I've tried several versions of the SimplyMEPIS but never really got hooked on the visual appearance leaving me wondering what beginners find so appealing in SimplyMEPIS. With the release of SimplyMEPIS 8.5.01 and addition of KDE 4.3.4 I decided this was the perfect time to give it a try and see what all the fuss is about.

Nowadays, everyone uses Ubuntu, most people have used Fedora, and many folks have tried openSUSE. SimplyMEPIS ... not so many. That's a shame, because this relatively obscure Debian-based desktop distribution from Morgantown, WV, is an outstanding desktop operating system. With SimplyMEPIS 8 at beta 5 and closing in on release, I tested the distribution and found it to be a keeper.

"The most recent release from the MEPIS crew is SimplyMEPIS 6.5, which was released on April 4th, 2007. In all of my Linux and various distribution readings, I rarely hear about MEPIS; however, it is clearly popular as the MEPIS distribution has consistently been in the top 8 on the DistroWatch rankings dating back to 2004."

SimplyMepis, or Mepis for short, is a distribution targeted towards new users that has the intended goal of providing a good distribution that is easy to use. Version 7.0, which was my first experience with Mepis was pretty good. But past success means little if the newer version doesn't deliver. So let's see how SimplyMepis 8 does.

SimplyMEPIS 8.0.10 has been released, and it is as usual very good. I've been pleased and impressed with MEPIS for quite some time now. Despite being what might be considered a "minor" release, going from 8.0.06 to 8.0.10, there are a number of significant changes in this distribution.

SimplyMEPIS, a very popular desktop Linux, is going to change back to using Debian Linux for its core from Ubuntu. In March of 2006, MEPIS founder Warren Woodford, decided to switch to Ubuntu from Debian for the next version of SimplyMEPIS, version 6.0.

This time around I decided to try out another distribution I'd never used before in the shape of MEPIS. I started off with simplyMEPIS 6.5 which seemed a bit dated but luckily it was pointed out to me that 7.0 is due out very soon.

MEPIS has now made available the third release candidate of its upcoming Linux-based operating system, SimplyMEPIS 8.5 RC 3. The new release comes with several updates, both upgraded packages and fresh features, and is available for 32-bit, as well as 64-bit platforms.

It’s funny that my first encounter with SimplyMepis came as sort of an accident. I have been reading Preacherpen’s articles about Mepis and had actually downloaded the new SimplyMepis 8. Since I already had the CD of Mepis 8, I decided to see what it would do on the old laptop.