis. Again and still It is the only Distro that works perfectly for me without any setting up or configuring. I just point and click and away I go.

I read the Mepis and Mepis Lovers Forums almost every day and I am learning a lot. They are the most helpful and knowledgable bunch of people anywhere.

By looking at Distrowatch one can mostly see what the other Distro's are structured like and how they work. It is my obversation that when comparing most other Distro's Mepis stands up pretty well to the lot.

When trying other Distro's, I either had trouble installing extra software or I was unable to even get it. No such problem with Mepis. Also by following the advice of relevant posts in the Mepis forums, it would seem that anything is possible.

Maybe this tip will be of benefit to all newbies and others alike. In the Windows world I used Acronis True Image to make images of my partitions as it was much easier to restore an image than to reinstall everything. I was very delighted to find that Acronis also images Linux partitions and restores them as well perfectly. So if one wants to experiment and try bleeding edge updates or whatever then if you image your root and home partitions first then you can experiment and toast to your hearts content. If or when it fails just restore your images, about 2 minutes and you are back exactly where you were before. (As yet I don't know if there is a Linux program which images like Acronis)

In my part of the world we have a saying...

If it ain't broke then don't fix it.

Mepis works fine. Debian is fine. (read the forums). Updating is fine.
Mepis is comparable to all Distro's and better than most if not all. (In my opinion) and Warren deserves all things good as he has produced a wonderful OS that lets us get out of that Window.