SimplyMEPIS Beta 6 CD Gives Users Choice of NVIDIA Driver
Morgantown, WV, Feb 20, 2007 - 07:19 -- Beta6 of SimplyMEPIS 32 and 64 is available for testing. Now users can opt-in to choose the NVIDIA 1.0.9746 driver. Ntfs-3g improves Windows filesystem compatibility. NVIDIA legacy version 1.0.9631 is available for Beryl support with older chips.
Warren Woodford of MEPIS says "Linux stands for user choice and freedom, so this latest build of SimplyMEPIS gives users the choice of using the NVIDIA 1.0.9746 driver out-of-the-box. This is not a default, it is an opt-in user choice. Anyone who wishes to use the NVIDIA driver, is free to choose it. If you don't explicitly choose NVIDIA, the driver will lie dormant and unlinked in your running system."
The Beta 6 iso also uses the ntfs-3g driver for reading and writing NTFS partitions from user space. For those who want it, the new NVIDIA 1.0.9631 legacy driver may be installed from the MEPIS package pools. Hibernate support has been improved for laptops.
Over the past two months, MEPIS has recompiled newer versions of several packages to be compatible with SimplyMEPIS and Ubuntu 6.x. These packages are freely available in the MEPIS pools for MEPIS and Ubuntu users.
Warren reports "I'm still working on the MEPIS integration of Beryl. I expect that very soon Beryl 0.2.0 will go final. When that happens we'll release an iso that includes Beryl."
The latest ISO images are available for download in the 'testing' subdirectory at the MEPIS Subscriber's Site and at MEPIS public mirrors. Satisfied users are encouraged to make a contribution or make a purchase at the MEPIS store. Your support helps offset the costs of producing this MEPIS release and funds further development of MEPIS Linux.
About MEPIS
MEPIS LLC was founded in 2002 by computer industry veteran Warren Woodford, to realize his personal vision for a version of Linux that was complete and secure, while also being easy to try, easy to install, and easy to use. Today MEPIS offers personal computing solutions that are popular with people of all ages and of all professions. MEPIS products are also available free of charge to not-for-profits, K-12 schools, and private users not requiring support.
Linux users have been playing-around with 3-D desktop environments--flippy windows, jiggly windows, spinning geometric solids, ad infinitum--for quite some time now. By something around the middle of last year, several distros included 3-D desktop options at install time, and people were justifiably happy, if not impressed, over the situation.
Because of the focus of SimplyMEPIS development, Compiz/Beryl-like functions were not the highest item on the laundry list of priorities, and it's just not practical to expect and distro development team to drop everything so they can add 3-D coolness--much less-so where SimplyMEPIS is concerned, as development of the distribution is a one-man show.
The situation hasn't been one wherein SimplyMEPIS users
couldn't have 3-D effects, because users could add Compiz/Beryl themselves.
This announcement now advises users and prospective adopters that Beryl support is now an option at the time of installation.
Of course, and this is something many
will overlook entirely, one must have the appropriate 3-D graphics hardware available to work with; however, the hardware requirements are nowhere near those of vista--with it's double encryption/decryption DRM overhead. Moreover, reports are coming-in that, the 3-D effects--under Linux--are faster on older, memory-constrained, "less capable" hardware than the 3-D experience is on vista, with hardware that meets or exceeds the specified requirements set-forth by microsoft.
It has long been the focus of the Open Source world, to produce a secure, stable and fast computing environment; and, somehow, things like eye-candy appeal and wow-factor have been kept largely on the back burner. As of last year, however, with a firmly- and long-established foundation already built, Open Source developers have been treating themselves to a few goodies along the way, culminating in a 3-D experience that blows the doors off of vista--before vista even made it to the business market.
We've always had desktop configurability (skinning, theming, icon sets and multiple virtual desktops) that windoze users have salivated over. But, now, windoze users have yet another reason to cry in their beer and seriously question the "value proposition" of windoze (as if nearly unassailable security and rock-solid stability wasn't enough), because folks in the F/L-OSS community are responding to eye-candy wish list entries in ways that tell me that microsoft is in for a race that will amount to running for its very life.
It's funny what can be added to an Operating System, when the OS foundation isn't fundamentally-flawed, isn't it?
So, for those of you who may finally be considering Linux; I suggest that you take a serious look at the reviews of the latest distro releases, as well as those still in the works. (These aren't Johnny-come-latelys in the least. They are merely evidence of of the widening implementation of techniques that have been "out here" for around a year...maybe a bit more.) You're going to see a lot of people with three year-old hardware, running Linux distributions that will knock your socks off; as well as a lot of people running vista on the latest-greatest hardware, putting up with sluggish (and worse) OS performance.
You will be doing yourself a favor by comparing feature for feature, as well as the hardware requirements involved; and deciding for yourself if this is the time for you to make your move to Linux.
Money certainly isn't the only reason, but the ridiculous cost of vista licensing is no longer something even you can afford to ignore...and then we still have the inevitable batch of new microsoft compromises and exploits to deal with. Just like the ones we watched you fight with in xp.
Musing about this leaves me thinking that, contrary to what really matters in a computing platform; it probably won't be the superior security, stability and speed of Linux that makes a serious incursion into what microsoft considers to be their territory--it'll probably be nothing more than "cool-factor" that will hurt microsofts bottom line.
