| SimplyMEPIS 6.0 Beta 4 arrives |
May 30, 2006
The MEPIS project released Beta 4 of the SimplyMEPIS 6.0 live CD on May 27. Beta 4 runs a reconfigured version of the 2.6.15.7 kernel from Ubuntu and the KDE desktop as a default. The kernel source has been verified to give the best possible compatibility with new Intel hardware, MEPIS creator and chief developer Waren Woodford said.
Beta 4 includes some new and/or updated applications, including amarok 1.4, xaralx 0.5, and ksudoku. Digikam plugins were added to make Digikam and showFoto much more powerful and fun to use, Woodford said.
To make room for xaralx, it was necessary to remove tvtime and the GIMP from the bootable CD, but for those who need them, they are available for download and install via the Synaptic download manager or apt-get, Woodford said.
"The SimplyMEPIS bootable CD is a starting point, and not always a complete solution," Woodford said. "There are many applications we would like to include on the CD, but they won't fit. The open source edition of Xaralx, formerly Corel Xara, is a well-known Windows app for vector graphics drawing that is an exciting addition to Linux and MEPIS."
Likewise, the new plugins make image manipulation in Digikam and showFoto "a piece of cake," Woodford added. "We want the new Linux user coming to MEPIS from XP to see right away that Linux has apps that are fun and easy. For the experienced user who wants or needs a powerful image manipulation program like the GIMP or any of the other apps we don't bundle on the CD, we ask for their understanding."
For this release, CPU speed management and suspend-to-ram have been improved, and KDE configuration has been fixed for time format and other localization elements, Woodford added. The fontconfig configuration has been improved, so some web site fonts look better in both Firefox and Konqueror. Floppy support has been changed to be more reliable. Spamassassin has been tweaked to give very good results out-of-the-box, and then excellent results as soon as it has learned from a sample of user emails.
The MEPIS configuration maintains compatibility with the extra "restricted" drivers provided by the Ubuntu team in the Ubuntu pools, Woodford added. MEPIS builds extra drivers for the 386, 686, and k7 flavors of i386 including bcm4400, bcm5700, Intel536, quickcam, spca5xx, usbvision, and, new in this release, ivtv. These drivers are available in the MEPIS pool and they are compatible with the matching Ubuntu kernels.
Beta 4 was synchronized with the Ubuntu Dapper pools on May 26. MEPIS package updates are available now from the MEPIS pool. SimplyMEPIS 6.0 is scheduled for final release around June 18, according to Woodford.
The ISO image is available for download and test in the MEPIS "testing" subdirectory at the MEPIS subscriber's site and on public mirrors. For up to seven days, beta testers are requested to send feedback to dev@mepis.org.
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