SimplyMEPIS 6.0 Review
Submitted by srlinuxx on Thu, 09/07/2006 - 07:01.
It's time to give the latest version of SimplyMEPIS a spin - this time, the version has jumped from 3.x to 6.0, along with a change of base from Debian to Ubuntu. So, has it made any difference?
Installation
MEPIS's installation provided simple enough, although the absence of a text based alternative is a little disappointing. The first thing you must do is boot into the LiveCD, which showed that a problem I had from the previous version of MEPIS still exists - automatically detecting the resolution gives me 1024x768 rather than my usual 1280x1024, while manually selecting 1280x1024 before starting the LiveCD causes the monitor to complain that it is out of range. I do not know the cause, but it is something that doesn't happen in both Ubuntu and Debian.
After the installation proper, adding the nVidia graphics drivers proved relatively simple, but highlighted another problem with MEPIS. As always, I require that the network settings be manually configured, rather than letting the distribution do this. Otherwise, apt, among others, fails to work.
Mepis, mepis and Mepis, but its Warren's Mepis ?
Often the distro developer got into a sweet spot of keystrokes and forced users to work on a compatible certified computer. Or that keystrokes had to be conformed to the distro sequences. When Linux experts feel they can handle the manipulations in any Linux idstro, the sweet spots were abandoned and chaos resulted. But often going over the installation steps again will work everything out the way the distros dictated a rigid way of using their distro. This is the case here.
By using 1024x768 resolution, Mepis avoided framebuffering, and antialiasing fixes. This simplified codes, many distros are still in that same sweet spot.
Mepis dhcp(dhcpcd) automation prefers its own installation instead of manually install newtwork which may miss out some bindings.
There are two sets of system configurations, Linux kernels and KDE window manager configuration files. Mepis separated the tweaks(KDE) and setting setups(kernels).
So, if you like Mepis or you hate Mepis depends on knowing how Warren runs his computer with Mepis. No distro has the perfect codes for the way you want to run Linux distros. It is the reason why Linux is free, you can not get any refunds. But then Microsoft will not refund thier operating system either, just because you don't know how to run it right?
As usual, reveiwer from england lack distro philosophy understanding. Each distro has its own flavours, and philosophy of how it should perform. Reviewers tend to force their own opinions on the distro, not realizing that each distro has their own performance standards.
I always recommend more help desk or manual to explain some of the ways to run the operating system by the distro to get more popularity. Radio Shack TRS-80 taught me more about computers and software than IBM ever did? IBM gets $150.00 per hour to teach me how each keystroke had to be done sequentially, just to run their computers.
Warren may have to list all the sequential kestrokes for users?