MEPIS to switch from Ubuntu to Debian

Quoting:The plan was to use Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Long Term Service), aka Dapper Drake, as MEPIS' foundation.

And...

Quoting:Woodford made this move because Ubuntu has a six-month stable release cycle that will enable MEPIS to offer its customers a dependable release schedule, Woodford explained at the time.

And...

Quoting:"Dapper was not updated in the way our users expected," Woodford said. "Personally, I think the Ubuntu people spoke sincerely and accurately, but perhaps ambiguously. So there was a misunderstanding among users. The fact is Dapper was updated with security fixes, but not with new versions of the applications."

LTS + expectation to get six-month release cycle and something more than security fixes... I'm sorry, but this does not compute.

I didn't know that Warren was basing Mepis on LTS -- I assumed he was using the newer Ubuntu releases.

My understanding of LTS was that it would not be getting any new applications or even that many new versions of old applications over its life. The updates would just be bug fixes, security updates and the like.

I thought the same was true for Debian 4.0, that it pretty much is like an LTS for Debian (and that's why I like it).

If Ubuntu was funneling new apps into LTS, the possibility of breakage for some users would be too high. It's nice to have the two choices for Ubuntu, just as there is for Debian and probably more distros as well. They fit different user personalities.

I'm always torn between the six-month cycle of regular Ubuntu and the 18 months of LTS, because I'm pretty much an LTS kind of person -- if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and all that. But I understand (and even somewhat dip my toe into) the more frequent releases of many distros these days.

Puppy, for instance seems to have a new release every couple of months -- it's too much to keep up with. I can't even get my hella-long Puppy 2.16 review out of notes form and onto the Internet, and they've already moved on to 2.17.

But overall, I think moving Mepis from Ubuntu to Debian is a good move. Mepis could maybe pick up a little speed that way (I find it very, very slow in my recent testing).

The main reason I stopped using Mepis on our Komputers4Kids program, within Helios SCS (Helios Simplified Computing Solutions) and in our Linux Labs was due to the inability of Mepis to keep up with the times. For a stable and dependable work environment, it was great, but when wanting to say...install metal4kde in the styles, it couldn't be done without upgrading past the kde 3.5.3 lock-in of dapper kde repositories....which most times broke the mepis system beyond repair.

Warren and I may not agree on many things, but on this, he belts it out of the park.

Touch 'em all Warren, touch 'em all.

h