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Titel:
 Verfasst am: 05.07.2006, 13:58 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 23. Mai 2005
Beiträge: 174
Wohnort: Greece
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wegface hat folgendes geschrieben::
Most mepis community members dont run mepis.... hehehe- does that tell you anything? Warren should release that source code immediatly- then we can all benefit from his tasty installer and detection code hehe. Peace
I don't know where you got that info from, but I doubt it is true. What you might mean is that several people who frequent the Mepis forums have "moved on" to other distros or use Mepis and others too. That comes as no surprise really as Mepis is unashamedly for new users and once people have more experience of linux they often move to more "demanding" distros.
I'm one of them I use Mepis, Kanotix and Debian sid.
About the GPL, I really do hope that Warren will comply and I also hope he will make available the source code for his installer and oscenter and it doesn't get lost to the world like the Libranet one has. |
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Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 05.07.2006, 15:07 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 02. Nov 2005
Beiträge: 127
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Thats the impression ive got from the mepis irc channel- generally speaking the people doing the helping are not running mepis- for reasons that you rightly stated. Compare that to kanotix irc where most uses are actually running kanotix. I'm not anti mepis- i have it installed on a small partition- and boot to it once in a while. Unfortunatly im hooked on the distrowatch rss bookmark in kanotix- which forces me to download nearly every linux distro released  |
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Linux user 403389 and Herbaholic Trichopath
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Titel: SimplyMEPIS update on Source Code
Verfasst am: 29.07.2006, 15:50 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 16. Mar 2005
Beiträge: 219
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Warren has updated the his web site with more info on satisfiying the requirements given to him by the FSF:
http://www.mepis.org/node/10725
As you can tell from previous remarks, he doesn't like it that he must distribute the source code, even if he never had it to begin with (including binaries in the distro from other sources).
In any event, he agreed to comply, and the source for GPL'd pacakges in SimplyMEPIS is now available for a nominal fee ($29.95):
http://www.mepis.org/source |
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Jim C.
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 30.07.2006, 07:09 Uhr
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Artist
Anmeldung: 11. Aug 2005
Beiträge: 451
Wohnort: Australia
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 30.07.2006, 11:58 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 05. Okt 2004
Beiträge: 2069
Wohnort: w3
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Well, I have tried Mepis 2 years ago, actually before I found Kanotix. Since it released a somewhat "milestone release" with version 6 recently, I gave it a 2nd try yesterday and installed to a test-partition. What I got was a more or less standard Kubuntu + Automatix (or Easybuntu), additionally optimized for kindergarten. 
Really, I don't like this childish theme at all, the colorfull icons - and specially the very important "applications" in the taskbar. I really love fish - for dinner, but do I need an aquarium in the kicker?
The package selection is very limited and not perfect. Nothing against the 1-task/1-application philosophy, I support that for Linux beginners, too. But How could one select XaraLX? It's a highly professional tool and quickly developing, but today it's in a very early beta state, far from usable.
The Mepis kernel with it's pre-patched modules is not what I expected. Warren's kernels have seen better days. Although promised on the web site, neither Nvidia 6600 on a standard HP Pavillion, nore a Mobility Radeon 9200 in a Sony Vaio laptop did have 3d hardware acceleration after install. Both commercial drivers where included and somehow installed, but not configured correctly. Better not include them, as "commercial kernel drivers are illegal", anyway.
A lot of other commercial stuff is included (just read up the legal section of the web site to see all the commercial licenses involved) - most of them not relevant to me. However, it would be impossible to roll out and support this distribution to my clients without getting into decent legal trouble. Not just that the GNU/GPL is abused and raped (which is a crime against every open source developer on this planet, and a slap in the face of every contributor to the linux kernel), but several other licenses conflict with each other and/or with the GPL.
Mepis is very US-centric. It comes with US-locales configured only, and even after HD-install it's not trivial to get everything working in a different language.
I did not find much of interest. But there are some nice ideas included, however:
1) Spashy is used for the bootsplash instead of the bootsplash kernel module. That's good practice, several other distributors already have done, or will do the same (including Kanotix).
2) The installer includes some useful additional choices, i.e. pre-configuration of samba and change of host name. Although we provide the same functionality with extra scripts, it's a nice idea to concentrate them in the installer. It's trivial to do so, and enhances the user experience (what a word! ) for beginners.
3) The KDE theme and style is polished and slightly differs from KDE defaults (most of that is Kubuntu-work). That makes you feel using a professional system, which is a good psychological effect. We are working on doing similiar things for the next Kanotix-release.
So, my conclusion: If you really want an Ubuntu based KDE distro and desperately need all the commercial stuff, and don't care for Debian incompatibility and restricted package choice - go and get Kubuntu, and make use of Automatix/Easybuntu-scripts. I really did expect more from Warren - kinda of a perfect Kubuntu. Mepis does promise a lot, but actually fails to deliver most of the promised gifts.
It would be obvious now to add a line about how much better Kanotix is - but you all know that already, and don't really need me to tell you. 
Greetings,
Chris |
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"An operating system must operate."
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 05.08.2006, 07:05 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 07. Dez 2005
Beiträge: 369
Wohnort: Port Angeles, Wa. USA
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Zitat:
Well, I have tried Mepis 2 years ago, actually before I found Kanotix.
I too tried Mepis before I tried Kanotix. Suprising to me was how Kanotix ran more smoothly. Installation was easy with both. Recently my brother had the Kubuntu "Easybuntu" installed & I thought it was kinda ridiculous, & as slam mentioned the pkg selection IS limited, I think due to the sources. I found the amount of commercial crap to be offensive, & agree it IS a "slap in the face" to GNU/GPL contributors, but that's just my opinion which ain't worth all that much in the grand scheme of things but I don't think many people care about that. I've installed that stuff, but have since removed them, cause I felt guilty about it, which is kinda weird, but I've made things work ok without them. On the plus side Mepis did have a nice "look" to it after changing the ugly default desktop wallpaper & icon sizes for him, but for reasons I can't readily identify here, it just seemed more clunky for lack of a better word. He's since emailed me with a bunch of install questions which my answers don't seem to apply, which I think may be due to basic incompatibility w/Debian, although I'm not sure. My suggestions are met with error messages on his end. |
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illegitimati non carborundum
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 05.08.2006, 09:41 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 12. Mar 2005
Beiträge: 1005
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I also tried mepis before I tried kanotix, but I found it annoying, it was the closest thing to windows that wasn't windows I'd used. I liked the easy install of stuff I didn't really know how to install, but that wasn't good enough for my taste.
Then I found kanotix 2005-2 I think it was, and I started using kanotix on a second box, as a media player, just to get a feel for it. Then I got apache/mysql/php running and I realized it was only a matter of time before I switched full time off windows. Then I just gave up and switched all the way to kanotix and I'm not regretting it.
I waited until 2005-4 to switch because I wanted to start out with the full stable release. All the people out there who complain about the wait, stop it, it's worth the wait, it's better to have stable than broken for your starting point, so when it's stable it will be ready, not before. |
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Read more on dist-upgrades using du-fixes-h2.sh script.
New: rdiff-backup script
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 05.08.2006, 16:29 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 16. Mar 2005
Beiträge: 219
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slam hat folgendes geschrieben::
The package selection is very limited and not perfect. Nothing against the 1-task/1-application philosophy, I support that for Linux beginners, too. But How could one select XaraLX? It's a highly professional tool and quickly developing, but today it's in a very early beta state, far from usable.
Errr umm..
XaraLX is preinstalled in SimplyMEPIS 6.0
As for package selection, you can add repositories.
I don't know a lot about Linux. But, shouldn't most applications designed for Debain run, as long as they're not drivers? |
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Jim C.
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 05.08.2006, 16:57 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 05. Okt 2004
Beiträge: 2069
Wohnort: w3
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Zitat:
XaraLX is preinstalled in SimplyMEPIS 6.0
Well, I meant "how dare could they select it to be pre-installed?" We all recently tested it, it's going to be a very interesting application - whne it's ready. XaraLX is pre-Beta - definitely not the right choice for the default image editor on a mainstream distro dedicated to beginners.
Zitat:
As for package selection, you can add repositories.
I don't know a lot about Linux. But, shouldn't most applications designed for Debian run, as long as they're not drivers?
No, you cannot freely install and run any Debian package you find on Ubuntu/Mepis - you're at high risk of breaking the packaging system that way (the same is true for Ubuntu/Mepis packages on Kanotix/Debian, by the way). You want recognize it immediately, the installed package might even run without problems, but you will definitely get into troubles installing/upgrading later on. Please consult the Ubuntu Wiki and Forum for various Articles and Reports about this problem. Ubuntu /Mepis is intentionally very limited in it's general Debian compatibility. Ubuntu maintainer prepare for you just a small selection of Debian, not more than 10% of the application base you have at your fingertips when using real Debian.
Greetings,
Chris |
_________________
"An operating system must operate."
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 05.08.2006, 17:35 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 16. Mar 2005
Beiträge: 219
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slam hat folgendes geschrieben::
Zitat:
XaraLX is preinstalled in SimplyMEPIS 6.0
Well, I meant "how dare could they select it to be pre-installed?" We all recently tested it, it's going to be a very interesting application - whne it's ready. XaraLX is pre-Beta - definitely not the right choice for the default image editor on a mainstream distro dedicated to beginners.
Sorry, I misunderstood you.
Yes, removing the Gimp and installing Xara LX doesn't make any sense to me. From what I can tell from looking at Xara LX, it's got zero features geared towards photographers. It seems to be geared towards graphics designers instead. As popular as Digital Photography is becoming, I don't understand the logic of including it instead of the Gimp. Although the Gimp has it's faults, it's more suitable for image editing.
If I decide to leave SimplyMEPIS running (I've been running it since it went final), I'll probably uninstall Xara LX so that it's not wasting disk space.
As for packages breaking the distro, I haven't had a major problem yet. But, I'm only pointing at the Ubuntu repositories right now (other than when I used Automatix to install some extras).
I'm sure there are cons to any distro. From a beginner's perspective (that's me), SimplyMEPIS is easier to get everything working in compared to most other distros I've tried, and since the Ubuntu community is quite large (and SimplyMEPIS is now based on Ubuntu), it's easy to get help in the forums. For example, I managed to figure out how to correct a printer setup problem, juist by visiting the Ubuntu forums (I had multiple responses to my issue in a matter of a few minutes). |
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Jim C.
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