SimplyMEPIS Linux 8.0
What I Liked Most
The easy install and the lack of KDE 4′s obnoxious menus were the two things I enjoyed most about SimplyMEPIS. Yes, I actually didn’t miss KDE 4 much if at all while using SimplyMEPIS. The SimplyMEPIS online manual is also quite good and should help users before, during and after their installation.
Problems & Headaches
I find the login password thing rather stupid and potentially somewhat annoying to new users who might not be able to figure out the passwords. Yes, I know it’s simple if are familiar with logging into these kinds of distributions but newbies to Linux might be perplexed and might not know where to get the passwords for the Root or Demo accounts. And, of course, some newbies might not even know what Root is or what it should be used for.
Note that SimplyMEPIS is using the older version of KDE. I personally don’t mind this at all but some KDE users might not appreciate not having KDE 4. Given that this review is a bit tardy since SimplyMEPIS came out toward the beginning of the year, I’m not going to penalize it in this review for the older KDE desktop. But be aware of it if you decide to download SimplyMEPIS 8.0.
I was not happy to note that GIMP was not included in the default install.
The SimplyMEPIS default desktop wallpaper is rather drab looking. It lacks the gorgeous appeal of Linux Mint 7′s as well as the satanic creepiness of Ubuntu Satanic Edition. I’d like to see something more distinct to give SimplyMEPIS its own identity and more easily identifiable look and feel.
And I also did not care for the way the app menus were organized. There was the main list of apps but then I had to click on another selections called More Applications to see the rest of them. They all ought to be listed directly under the appropriate category rather than having some of them broke out into More Applications. A minor thing perhaps but still annoying.
(11 votes, average: 4.27 out of 5)
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Hi Jim! Glad to see that you got that ROUND TUIT so that you could review SimplyMEPIS 8.0. Just in the nick of time, too! SimplyMEPIS 8.5 repositories are already being built! Have not checked MEPIS Lovers Forum today to see if Warren has made any kind of announcement about the first test release, but some ambitious MEPIS Lovers have already been playing with the new repos, and they DO have KDE 4.3 in them, and several hundred packages have already gone into the new repository, so a new test release is certainly less than a month away, possibly days away, possibly even announced. (I will have to check later to see where that’s at now).
As far as SimplyMEPIS itself, it is an extremely conservative release. The raw release is nearly as old and drab as Debian Lenny is, but the positive aspect of this attribute is that you can nearly always count on it to work.
One thing you did not bring out is that the MEPIS Lovers Forum is possibly the best distribution specific user community out there. None of the fighting found at PCLinuxOS, sidux, or even Ubuntu. The average age of forum members is somewhat older than the average, which results in both a high level of experience, which in their case also translates into level headed minds, who keep close watch on the forum to answer questions, but also to deflect conversations that can build into ugly arguments.
That same forum has established and built a very nice community repository, which contains a lot of newer, but still well tested software. There is a test version, where you can evaluate and help test the latest packages, to make sure that they work correctly, and there are more conservative, well tested out repositories, which include both free and non-free (with and without source code) applications. You can get newer kernels there, new browsers, multimedia applications, and so forth. This community repository helps keep MEPIS current with very little sacrifice in quality.
Concerning menus and appearance, those are some of the most common complaints about MEPIS as shipped. Again, the forums are helpful for working around and modifying these things.
As is, MEPIS is a very solid, stable desktop system. As my stable system, I have found nothing quite like it – not even Mint is as stable as SimplyMEPIS. For communities, there is no better distro specific community than SimplyMEPIS.
I do use other distros – sidux and antiX, in particular, to scratch my itch for the latest stuff. But not even Debian Lenny does better than SimplyMEPIS in providing a stable desktop – I got SimplyMEPIS to install on one system where Debian actually had problems figuring out how to handle the disk!
So, like anything else, SimplyMEPIS has its pros and cons. For what it is designed to do, however, I know of nothing better!
[...] of the ones that gets drooled over by the media the way that Linux Mint, Ubuntu and others do. More here Overall my experience with SimplyMEPIS was pretty positive with a few things that I didn’t [...]
@ Brian Masinick:
Well I hope that we aren’t going to have a Linux Mint situation where I do the review and two weeks later a new version is out. Heh.
Glad to see that you think so highly of the MEPIS forum. I try to include links like that so anybody new to the distro can quickly and easily find feedback from more experienced users.
@ dragonmouth:
Thanks for catching that edit error, Dragon. I have removed the duplicate text from the Wiki quote. Talk about embarrassing.
Yes, you are quite right the background can be changed. I was just remarking on it in the context of how the distro is branded. I think it could be done in a more exciting or at least interesting way.
Glad to read that you are enjoying SimplyMEPIS though, thanks for sharing what you liked about it.
Just a few comments…
I’ve been using Linux as my main desktop system since the late 90′s and have tried MANY distros over the years. Mepis is the one I always come back to for my main systems. If you want a good Lenny system with more up-to-date packages and easy-to-use GUI system utilities, this is the way to go. I’ve seen very few systems where Mepis didn’t “just work”. I teach a high-school technical class and all of my systems are running Mepis 8 with WindowsXP (which came on them originally) running inside VirtualBox. No virii, no worms, no wannabe-hackers messing up my systems. If the virtual XP gets trashed, I just unpack the tar archive and it’s fully functional again in 5 minutes. Mepis can be a little boring because it’s so stable and based on Lenny, but that’s NOT a bad thing. I experiment on other systems, but Mepis stays on my WORK system.
@ Zipslack:
So you’d consider it more of a workhorse rather than showhorse eh Zip? Yeah, I think I agree with that.
@ Jim Lynch:
Oh, you can dress it up like a cheap coctail waitress and put in all the bells and whistles to make your friends go “Oooh…aahhh!”, but I’m more interested in reliability and function. I even run it on an old P2-400 with 256MB RAM as a spare “travel” unit (i.e. – I won’t cry if it gets broken/stolen). It’s a shame plain-jane Debian isn’t this easy to install and maintain.
My time is valuable, so I want a system that works well with minimum tinkering…I LEARNED on Slackware, but I USE Mepis.
Excellent points, Zip. Makes sense to me. Sort of like picking a good spouse. Beauty might be momentarily satisfying but after that there needs to be more at the core of the other person.
If KDE were my preferred desktop and I wanted a “go to” system either Mepis or PCLOS09 would be my choice. Mepis has its foibles, but it is carefully done and it works very well in my experience. (Yes, menu structure could be cleaned up.) The significant difference between PCLOS and Mepis has to do with their repositories, since both make use of apt-get, which is a very good thing indeed.
And I’ll second Masinick on the quality of the forum, which is no small thing and PCLOS09 has a similar feel, I think.
If you like Lenny a bit cleaned up in a business suit (as wild as Lenny ever gets, I suspect), Mepis is the place to go. Of course there is naughty sidux.
My “go to”? Well, I prefer Gnome or Xfce, so I use Ubuntu 8.10 which also “just works”, so I leave it alone! Boring can be a very good thing when there is work to be done.
I’m with some of the previous comments:Mepis is so solid, stable, and easy to use that it’s boring–and that’s good. Work bought me a netbook and I installed Mepis to dual boot with XP. Mepis found EVERYTHING–Bluetooth, wireless LAN, sound, webcam, microphone. I don’t have time to use anything but the wireless LAN, but it all works. Durn thing went boring on me.
Sometimes boring is nice. I like the OS to be totally boring and out of sight if I have work to do.
Just last week I threw MEPIS 8 on one of my machines to give it a run. It replaced Mint 7 KDE which was just too much for the 1.6 ghz Pentium M and 768 MB ram so a 3.5 release of KDE was very much a PRO. Install went great and I was very please to see when I did the initial available upgrades that it took Firefox to a 3.5 level version. Sweet! I had planned on having to do that manually or rely on a 3.0 level release. I’ll have to swing by the forums and check them out as those menus do need a little rearranging and I plan on running a second monitor on this install soon.
Add that this release is based in WV (Go Mountaineers!!!) and I think this one is a real winner! Got my fingers crossed that KDE 3.5 will continue to be a supported option as KDE4 is just too much for some older but still very functional hardware.