A challenge for a Mandriva user: SimplyMepis!

After I read Megatotoro's stats on his Mepis experience here, and the honest and motivating reviews of SimplyMepis 8.5 by Susan Linton and Rudresh Jariwala, I decided that it was about time for me to try this admirable Debian-based Linux distribution on a consistent day-to-day basis.

I mean, I have seen it work before and I even gave a SimplyMepis Live CD it to a colleague who trashed his XP system in a way I would have never imagined possible. Thanks to Mepis, we could back up his files...and resurrect his computer! I even used Mepis myself to achieve the same purpose when I was learning about Mandriva 2009 and my experiments went seriously wrong.

It is not that I am letting Mandriva go. As a Desktop Linux, I am extremely satisfied with Mandriva 2010 Spring. However, as a rescue distro, Mandriva is not a good choice: you neither have software for burning, nor access to other partitions in Live mode, which is not convenient if something happens to your Windows system.

What happens if you, like me, experiment with your Linux and break it? To be able to rescue my files sitting on the Mandriva partition, I had Linux Mint Gloria as a second boot choice in my netbook. I kept this Ubuntu-based distribution in another partition of my Dell Inspiron Mini10 and I used it from time to time, attracted mainly by its green freshness. Nevertheless, to be honest, despite Mint's elegance, I decided that it was time for me to share the house with Mepis, the poor prince, one of the least known Linux distributions that actually does its work well.

Megatotoro was kind enough to remove Gloria and install Mepis for me, after which, as in the Sioux hanblecchia, I was left alone on the hilltop...or, more accurately, inside the Mepis pyramids. This is the beginning of my challenge: For the next week, I will only use Mepis on my netbook to feel the differences. Remember, since I am not a computer guru, all I have is my limited empiric access to this fascinating world.

What do I think I might find problems with?
Well, the lack of the Mandriva Control Center will probably bother me a little, I can anticipate. The slow Kwin effects might also be an issue. In spite of that, I am willing to learn; I want to openly experience Mepis and I will log my observations later.