Is SimplyMEPIS 3.4-3 RC 3 ready for final release?

I agree with the gist of your message.
-3.4-blahblahblah isn't ready.
-I agree with much of what you say about other distros.

You use the term POS... What does this mean?

I have never had problems with other Mepis pre-releases like I have had in this one.

Releasing this one would tarnish the Mepis reputation.

I have it installed on desk and lap. The swap space problem is cured and my HP printer is going again. It was a little disconcerting at first not to see the CD DVD icons but sure enough, inserting media brings them up.
In my case, it's thumbs up.

No, installing with res. 1280x1024 does not work. Did not find any partions. Restart with 1024x768 then it installs.

AdrianTM, following your last tip, I start the laptop, to follow the idea and all media appeared on their own.!!!
Why, this time UDEV went though and worked.
This is not ready. (2 out of 5, is not good)
NH

new udev fixed the media troubles.
New rc needed to much sure. My thoughts
Now this looks like udev is working at boot time corect, all is good.
Please serve up 3.4-3rc3.1
NH
off to reboot laptop 20 time...
... ALL THINGS FOUND ...

new udev is it
NH

Oh, I forgot, one more thing: for God's sake, why can't you add midnight commander it's like if there was no bash... In console, I feel kind of blind when I don't have mc, and I think I'm not the only one. It doesn't take very much space, does it?...

I am sorry Warren, I made the mistake of saying there was no CD icon, when I was running from CD, as I only hace the one drive nothing was showing up.
A word of warning to all, I have screwed my system by upgrading to KDE 3.5, I had no udev, no CD reconicion, No flash drive reconicion, nothing.
Jim

Haven't installed to HD yet, but everything seems to work on the Live running from CD. It seems much faster to boot and bring up apps than the previous version, and all the FF plugins work fine. The CD icons appear when media is loaded, except for the Mepis Live disk, which is a little odd, but not a problem.

Thanks for what looks like a terrific new release, Warren and gang. I'd say it's ready!

Installed Mepis 3.4-3RC3 on a IMB laptop T41. My wireless card is a
Intel(R) Pro/Wireless LAN 2100 3B. On the same machine I got installed Mepis 3.3.2 and I am running wifi with WEP encryption without problems. To make it work I had to use ndiswrapper.

Still working without WEP. I have done some more investigation

After booting I did an dmesg and found the following:

ipw2100: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Connection
cs: IO port probe 0x100-0x3af: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x3e0-0x4ff: excluding 0x4d0-0x4d7
cs: IO port probe 0x820-0x8ff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0xc00-0xcf7: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0xa00-0xaff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x100-0x3af: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x3e0-0x4ff: excluding 0x4d0-0x4d7
cs: IO port probe 0x820-0x8ff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0xc00-0xcf7: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0xa00-0xaff: clean.
eth1 (WE) : Driver using old /proc/net/wireless support, please fix driver !

Please fix driver!....Sounds like a bug dont you think?

When I try to set my wep with iwconfig the network system freeze and I
got an message saying: "Segmentation fault"

My card use the ipw2100 and not the ipw2200. When I use "find file" for
ipw2100 and ipw2200 I got completely different results. For example on
/lib/modules/2.6.15-1-586tsc/drivers/net/wireless I find a file called
ipw2200.ko but nothing like ipw2100.ko.

Could it bee that simple that they forgot to include my ipw2100 in the new kernel module?

I have seen in forums for others distros that some of them have suffered
the same errors in the past:

http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=33252
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=212722

In my opinion the RC3 should not be released as stable as long as it got problems with wireless and other hardware. Good wireless support (hardware support in general) is one of the most important factors when choosing a distro. Changing applications is easy even for an ignorant as myself. To make hardware work is more tricky.

rs-3 seems to be much improved, but...

It is absolutely essential for a solid distro to have robust and reliable locale settings to choose from during setup.
At least the locales for 10-15 major most-spoken World languages.
It is funny: sometimes a distro includes support for a language which only 10-15 mln. people know how to speak, and at the same time lacking support for a language, like Russian.
Sorry, but installed via Synaptic KDE Ru support doesn't allow me to create text and document files in Russian, as well as save a folder using Cyrillic fonts. I see Cyrillic letters while I type, but they can't be saved in the desktop environment and turn to ??????? ??? instead.

I just installed 3.4.3 rc3 to my desktop and still have the samba problems i had with 3.4.2 rc 2.1. Earlier versions of Mepis had samba working easily and it was great. During installation you fill in the blanks and it just worked. Now.. it doesn't. Can see all the other shares, but can't do anything with them. Can't write to them. Go to a share on another Mepis pc, open a dir, try to drag a file to the pc i'm at, which is another Mepis pc with 3.4.3 rc 2.1 on it, and it says, "Could not read /home/XXXX/smb4k/SERVER/XXXXX/Wallpaper/bbb.jpg" Also, some directories I can't even browse, they just appear empty. I have 2 Linux (mepis) and 3 windows pc's on my network and moving information easily is critical. It *was* working fine in older versions.

The reason I switched to Mepis over all other distros is...that it jsut worked.. had all the multimedia and java stuff in it at the start, and exchanging files with samba worked like a charm. All I had to do was install a few apps and I was good to go. Now, its taking days to try to figure things out--if there is even a solution. For that reason, I don't think Mepis is "Point and Click" ready at this time.

Respectfully,

Cloudchaser

Even though Kanotix disk looks like it has anything and a kitchen sink in it, it seemed bloated and didn't work for me.
I was having it on my HD just for about an hour, and needed to wipe it off.
Namely because of poor network support after HD install (worked fine off the Live CD though), and horrible anti-aliasing: no matter how I tried, all the fonts looked really bad on my DELL Trinitron modem and pppoe will go off on its own.

These three lines in my apt sourses file give me all I need: Mplayer, Realplayer, windows32 codec as well as lidvdcss2.

deb http://apt.mepis.org/3.3.2/ etch main

deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ etch main

deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ etch main contrib non-free

I tried Mepis RC1, RC2, RC2.1 and now RC3 (as well as several kanotix Rc's) and the only problem I had was with the floppy (solved with RC3).
Everything (as with kanotix) worked out of the box for me.
In fact there is hardly any difference in the packages for Mepis and Kanotix, speed is basically the same, fonts are better in Mepis than Kanotix (for me).
Both are fantastic distros.
Well done to Warren (and Kano)
anticapitalista

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

OScenter has a persistent problem. It just won't let me install it on my SATA disk, on a system that is running Windows XP SP2 on sda1 (C) and sda5 (data partition D). I did install an earlier RC on it, after letting QTparted create the Linux partitions, but (y'all are bored of this) it broke Windows, requiring a re-install. I think that was GRUB messing up the MBR, but Windows also warned me that the partition table was not normal. So I used Windows to create the intended Linux partitions (sda6,7,8 ), and I only used QTparted to format them (ext3, swap, ext3).

I can mount the partitions. OScenter sees both hda (old system disk that I want to copy my old files from) and sda (new system disk). When I select hda as the install drive, it offers me all three existing Linux partitions. But I want to install on sda. When I select sda as the install drive (whether or not hda is even attached), it sees no Linux partitions.

I don't have the OScenter sources (I am not a programmer!) but I suspect that it's using some kind of test to find partitions that is missing these mountable partitions. Maybe it's trying to read the partition table, and having trouble with the way XP SP2 writes a SATA partition table? BTW the desired root partition /sda6 starts about 125 Mbytes in from the start of the 160 MB SATA disk.

(Hardware info: Foxconn 6150K8MA-8KERS mobo, Athlon64 3200+, 512 MB, Hitachi Deskstar 160 GB SATA. Neither 3D, sound nor the Ethernet work, but that's expected with the Geforce 6150 mobo video and nForce 430 southbridge. I have the nVidia drivers, but need to do an HD install first.)

Try formatting the partition with ext2 with qparted before installation. If I format in ext2 the os-center always see my partititions. When you actually make the instalation you can choose the filesystem you want.

I also had to enter "root delay 10"(without ") at the end of the line that starts with "kernel" in /boot/grub/menu.lst to make it boot. If I did not enter the line I got a "kernel panic" (On 3.3.2 I have not tried te new rc on my SATA.

Nope, it isn't ready...

3.4-3 rc2 was closer to being ready!

Printer worked before rc2.1 & rc3, but now borked in rc3.

wireless still borked.

get ALL available drives onto desktop, not having to use k3b to mount a damn Cdrom drive

rc2 was better ... wasted too much time here trying to make rc3 be even close.. this is a backwards move.

Fix all of these complaints / errors in both of the "complaint" threads before calling the current release gold.

Ken
--
In a world without walls and fences nobody needs Windows and Gates!
User #104362 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org

Well it doesn't get detected on windows either, and doesn't work on windows using its original CD. It must be a broken card.
Funny how in these cases, when using linux I suspect the software, only when using windows I suspect the hardware.

well, Mepis 343rc3 ready for me then.

Pantheus, it would help if you supplied more details regarding hardware and define more precisely what you mean by 'borked'. Or send you findings directly to dev-at-mepis.org

Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question

Kamikaze, I did use qtparted to format the partitions (ext3). I used Windows to make the partitions, because it was unhappy with the way QTparted did it, but did the formatting both through OScenter (which ran QTparted) and via the command line (which turned out to invoke the same routines). Ext3 shouldnt be different from ext2 in that regard, should it?

Suppose I should be the same....

With this RC3 I do not think you could say what it should be...You need to look on what it is....(NO GOLD!!!!) If you use QTparted and format in fat32 or ext3 the OScenter does not find the partitions when you try to install. If you reformat the same partitions using QTparted with ext2 they shows up perfectly when you start the installation.

I have done it tons of times on two different machines and ext2 always shows up. When I install I always use ext3 or reiserfs and the installation goes on without problems. If you need to reinstall sometimes you need to reformat to ext2 and sometimes not.

Should be the same but it is not........

Try it I am sure it will work! Please let me know.

Suppose I should be the same....

With this RC3 I do not think you could say what it should be...You need to look on what it is....(NO GOLD!!!!) If you use QTparted and format in fat32 or ext3 the OScenter does not find the partitions when you try to install. If you reformat the same partitions using QTparted with ext2 they shows up perfectly when you start the installation.

I have done it tons of times on two different machines and ext2 always shows up. When I install I always use ext3 or reiserfs and the installation goes on without problems. If you need to reinstall sometimes you need to reformat to ext2 and sometimes not.

Should be the same but it is not........

Try it I am sure it will work! Please let me know.

Yes, carlops, I've been snding all of my / the issues to dev@ with no replies ... only two threads here to see how much MORE input they'd get.

Ken

In this series of RC .iso files, I have not been able to get my Atheros based card to work on my laptop. (Netgear WG511T) It worked on the previous stable version automatically. A more experienced friend told me that I should recompile the kernel to get module support for the card. I think that someone just forgot to mark it as "m" when they compiled Mepis' kernel for the RC series.

Mepis is the only distro that I've seen support this chipset at install time or on LiveCD.

I just remembered that the USB Logitech/Microsoft mouse didn't get detected with RC1, but I think it did with RC2. I will have to check on the latest RC3 to see if still fixed. Not a killer for me, I can track down another mouse.

I plan on trying RC3 tonight or tomorrow to see if this is fixed, but the previous 2 didn't work. Sorry, the holidays prevented me from doing bug reports.

Thanks,
Brian

Floppy problems, lots of tweaking. So I'm still using 3.3.1-1 and waiting patiently.

a current state of mind :roll:

Kamikaze,

You're right about ext2! That's bizarre. I used QTparted to reformat the partitions as ext2, rather than ext3, and OScenter saw them. Weird -- ext3 is basically ext2 with an extra journaling file, right?

This is probably a fairly simple bug in OScenter, and in a pinch could be fixed by simply putting a note in the installer to use ext2 at that stage -- it reformats to ext3 on the next screen anyway, if I ask it.

I'm still not out of the woods yet. I installed grub on the root partition, and then asked OScenter to install it to a floppy, but so far I can't get the floppy to boot. Still a little stuck. I didn't want to install grub on the MBR after what happened last time.

i 'made' 3 partitions with qtparted. it made two and formatted one.
by persistence i formatted the next, committed the change, made the third partition, committed the change, formatted the partition and committed the change.
I could have left out formatting, as the installer would have done it, but it wasn't simple.

I think it could use just a little more real world hammering out, I cannot get my printer goint, hp photosmart P1100 via usb, however it works through Samba to a windows machine... Also I used Bitpim to connect to a cdma cell phone to edit the phonebook, and download pictures, now what ever I do it will not connect, Bitpim is stating it cannot open the correct ports. I think the K3b thing needs to get hammered out, I had to compile my copy to get it to work. Still it is much better than other distros I have tried, I may end up going back to 3.3.1 or 3.4-rc1 to get all my features working.

Thanks for a great distro,
George Brown

-------------------------------------
I have a Microsoft Optical USB mouse that is working just fine with rc1, 2 and 3. As I posted before, do not press F2 while booting untill you get the UDEV update, it is in etch(testing) see if that helps.