[CS-FSLUG] Libranet or Mepis

[Ed Hurst]

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005, Don Parris wrote:

> On 8/15/05, Timothy Butler <tbutler at ofb.biz> wrote:
> > I haven't personally used Mepis, but I can tell you that Libranet is
> > very nice. It feels like something is missing over, say Fedora or
> > SuSE or Mandrake, when it comes to configuration, but it offers a lot
> > of "value adds" over generic Debian.  I really liked dealing with the
> > company too. Since they make their old versions available for
> > download, you should give one of them a spin. :-)

I also ran it a few days. It configured for my Compaq laptop fairly
easy, but as noted completely lacks a genuine, all-encompassing config
tool. If you are pretty handy at Linux system configuration, you'll do
fine. It has, of course, the Debian tools for most packages. My
expertise is limited to things like fonts and X, and falls off quickly
on sound, networking, etc.

My complaint against Libranet is the same for all Debian-based distros
I've tried: Unless you are willing to face the nightmare of dselect,
you are stuck with no means to trim down the initial package selection.
You'll take the loads of extra junk you'll never use, and have to
delete it later. Not everyone needs a detailed package selection upon
installation, but some of us would like to have the option.

Not feeling led to learn all the details of hand configuring everything
under Linux, I find Debian stuff is not for me. I won't recommend it to
the clients in my computer ministry, either. It's needs more taming.
I'll stick with SUSE and RedHat and/or clones for now. I'm not a real
technician.

Ed Hurst
-----------
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