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MEPIS may be going Ubuntu (NewsForge)

The MEPIS distribution may switch from Debian to Ubuntu, according to NewsForge. "MEPIS, one of the more popular Debian-derived distributions, may be moving in a new direction soon. MEPIS founder Warren Woodford is considering building future MEPIS releases from Ubuntu sources rather than from Debian. SimplyMEPIS 3.4-3, which is scheduled for release today, has been quite a challenge to build, according to Woodford. "It's taking up all my time, fighting the Etch pool.... We've had a lot of trouble, because the Debian community has become so active, it's been difficult to get this out, so I'm looking at alternatives to getting out stable releases.""
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MEPIS may be going Ubuntu (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 9, 2006 19:05 UTC (Thu) by wolfrider (guest, #3105) [Link]

Gee, a "stable" Mepis release is difficult, because you've based it on UNSTABLE Debian sources??

Go figure!!

MEPIS may be going Ubuntu (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 9, 2006 20:15 UTC (Thu) by jwb (subscriber, #15467) [Link]

Yeah this seems like a bizarre statement. Especially when you consider that Debian unstable is normally fairly consistent, but Ubuntu developers don't care if the packages are inconsistent before the release. It would seem, if anything, much easier to work off Debian unstable than off intermediate Ubuntu archives.

On the other hand, if you're looking to release off the top of an actual release, Ubuntu releases much more frequently.

MEPIS may be going Ubuntu (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 9, 2006 22:32 UTC (Thu) by kragil (guest, #34373) [Link]

I think they will base it on U.04 or U.10. They are quite upto date when realeased.

MEPIS may be going Ubuntu (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 10, 2006 0:48 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Ubuntu is built on a Debian Unstable snapshot to, right?

So instead of building on Debian unstable, they are going to build it on Ubuntu that is built on Debian unstable?

Make sense to me. :-P

Personally I think what would make most sense is to release Mephis's "value-added" items as a backport to Debian stable (so basicly you could apt-get dist-upgrade from Debian stable to Mephis without huge changes).

Then work on helping to get the next Debian stable released as quickly as possible.

To me this would make the best sense. Debian Stable currently has a 2.6.8 kernel and many other items. Then all you'd have to do is backport updates to udev and the kernel from testing/unstable, (and a few other items) which is easy to do. It's a relatively minor update. Then build your Mephis distro on that base.

Of course with the 'Sarge' release being 3 years probably doesn't give many people confidence in that approach. If Etch comes out on time then that would be a wonderfull thing for Debian and Debian-based distros.

MEPIS may be going Ubuntu (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 10, 2006 22:27 UTC (Fri) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link]

You guys seem to forget that [K|Ed]Ubuntu is stable, and up-to-date! Even cutting-edge. Whereas Debian unstable does not pretend to be, guess what, stable, and Debian stable is out-of-date (that's an euphemism).

For Debian's defense, it is also worth noting that Debian is destined more to the server market (where total stability can be crucial), although it makes a good desktop distro, too, whereas Ubuntu was originally created as a Desktop distro, although is makes excellent servers too, like mine.

You are comparing two different animals here!

Comments and corrections welcome...

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