MEPIS 3.4 - Upgrade Packages Available
Morgantown, WV, February 17, 2006: Per Warren Woodford, MEPIS founder, the upgrade packages for SimplyMEPIS 3.4, through version 3.4-3, are now available in the MEPIS pool.
The pool is meant for users of the 3.4 release and pre-releases of SimplyMEPIS. The upgrades may also work for earlier versions of SimplyMEPIS. Leading edge users who wish to know more about upgrading alternatives may visit the MEPIS.org forum or the MEPISLovers.com forum.
The pool upgrades include the latest versions of meauto for hardware detection, mepis-oscenter for extra utilities, mepis-onthego for running a home directory on an encrypted usb key, OpenOffice 2.0.1 for database fixes, Firefox 1.5.0.1 for security fixes, and a freshly built 2.6.15 kernel in three flavors 586tsc, 686-smp, and k7-smp.
The kernel is built from the official Debian upstream sources but with a MEPIS config file. A full set of kernel binary packages have been produced. These are the same as the Debian kernel packages except that MEPIS builds a 586tsc kernel instead of a 486 kernel and the MEPIS kernels contain extra patches for sk98lin, dell-usb-floppy, and enable-sata-cdrom.
A number of drivers are prebuilt and available for the 2.6.15 kernels including alsa, bcm4400, bcm5700, cloop, e1000, e100, fglrx, ieee80211, intel536ep, ipw2100, ipw2200, ixgb, ltmodem, madwifi, ndiswrapper, vidia, pwc, qc-usb, rt2400, rt2500 (non-smp only), spca5xx, unionfs, and usbvision. Other modules may be supported later.
Warren says, "For this release, MEPIS and Debian kernels are binary compatible if the kernel version and flavor are the same. Users of Debian kernels are welcome to use the MEPIS pre-built drivers."
Warren continues, "The MEPIS kernel is configured to be easy to update for critical hardware. Special attention is given to Intel hardware compatibility. The Intel network drivers, wireless drivers, and the ALSA drivers are compiled and packaged external to the kernel. This allows us to issue updates for just those drivers, for example when Intel releases a new series of motherboards."
To use the MEPIS 3.4 pool set your apt source to:
deb http://apt.mepis.org/3.4/ etch main
About MEPIS
MEPIS LLC was founded in 2003 by computer industry veteran Warren Woodford, to meet his personal desire for a version of Linux that was easy to try, easy to install, and easy to use. Today MEPIS offers innovative Linux solutions for home users, businesses, hardware vendors, and vertical market solution providers. MEPIS was a founding member of the DCC Alliance where it contributed the Intel and LSB compatible kernels built for the original DCC release.
About SimplyMEPIS
SimplyMEPIS is available as a free download from public Linux mirrors. MEPIS subscribers also have access, sometimes early access, to MEPIS ISOs at the MEPIS subscribers ftp site. For a subscription or other products available directly from MEPIS, visit store.mepis.com. Boxed MEPIS products are produced for retail stores by TAFusion, see www.tafusion.com. MEPIS does NOT authorize third parties to sell MEPIS products at eBay!
