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please suggest a live distro


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What's the difference between Mepis and SimplyMepis? :unsure:

 

There is no difference. They are the same thing. There used to be two different versions called Simply Mepis and Pro Mepis. Pro Mepis was done away with to have work shifted to Simply Mepis, which is usually just referred to Mepis for short. I don't know why you guys keep bashing it so much. I use it and like it a lot. It's still debian, no matter how you try to cut it. It's not either unstable, testing, or stable. It depends on which repos you choose to use. I'm a former Mandrake user. In fact, that's how I got started with Linux. I moved on to something else because it worked better for me hardware wise, but I'm not bashing Mandrake for it.

 

Although I will admit the website looks a bit drab and could really use some work, but the people there are friendly and I've learned a lot there.

Edited by axel_2078
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... I don't know why you guys keep bashing it so much.  I use it and like it a lot.  It's still debian, no matter how you try to cut it.  It's not either unstable, testing, or stable.  It depends on which repos you choose to use.  I'm a former Mandrake user.  In fact, that's how I got started with Linux.  I moved on to something else because it worked better for me hardware wise, but I'm not bashing Mandrake for it.

I don't think anyone in here wanted to bash Mepis. I see it more as some concerns that you can break your machine if you don't take special care when running "apt-get update" and "apt-get upgrade". And if its Mepis fault or Debians fault is... well different persons, different views. Nothing wrong with that imho. ;)
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For total n00bs, PCLinuxOS ain't bad at all, despite its obvious shortcomings (for advanced Linux users, that is).

 

Scarecrow, what shortcomings are you refering to? They're not obvious to me. I think pclos is a pretty nice project. Texstar, the main developer, has a long history with mdk and has a well deserved rep for being an excellent package builder. His themes were always top notch as well; something mandriva still hasn't managed to achieve. Tex knows how to put together a very nice looking and nice acting distro. When tex went off on his own to make his own distro as a fork from mandrake he stopped building rpms for mandrake/mandriva. A lot of people around here really miss tex and the excellent rpms he would build for us. Give the guy a break he's done a lot of good work and hasn't asked a whole lot in return. His distro generally gets very good reviews and is especially well liked by noobs.

I have pclos installed on one of my partitions and I think it's excellent. He's using apt for rpm with synaptic for package management and the distro is definitely upgradable through apt with a ton less fewer problems upgrading than mandriva or debian based distros for that matter. The packages available through tex's repos are excellent and wide ranging, including most, if not all, of the plf stuff. Pclos is pretty nice IMHO and the live cd is much better than mandriva's. I wouldn't have a problem recommending pclos to anyone.

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No doubt that Texstar is a great roller, and also no doubt that his distro is articulate, stable and highly polished (and pretty, since you mentioned it).

Still, its support for non-english users isn't good yet (actually this is a huge improvement, since up to version .81 the only system option was english), the devel packages are poor, and the kernels, being built with convenience in mind, are even more bloated than the Mandy/SuSE ones.

Surely enough one can roll his own quasi-vanilla kernels for PCLOS (or any other distro), and have a workaround for the devel packages, but IMO an alternative lite kernel should be offered right out of the PCLOS repos...

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  • 2 weeks later...
Mepis is Kanotix for the Windows-impaired users... A mix of Debian "testing" and "unstable" (while Kanotix is 100% Sid/unstable), suspiciously built custom kernels, and cheapo GUI tools for basic system administration. I'm not impressed at all either- surely enough there are plenty of better Debian clones out there.

 

LOL, although why im laughing i dont know, since i dont have kanotix (yet) and am using mepis.....but a point is a point.....

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... I don't know why you guys keep bashing it so much.  I use it and like it a lot.  It's still debian, no matter how you try to cut it.  It's not either unstable, testing, or stable.  It depends on which repos you choose to use.  I'm a former Mandrake user.  In fact, that's how I got started with Linux.  I moved on to something else because it worked better for me hardware wise, but I'm not bashing Mandrake for it.

I don't think anyone in here wanted to bash Mepis. I see it more as some concerns that you can break your machine if you don't take special care when running "apt-get update" and "apt-get upgrade". And if its Mepis fault or Debians fault is... well different persons, different views. Nothing wrong with that imho. ;)

 

Honestly? I have a great time with mepis but i have doubts about the GPL status and the fact that the mepis support sites are cultish. If someone wanted to settle down and depend on a distro, Mepis gets me nervous about repositories, the GPL and the fact that one guy withdrew his source code (the founder and sole developer?) after a tiff with KDE folks. I would sooner invest my time and data in Debian who hasnt thrown such hissy fits. But Mepis looks and feels easy and smooth and user friendly... a good intro distro, especially to deb and deb packaging....its got me apt-getting on mandrake and suse now too

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  • 1 month later...

 

Yep.

The "Jordaan"-version uses the Xfce Window-manger and it's possible to create a bootable usb-stick. You will need a usb-stick with at least 256mb on it. The cd is roughly 190mb. I think it's a great live-cd. B)

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I was quite excited to try out Ubuntu live (5.10) but came out rather disappointed. The fact that it didn't recognise my hard drives (I had to go to the console and do sudo mkdir and sudo mount (after reading up about them)) and didn't automatically see my network (I had to hunt through network settings) were quite poor if you're looking to recommend to a newbie. Plus the fact that it's really really really slow (even more embarrassing when I tried to demonstrate on a friend's PC which had a bit less ram) plus it couldn't shut down properly.

 

Knoppix live recognises everything, single click on the desktop icons to mount the recognised drives, network works, muuuuuch faster than Ubuntu, and shuts down properly. Ok so the start menu might be a bit overwhelming but the overall ease of use can't be beat. I've given it to newbie friends and they've found their way around.

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  • 1 month later...

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