MEPIS recently released the latest beta of its lightweight Linux distribution MEPISLite 3.3.2-test01, thus making it the first vendor to release a Linux based on the Debian Common Core.
The DCCA (Debian Common Core Alliance) is a group of Debian Linux vendors and nonprofit organizations that are seeking to create a common Linux base, the DCC (Debian Common Core) for their various distributions. MEPIS is a DCCA member.
The DCCAs goal is to create a LSB (Linux Standard Base) 3.0-compliant, Debian 3.1 (aka Sarge)-based core distribution.
MEPISLite is an entry level version of desktop MEPIS designed for home users.
It has been used successfully with as little as a 2GB hard drive and a Pentium 2 processor with 128MB of RAM.
The distribution comes with a full complement of software including KDEs Koffice office suite and the Firefox Web browser.
MEPIS latest beta of MEPISLite is available for download in the testing subdirectory at the MEPIS Subscribers Site and public mirrors.
This release includes the pre-release 2 version of the upcoming DCC base kernel.
In addition, this version includes an updated 2.6 kernel.
This distribution also uses initrd (a RAM drive used to help boot up Linux systems) to support SCSI and USB bootable partitions.
This is the first step, according to MEPIS president Warren Woodford, toward MEPIS converting to only building and using standards compliant kernels.
HP printer support in this distribution has also been improved through the introduction of HP Linux Printing Projects packages.
The DHCP (dynamic host configuration protocol) client has been changed to the more standard dhcp3-client package; moreover, network configuration tools have been simplified for the distributions target audience of new users.
The full commercial version of MEPISLite is expected to be released in November.
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