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hard candy
11-22-2003, 02:04 PM
I started using Mepis linux a couple of weeks ago and decided to join the beta team. I was able to download the beta (all it takes is an email to Warren, the main honcho, as descibed on the site). the official release of the new version should be next week per the site. There is a version released back in August.
1. Downloaded one cd (the second cd just has extra programs).
2. Put it in and rebooted. It's a live cd.
3. Came up in the KDE gui.IceWM also available.
4. It worked from the get-go with my NVIDIA FX 5200.
5. Clicked on "Install Mepis".
6. It has Gnu-parted to make, resize, delete partitions. Made my partitions.
7. Installed to hard drive.
8. Rebooted.
9. Came back into the KDE gui.
10. The NVIDIA was already configured with the proper driver. My Canon printer and scanner were recognized and installed. Logitech MX700 mouse installed-worked with all the buttons.
11. It is based on Debian- uses apt-get but can be configured to use rpm's, slackware packages.
12 Open office plus all of the KDE office apps are installed.
13. All the WEB development tools, programmer tools ready and present. Has an article on installing Visual Linux Basic on the front page.
14. Sound is great. (Turtle Beach Santa Cruz)
15. The only program I really needed to install was K3b since it has X-cdroast as default. (I prefer K3b). That was a click on Kpackage, click on K3b, click on Install- then click on K3b setup.
Better and easier than WinXP-no drivers to download. Point and click for Linux has arrived.
The site: MEPIS Linux-where no linux has gone before (http://www.mepis.org/)
They have done a heck of a job.
MMYoung
11-22-2003, 10:02 PM
I tried MEPIS Linux back in September using the August release. Had some problems, NVIDIA card and if I remember right it wouldn't let me install the bootloader to the root partition would only install to MBR or to floppy. Glad to hear they got the NVIDIA thing fixed. How about the bootloader install? Of course this was before I learned how to set up other distros to boot using my MDK 9.1 loader.
I was really impressed with the "look and feel" of MEPIS and when the new release is posted I'm going to give it another try. Just in time for the holidays!!!
Later,
MMYoung
hard candy
11-22-2003, 10:38 PM
The default bootloader is lilo. It picked up the WinXp partition on my laptop but does not pick up other linux installs on my other computers. There is an icon on the desktop to mount all the other partitions on the machine, so adding them to lilo manually is easy.
I've only installed lilo to the MBR since it was so easy mounting the other partitions, opening their boot sectors and copying their boot config files.
amgeex
11-23-2003, 12:49 AM
Ok, why do all of this distros like Mepis, Morphix, Knoppix, Gnoppix, are based on Debian. Is it easy to build a distro using Debian as a base or something? Or is it a dark debian secret to sparse the GNU Linux movement? Or to make most distros use apt-get? Could someone shed some light on this misterious crap?
the AMGeeX
hard candy
11-23-2003, 01:07 AM
It is probably a combination of the package management system being stable and the amount of packages available. The Debian community is pretty good about repackaging applications for debian. And if you need a rpm or slackware package, you run " alien -d package*.rpm", then " dpkg -i package*.deb" to install it.
MMYoung
11-23-2003, 07:12 AM
Originally posted by amgeex
Ok, why do all of this distros like Mepis, Morphix, Knoppix, Gnoppix, are based on Debian. Is it easy to build a distro using Debian as a base or something? Or is it a dark debian secret to sparse the GNU Linux movement? Or to make most distros use apt-get? Could someone shed some light on this misterious crap?
the AMGeeX
The real mistery in my mind is if MEPIS and Knoppix (I haven't tried the others) can build a distro that can either be run from a CD or installed this painlessly, why doesn't Debian do the same? I have actually read the link in your sig about installing Debian and comparing it to the install that HC described, and what I experienced with an earlier release of MEPIS, it does make one wonder.
I guess I'm one of those "lazy Americans" that I have read about on this forum, but installing Debian just looked a little too daunting for me right now.
Later,
MMYoung
bogomip2
11-23-2003, 07:30 AM
hard candy, it sounds like you are having as much fun with MEPIS as a new toy/tool as I am with Fedora. Having never used MEPIS, I will take your word that it is great. But greater than the mighty Fedora? I just my have to check this out for myself!
MMYoung
11-23-2003, 07:42 AM
Hey HC, have you had a chance to try the Visual Basic for Linux yet? I have been keeping up with this project for the past few weeks and didn't know that it had progressed this far. I will be starting a college course in January and I have to take two Visual Basic classes. This is the main reason I still have Win2K Pro on my PC. From what I've read it (VB4Lin) is going to be code compatible with VB4Win.
Just wondering,
MMYoung
hard candy
11-23-2003, 08:29 AM
According to this link, he used Hbasic since he felt it was furthest along in development. There are 3 other basic projects.
I haven't used it yet, I just found out about it.
Hbasic with Mepis (http://www.mepis.org/node/view/312)
And the HBasic homepage
HBasic (http://hbasic.sourceforge.net/)
He has links for the others on the Mepis page.
amgeex
11-23-2003, 11:11 AM
Thanks for all the info. Pretty nice. Um.. regarding Debian's installation procedures, I had never installed it before, but following that guide in my sig it was pretty easy, although I had no sound, no NVidia drivers for my card, etc. But still it was fun, I think I'm trying mepis some day.
hard candy
11-24-2003, 01:53 AM
Another nice surprise- I read about this on the Mepis forum. With no added programs or codecs, I downloaded the latest Matrix trailer which is in the Quicktime format. Unzipped it with ark, opened it with noatun and started playing it right away. The quicktime and other codecs are already installed. Nice. Beats WinXp out of the box.
tucolino
11-24-2003, 02:20 AM
Originally posted by hard candy
According to this link, he used Hbasic since he felt it was furthest along in development. There are 3 other basic projects.
I haven't used it yet, I just found out about it.
Hbasic with Mepis (http://www.mepis.org/node/view/312)
And the HBasic homepage
HBasic (http://hbasic.sourceforge.net/)
He has links for the others on the Mepis page.
didn't see it anywhere... are applications coded with hbasic portable at all? i know qt is...
tuco
hard candy
11-24-2003, 07:49 AM
Hbasic homepage (http://hbasic.sourceforge.net/)
Some Hbasic code samples (http://hbasic.sourceforge.net/examples/code_examples.html)
gambus (http://gambas.sourceforge.net/)
I'm not sure how portable they are.
MMYoung
12-05-2003, 06:15 PM
I downloaded and installed MEPIS 2003.10 and the only problem I'm having right now is the networking.
I have an ASUS A7V8X mobo with the Broadcom 4401 onboard NIC. I have read on the MEPIS forums that people with those NIC's are having some problems with the network. It has even been suggested that it might have something to do with the kernel (2.4.22 - which I doubt). The setup I'm using is a Motorola SB4200 Cable modem connected to a Linksys Network Everywhere NR041 4-port router. This works in MDK 9.1, MDK 9.2 (for the 2 hours I had it on my PC), Slackware 9.1 and Gentoo (again while they were on my PC) and I didn't have any problems with any of them. It even works with Fedora, right out of the box! All but MDK 9.1 uses the 2.4.22 kernel. I personally think it's a name resolution problem, but again that's my opinion and as I'm not real sure about how to go about "fixing" that I don't know how to proceed at this point.
Any suggestions Hard Candy?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
MMYoung
hard candy
12-05-2003, 07:23 PM
What does the network tab in the System Center show? Does it show the interface as being up? On my wireless card on my notebook, sometimes it says the interface is up but no address is listed in the status. So I stop it and restart it. Do you get an address in the status tab?
And if you don't get anything, is the correct module being loaded at start-up? Also, is this static or dhcp?
MMYoung
12-05-2003, 07:33 PM
Originally posted by hard candy
What does the network tab in the System Center show? Does it show the interface as being up? On my wireless card on my notebook, sometimes it says the interface is up but no address is listed in the status. So I stop it and restart it. Do you get an address in the status tab?
And if you don't get anything, is the correct module being loaded at start-up? Also, is this static or dhcp?
System Center shows that eth0 is up and it has the correct IP address. I can stop eth0 but can't restart it once I've stopped it, or at least if it does restart there is no IP address. As far as I know the correct module is being loaded (b44) here are the last lines of /var/log/dmesg
b44: eth0: Link is down.
b44: eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex.
b44: eth0: Flow control is on for TX and on for RX.
b44: eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex.
b44: eth0: Flow control is on for TX and on for RX.
NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
b44: eth0: transmit timed out, resetting
b44: eth0: Link is down.
b44: eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex.
b44: eth0: Flow control is on for TX and on for RX.
Yes the router is set up for DHCP. The only difference that I have seen is when I do lsmod in MDK I get the following message concerning the NIC:
bcm4400 30432 1 (autoclean)
in MEPIS I get the following:
b44 13132 1
Don't know what all that means but there it is anyway.
Thanks,
MMYoung
hard candy
12-05-2003, 08:25 PM
I'm puzzled, if it shows an interface up and an address assigned by the router- you "should" be able to go online. The only thing I can think of is logging in as root and trying it. Then if it works, it may be a permission problem,
MMYoung
12-05-2003, 09:41 PM
I think I was logged in as root at that time. I fairly certian of it but I will boot into MEPIS and make sure.
Just got an email response from Warren at MEPIS with some more questions that I need to answer anyway.
Let you know what comes of it.
Later,
MMYoung
MMYoung
12-06-2003, 11:47 AM
Hard Candy,
It was the default driver that MEPIS uses for my NIC. I downloaded the linux driver from Broadcom and installed it and everything is working fine now.
According to Warren he's going to modify MEPIS's hardware database to add the Broadcom module (bcm4400.o) for the NIC chipset that is on my mobo so that it will use it by default rather than the one that it uses now (b44).
And you're right, MEPIS is awsome. Other than that one problem with my NIC it was a "point and click" affair. The install went smoothly and everything got recognized (as I said other than the NIC problem) even my SB Live! MP3+, USB mouse and USB printer are up and working. The printer was an easy configure using the CUPS configuration (localhost:631). Even the NVIDIA drivers are working correctly RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX!
Oh well, now to play around with some of the stuff on the second CD and looking at the programs available using KPackage.
Later,
MMYoung
Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379
12-06-2003, 10:46 PM
Originally posted by MMYoung
The real mistery in my mind is if MEPIS and Knoppix (I haven't tried the others) can build a distro that can either be run from a CD or installed this painlessly, why doesn't Debian do the same? I have actually read the link in your sig about installing Debian and comparing it to the install that HC described, and what I experienced with an earlier release of MEPIS, it does make one wonder.
I guess I'm one of those "lazy Americans" that I have read about on this forum, but installing Debian just looked a little too daunting for me right now.
Later,
MMYoung
FYI: KNOPPIX is based off of Debian. If you want a Debian system, you could install KNOPPIX to your hard drive. I'm not sure if the KNOPPIX site has instructions on how to do this, but if you tried Google, I'll bet it'd be there.
If you installed that, you'd have a fully working Debian system. :cool:
MMYoung
12-06-2003, 10:55 PM
Originally posted by Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379
FYI: KNOPPIX is based off of Debian. If you want a Debian system, you could install KNOPPIX to your hard drive. I'm not sure if the KNOPPIX site has instructions on how to do this, but if you tried Google, I'll bet it'd be there.
If you installed that, you'd have a fully working Debian system. :cool:
I've installed MEPIS (http://www.mepis.org). It too is based off of Debian and it works like a charm.
Later,
MMYoung
Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379
12-07-2003, 12:09 AM
Originally posted by MMYoung
I've installed MEPIS (http://www.mepis.org). It too is based off of Debian and it works like a charm.
Later,
MMYoung
Heh... must have missed that part.
Then what's the big deal? It seems like you've gotten your cake and eaten it, too. I mean, if the distro is based off of Debian, wouldn't it serve to reason that it'd basically be Debian?
I've not yet run Mepis, but I've used Knoppix quite a bit. Knoppix does everything Debian can do, so I'd imagine Mepis can to. Personally, I'd like for Debian to stay just like it is, as far as the installation is concerned. Because of its very low resource-intensive text-based installer, you can pretty much wedge it onto any machine.
But, alas. I still stand by my point. If you've got Mepis or Knoppix running, you've got a Debian system that runs flawlessly from CD and can be installed "painlessly".
MMYoung
12-07-2003, 05:56 AM
Originally posted by Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379
But, alas. I still stand by my point. If you've got Mepis or Knoppix running, you've got a Debian system that runs flawlessly from CD and can be installed "painlessly".
It ain't no big deal, I was just asking a rhetorical question. I agree that, even though it is called MEPIS, I'm still using a Debian system, apt-get, synaptic, KPackage and all. The great thing in all this is that you can install whatever distro that works for you. If you want to install "pure" Debian then by all means go for it. Same for Gentoo or Lindows or Lycoris for that matter. The Choice is what makes Linux so great, all the other benefits are just so much candy after the cake so to speak.
Just my thoughts,
MMYoung
I just barely heard of this today, and did lots of reading. Looks like its time for me to try another distro. I just have to figure out where to put it. I am currently quad-booting. I installed Debian a few weeks ago and am still fighting with getting it configured properly and upgrading the kernel. I will try MEPIS out, and probably replace Debian if all is well. I can't wait to try this one out. I don't like how it says that it is as fast as WinXP on their site. IMO all linux distros I have run are faster than XP. Oh well.
One quick question. If I run the "live cd" before I install, Will I be able to tell if all my hardware is supported before I install on my HD? I'm guessing that is the point of it.
MMYoung
12-07-2003, 02:50 PM
Originally posted by Shep
One quick question. If I run the "live cd" before I install, Will I be able to tell if all my hardware is supported before I install on my HD? I'm guessing that is the point of it.
That's the great thing about a "live" CD distro. That was how I knew that there was a problem with my NIC. Booted up MEPIS and couldn't access the net. One thing I have found out from that experience, MEPIS has EXCELLENT technical support. After I installed MEPIS, and still couldn't access the net, they walked me through several different scenarios, I use MDK 9.1 and could get to the net from there, until the problem was determind and was fixed. I have nothing but good things to say about them. I don't think you'll be sorry you gave MEPIS a try. It literally is a "point and click" install. AMAZING!
Later,
MMYoung
I didn't find debian to be all that tough, so I'm sure it will be a breeze. I just have to download it tonight. I'm glad I found this one, seems great.
hard candy
12-07-2003, 05:33 PM
There is an article for using the bittorrent to download it. If you get slow speeds like I did, it's probably because not a lot of people are online. Then try the straight download.
And is "UT" initials for Utah (home of SCO) or University of Tennessee (home of the team the GA Bulldogs used for practice this year)? :D
Had no problem DL'ing it. Only took an hour. My stupid CD-Rs are only 650mb though, so I can't burn it till I get some 700 mb ones. And yes UT is for Utah *bows head in shame* :( One day I'll get out of this hell hole.
hard candy
12-08-2003, 02:10 PM
I know some cd recording programs will let you overburn cd's to fit more data on it- I think K3B will, not sure about Arson. cdrecord is the command line program that may do it.
hard candy
12-08-2003, 02:32 PM
From cd burning howto:
4.26 How can I overburn a CD using {cdrecord,cdrdao}?
Overburning a CD-R is nothing special. It is at your own risk that the data fits on the CD-ROM, but thats all. There are no 650 Mbytes-limits in the software under Linux.
You might try it, at the least you'll get a coaster for your coffee cup!
hard candy
12-09-2003, 11:44 AM
A review of Mepis on OSNews:
Mepis review (http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5348)
MMYoung
12-09-2003, 02:42 PM
I read that already. Good review and a pretty fair evaluation of the support, from my personal perspective anyway. I guess Warren don't sleep. ;)
Later,
MMYoung
This is a great distro. I ran it off of the CD yesterday, and it ran perfectly. Detected my hardware, and everything that I spend so much time configuring for Debian Woody, worked great with MEPIS. I am going to install it in a couple of days. Will it auto detect my hardware durring install just as it did running off of the cd? Or will I have to manually set it all up. My main problem has been with my vid card (MDK and Debian), but Xwindows ran fine under MEPIS.
hard candy
12-10-2003, 04:47 PM
If it works with your hardware with the live cd then it will work with your hardware after install. That is what I like about it- it lets you try it out before committing yourself to installation. Plus you still have all the debian packages available. I have installed 2 other programs using "alien -d ***.rpm" and "alien -d ***.tar.gz" and then just clicking on the debian package.
If your X config needs adjusting use the live cd and then the xconfigurator in the Mepis Install icon. Same for the bootloader-lilo. And it will mount any partition on your machine from the start with the desktop icon. Welcome.
MMYoung
12-10-2003, 06:28 PM
Like Hard Candy said, if you can use your stuff when you boot from the CD then you can use it after you install.
The only problem that I had was my onboard NIC. I just downloaded the newest drivers, compiled them from source and, following the instructions that Warren supplied to me, my network is up and running.
One hint though, if you use an NVIDIA video card, just stay with what's installed from the CD. I "updated" my nvidia drivers using KPackage and X wouldn't start. Couldn't even get back my old drivers using the live CD. Had to reinstall, which with this distro ain't that hard a thing to do.
I am really impressed with it and am speading the word whenever and wherever possible.
Later,
MMYoung
Well its all installed, I have nothing but go things so far. It is amazing how simple it was to install. Only gripe would be lack of customizing at install. I don't really use 75% of the stuff it installs, but doesn't bother me much. Thanks guys for the heads up on this distro.
hard candy
12-11-2003, 07:05 PM
You can use kpackage to customise it. Makes it so easy.
MMYoung
12-11-2003, 07:21 PM
You can use the MEPIS System Center to do "some" modification to your apt settings. Open up MEPIS System Center and select the Package Managment menu. I selected the "Use MEPIS CD # 2" and "Use the internet" selection. Set my primary site country code to US and deselected the "include non-US packages". I then clicked on the Clear button next to the Clear the apt packages cache and then clicked on apply. Then opened up KPackage clicked on Special --> APTDebian --> Update and got a fresh package list.
Works like a charm. I've deleted my Mandrake 9.1 and am using MEPIS as my main distro now. I have installed Slackware 9.1 and am working on it in my spare time. After I get that up and working I'm going to try Gentoo again.
Later,
MMYoung
I decided to install MEPIS over my Debian partition. I will reinstall debian on a different partition. It was a little messed up anyways. I will have to setup kpackage with apt-get like mentioned.
rbrimhall
12-23-2003, 01:21 AM
I have found a distro that has pulled me away from RH/Fedora... after all I have tried MEPIS is awesome! The fact that I don't have to manually install plug-ins is great. I could automatically install libdvdcss to play my DVD's with apt. This distro is nearly perfect. One more MEPIS convert to the fold... now to send Warren some $$ for CD's and Support (not that I need it... everything is working like a charm.)