Comments on: Review: SimplyMepis 8.0

By: Porter

Porter — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:30:18 +0000

Lots of comments on here, everyone’s entitled to their opinion. I installed Mepis on a PIII 500 Mhz with 384 MB of RAM, live CD boot was slower than most other distros but when installed, it runs great on an old box with limited resources. For me, that is the true test because I can recycle old hardware, put Mepis on there, give the box to someone who wants to surf the Internet and read emails and they have a stable secure box that will work. I have been using Mepis since (6) and I have always been extremely happy with it. Although I am sure everyone who experienced some problems were a bit frustrated, once installed, Mepis just works, same can be said for Fedora and Ubuntu in my experience. Love the distro, enjoyed the review and the comments. Linux is such a great OS, can’t say how happy I am to be rid of MS.

By: Eric Mesa

Eric Mesa — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:32:24 +0000

Good news: http://server.ericsbinaryworld.com/blog/2009/08/02/the-final-linux-review-for-now/

By: Kirby

Kirby — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:28:49 +0000

Groan. Another dumb review by somebody trying to use vbox/vmware. Do me a favor and don’t do anymore reviews. What the hell is wrong with people these days?

By: Animal X

Animal X — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:50:13 +0000

as a “regular user” (at home desktop), I don’t fool with VM for anything. I want a simple distro that lets me listen to my music and surf the web and keep up with my friends. Mepis is beyond exemplary. Sometimes it is a little glitchy when loading up. Mepis was my first taste of Linux, from Mepis I went to fedora and then to ubuntu. If I want something that works good and doesnt argue with me about ownership of a file, I use Mepis. I like the look and feel of Fedora, and I’m checking out Ubuntu because of it’s popularity, but Mepis is now standard on my system. BTW, I keep MS Vista w/Aero, because no linux distro out there holds a candle to the look and feel of it, and it works just great. Not everything pans out the first time. I’ve reinstalled Mepis several times now to get my HD the way I want it. (Aero, then Mepis , then personal volume, then Ubuntu ( and was Fedora, but I’ll redo later). Because of Mepis I understand GRUB, which i now use to boot windows as well. This review was interesting and informative, more-so from the comments left. Despite the negative experiences, I would push this onto any noob, with the encouragement to explore more and other distros. Thanks.

By: Eric Mesa

Eric Mesa — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:25:27 +0000

By: Kirby

Kirby — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:08:51 +0000

Kenji said:

I don’t mean to sound rude but any review using a VM is garbage.

I have to agree. What a piss poor review.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:50:19 +0000

Hi Folks.
There was some very comments made regarding this review and I can appreciate the reason for most of the comments. However! I have to agree that the only way to test drive any OS is to install to HD or test its Live CD capabilities from CD/DVD rom.
I personally think Simply Mepis is the ducks guts. Stable, quick and very configurable. I am not a Linux guru nor do I profess to be an expert, but I have tried and used over 30 Linux flavours over the last 9 years. I love linux and Mepis is one of the best out there. A fine OS for all levels of skill. From the Joe citizen point of view Linux has come of age in the last 2 years. There are different strokes for different folks and that is what makes Linux in general so good. I enjoyed reading all your comments.
Long live Linux and thanks to all the people who helped make these OS’s available to the masses.

By: Kenji

Kenji — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:56:35 +0000

I don’t mean to sound rude but any review using a VM is garbage. Get a late model used desktop PC and do it RIGHT. You simply CANNOT (ever, ever, ever and I cannot emphasize this enough) do a real review on a VM. Workflow or not, you are not doing anyone any favors with your ‘reviews’.

By: Eric Mesa

Eric Mesa — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:28:47 +0000

I’m pretty sure all the things I found negative about SimplyMepis (such as the menu configuration) had nothing to do with running it in a LiveCD or VM. And, I think I stated in many, many places that this or that thing I don’t like might be the fault of running in a VM or LiveCD. Example:

“This took quite a long time, but I am running it in a virtual machine. ”

and

“That didn’t change anything – the installation is still not on the desktop and I get an error each time. Not very polished. Although, it could be a VM issue.”

By: Carl

Carl — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:50:08 +0000

@davemc and eric: you guys seem to cling to an opinion that is at least circumspect. I keep insisting that a one-off attempt to install in VB and a superficial run on the live CD are not sufficient to qualify your piece of writing as a review. There is ample circumstancial evidence (i.e.: people that installed MEPIS 8 successfully under VB) that seems to prove the fault is the reviewer’s rather than the distro’s. Just maintaining your point of view ‘it didn’t work for me so it is broke’ is rather short sighted. I don’t care if you don’t like MEPIS. But I do care if you write negatively about it (or any other distro for that matter) based on what might be user errors or simply a bad burn or download.

By: Brooko

Brooko — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:47:43 +0000

Dave,
As others have said – it does run. In fact, for most people I know – from live-cd and virtual box – no issues (apart from boot speed in VB).

In fact Eric’s the only one I know so far that hasn’t been able to run it in VB. So that would point more to his set-up than not – wouldn’t it?

Your common comment “it’s broke”, again is based on what? What do you fix when it works for everyone else? And – PLEASE – can YOU at least try it yourself in VB, and see if you can install it? I’m really interested. If there is a fault, I’d rather let Warren know. At the moment – for this particular issue – I see one person with the problem, and only one. How do you fix it if it isn’t broken?

By: anticapitalista

anticapitalista — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:41:17 +0000

Eric, just to check out something, if you wish.

Try antiX-M8 and see if it boots in VB. If it doesn’t then you may be right about something in the M8 release that causes problems.
If antiX-M8 boots ok, then there is something wrong elsewhere.

By: Eric Mesa

Eric Mesa — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:28:35 +0000

I think this shows how complicated Linux distributions are. For my Ubuntu Review I was able to install it into the VM without changing any settings relative to what I had in SimplyMepis.

By: anticapitalista

anticapitalista — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:36:34 +0000

@davemc,

but MEPIS 8 does run in VB and off a livecd so it is not broken.
It appears broken only on Eric’s box, which suggests a problem with his download or the dvd or how VB is set up on his box.

By: Eric Mesa

Eric Mesa — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:03:02 +0000

Good Point