MEPIS Community Forum

Thanks John. That confirms my suspicions. I had it in my head that the freeze was coming up fairly soon, but wasn't sure when. The way Warren does his development, an M12 based on Wheezy freeze might just make sense from a time standpoint.

Sounds like perfect timing to me.

Any news from Warren on this? Is he doing the Alpha testing yet?

I wouldn't say "no one". ;-)

I was in the minority back in 2006 when a survey thread was started with votes on using a Debian versus Ubuntu base (you'll find my post favoring Ubuntu versus Debian posted on January 28, 2006).

http://www.mepis.org/archives/node/8941?page=1

My experience then was that hardware that worked in the latest versions of Ubuntu did not work in the latest version of Mepis or Debian stable.

I'm still seeing that today, where you have to "jump through hoops" if you want support for the latest software versions and hardware using Mepis (despite the efforts of the community) without more effort than a typical user would want to exert, versus just loading Ubuntu/Kubuntu or other derivatives to easily have access to the latest software.

For example, I installed Kubuntu 12.04 in VirtualBox (using a Mepis 11 host) yesterday, and it only took me a few minutes to "tweak it" to taste (installing the Elegance Theme like Mepis uses by default, changing the wallpaper, installing a different menu launcher, and adding a few apps I use more often). Here's a quick screen capture I just made while typing this post:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4536228/kubuntu1204_1.jpeg

Based on how well it works with my limited usage since downloading and installing it in a Virtual Machine yesterday, I'll probably install it to the hard drives on my desktops and laptops soon, too.

I use Mepis primarily, mostly out of loyalty, since I found the early Mepis versions to work best, and I like the community efforts to offer newer versions of software for it now. But, personally, I find it frustrating that I can easily install other distros and get newer kernels, newer software, etc., without as much effort. I also find it difficult to recommend Mepis to new users, since I realize that it's not as "polished" in many ways (associations for default apps that load, etc.), and has a more difficult learning curve compared to some of the other distros around (especially when installing new software, setting up the repos and more to get best results).

I've also found that distros using Debian repos are less stable with updates breaking things more often. I wouldn't use the Debian spin of Mint for that reason, and I have breakages on a regular basis with the community repos enabled in Mepis, too. I'm just used to them enough that I recover from them and go on. But, I wouldn't expect a new Linux user to tolerate that kind of thing.

So, my vote would [still] be to use an Ubuntu base, so that newer drivers, kernels and apps are easily available (with a lot more users testing them) without the problems associated with using to stick with a Debian base using community supports updates to get newer versions of stuff you want.

.

I don't know how much trouble it was trying to keep Mepis up with Ubuntu and I don't know how much of the load fell on Warren and how much fell on the volunteers. But I don't worry about things breaking, because they just don't. On the other side, my friend who runs Ubuntu and is pretty cautious when upgrading, always seems to have things to fix when upgrading. I much prefer the stability and solidness.

Well, Jerry3904 is right...:-)
Warren will never go back again to an Ubuntu-base for Mepis, as some old-timers here can confirm.
There were good reasons -which were privately communicated by Warren- for dropping Ubuntu and returning to Stable Debian as base for Mepis.

Blasphemer! Stone him!

You have to make a choice as to what is important for you. I've had to use another distribution in the past because of hardware incompatibilities. At that time a new motherboard was my issue. That time Warren was using ubuntu as base. So I'd have different things to say about ubuntu-based distributions. At least as things were in the past.

My experience with ubuntu/kubuntu and upgrades has been less than optimal. But if you need hardware compatibility or software that does things that you need done then there are other distributions that may be of use in those circumstances. Not saying they'd be more stable. Just that a later kernel is needed at times. But you always pay a price for the latest thing. Always.

For those that would like to see Mepis 12.0 using KDE 4.8, a lot of updated packages are coming into sid today including the qt4-x11 source packages (Qt 4.8) and X server 1.12.

The Qt 4.8 packages are needed to build KDE 4.8, so maybe KDE 4.8.x might at least make it into sid before Wheezy freezes in June.