Ok, that's a bit exaggerated but that's what my friend told me when I told him that I am using yet another new Linux distro.
Its SimplyMepis 6.5.02! SM 6.5 is an Ubuntu based Linux distro being led by a certain Warren Woodford. Its official site is at www.mepis.org... other relevant sites are its Wiki, Guide, and Community Forum.
Its KDE based much like Kubuntu and PCLOS. Why SimplyMepis for me?! Here's what happened...
A hospital here in Tarlac sought my services thru my friend Jag Talon. They will migrate to OpenOffice, while half of their PCs will be installed with Linux. Actually, they would want to install Linux in all their PCs if not for an already developed hospital system they are currently using... oh well, that's another story.
I was supposed to install PCLOS 2007, but along the way the installer seems to fail in some machines... to the point of not being able to boot up to its live installer. And then I asked them if they would want to try on Ubuntu but they said that they would like to have something that looks close to Windows XP without much modifications... which is KDE of course.
I need Kubuntu! But I don't have one at that time. I only have PCLOS, Sam Linux, Xubuntu, Bayanihan Linux 4.0, Ubuntu Feisty and of course SimplyMepis 6.5.02.
Sam and Xubuntu are good but I don't think they will work well for these Linux newbies. PCLOS was my first choice, but alas, it won't boot right on a nice PIII 256 RAM ATI Video Card laptop owned by their boss. It seems to have problems detecting its screen, thus, it won't boot on a Live CD environment.
Down goes PCLOS 2007 :-(. And so I tried SimplyMepis... it flawlessly booted. It even detected the correct screen resolution plus the wifi card.
They were actually sold with SimplyMepis but I still insisted to try on an Ubuntu Feisty Live CD. To my embarrassment, Ubuntu Feisty took *years* to boot... a far cry from how fast SimplyMepis Live CD booted on the same laptop. And besides, they don't really like Gnome.
To make the story short, 17 PC desktops at Ramos General Hospital are now on SimplyMepis 6.5... and so is my office PC so that I can relate to what I am teaching them.
They even requested me to customize Mepis so that it would look as closest as possible with Windows XP and so here is my best imitation of Windows XP desktop look:
I am now compiling a few newbie KDE tips that I plan to post here when I have the time. Some of them are really simple but are often overlooked... and may already constitute as an annoyance to many new Linux users.
So far, Ramos General Hospital is happy and contented to migrate to Linux and OpenOffice.org. It saved them around P350,000.00 and are already looking forward to the development of custom FOSS solutions in the future.
Which makes me ask... anyone interested to develop an accounting software (FOSS of course!) for them? Email me ASAP!
1 comment:
You can make a better Windows XP impression. Search Google for KDE XP if you're using KDE3.x or search Gnome XP if KDE breaks or if you like Gnome.
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