And I thought I was daring!

Those who saw the 1989 movie entitled "Dead Poets Society" might remember Mr. Keating's romantic words concerning "living life to the fullest". As the English teacher, he would use the powerful poetry of Walt Whitman and Robert Frost, among others, to urge his students to break out from the shell and be daring.

Yesterday, I posted an entry on how I decided to use Linux and Open Office in my yearly report presentation for the University Professor Assembly, and I really thought I was being daring then.

However, I realized that there are others who are far more daring than I was or could have been. How about risking your chances of finishing your studies in a graduate program to prove that open source software and Linux can be used in a demanding professional context? Read about this experience here.

That is being daring!

It's not the same hearing a thunder and seeing lightning!

Last week, the Dean called for a Faculty meeting in which the only topic was, to the dismay of those who claim Linux is dead, Free Software!

With this meeting, it's the second time in two months that professors hear about the existence of something that is not Windows and the University's ongoing plan to migrate to open source.

I wanted to post about that, but I was preparing my yearly report for the Professor Assembly and, therefore, had no time... but it occurred to me that I would use the chance to contribute by showing all professors how a computer running on Linux works. So, although they had a Vista 7 Starter laptop ready for the reports, I asked permission to use my modest netbook running Mandriva.

All my colleagues displayed their reports using the Vista 7 laptop and one professor suffered the embarrassment of MS PowerPoint 2007 not responding as she expected. I cannot say that was an "atypical behavior": all of us have seen something like that happen time and again. I felt bad for her due to the fact that she told me that she slept till late because she invested a lot of time to create a beautiful PowerPoint presentation for the occasion.

When my turn came, I had my netbook ready and woke it up from hibernation (Yes! It DOES work in Mandriva 2010.1), unplugged the VGA cable from the laptop and plugged it to my netbook. As a good OS should behave, Mandriva picked up the signal and let me configure the display in a matter of five seconds. The picking up of the signal made me a little anxious because, prior to the meeting, they had to change the projector because 7 Starter did not let them change the display size of the screen (How about that!) and I had everything ready with the previous device.

However, my Linux OS did not let me down and all the people laughed when they saw my Cosmic Cat wallpaper on my desktop # 1.

Of course, they gasped when I turned to desktop #2 and my presentation, made using Open Office, was there, ready. The beautiful OpenGL transitions made the ones in PowerPoint look like sorry excuses, especially after I said "This is the free software that the Dean is trying to promote", moved to different desktops to display other information, and returned to the presentation via Kwin Cube.

After my presentation, which went without any problem (wasn't Open Office "unprofessional" according to the MS video?), the professor who was embarrassed by MS Office 2007 borrowed my netbook to play with it for a while and loved the behavior of Linux.

Yes, seeing is believing. Now, my colleagues have seen a computer running open source software in the most demanding of contexts... and it neither got stuck, nor was difficult to operate. Oh, and it didn't blow up, either. Can you guess what software was proven to be unreliable?

For many of them, the thunder might not be as impressive as lightning. Now they have seen the truth: Linux can run flawlessly on a netbook and they were impressed. Many people are becoming aware that they can work in a more beautiful way by using Linux than by settling down with an OS that gives them the same problems year after year.

Mandriva 2010.2 announced!

These cold winds have brought some good news for Mandriva users: Mandriva will release version 2010.2 of the distribution as a Christmas present.

They claim this release will polish 2010.1 Spring (Farman) and will fix certain issues. Additionally, the company announced the schedule for the development of Mandriva 2011 (to be released during the end of May, 2011) and changed the two-release cycle to only one per year.

As Mandriva is my favorite Linux distribution, I can hardly wait to test Mandriva 2010.2. Of course, I'm also supporting the Mageia project and will settle for the one I find the most useful.

Linux Mint 10: A beautiful rescue distro

In my perennial quest to find the perfect Rescue distro, I downloaded and tested Linux Mint 10 (Julia) and I must say that I was very pleased by the way it performs.

I downloaded the image (it does not fit a CD, so you have to burn it to a DVD instead) and ran the Live mode.

After 1:15 had elapsed, I could see the well-known Linux Mint logo as a splash screen. For those who are not familiar with it, Mint features green as its trademark color, which is not strange for a distribution that is made in Ireland. It took 2:15 to show the desktop and an additional 15 seconds to use it and I was surprised by the desktop wallpaper.

Interestingly, Mint's desktop moved away from the green freshness that originally attracted me to the distribution: the new look is darker. You get a black wallpaper with shades of gray: That shocked me at the beginning because I've been following Mint since the seventh release, and Gloria, Helena, and Isadora all paraded wearing green clothes. Of course, if you dislike this darker look, you can easily change it and set any of the good many green Isadora wallpapers. Gloria's default wallpaper is also there in case you are trapped by nostalgia. All of the wallpapers are tasteful and beautifully designed.

Julia's somewhat Gothic appearance, however, is no omen of poor performance. As a matter of fact, this Live DVD comes with everything you might need for using it as a rescue distro: it has Brasero (for burning media) and mounts your Windows and Linux partitions without any problem. It also lets you delete files from Windows (not from Linux) and works with audio and video out of the box. I tested .flv, .mpg, and .mp4 formats for video and all of them worked flawlessly. As for audio, Julia beats Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat because it gives you the preview of MP3 files by hovering over the icon out of the box.

Julia comes with Open Office, a dictionary, and several applications that might help to finish your pending office work you if your computer acts up. For localization, you must install the distribution. The process does not seem difficult, nevertheless.

Concerning the Internet connection, it picked up my cable connection automatically, so I browsed the Web for a while with Firefox. I also set up an IM account with Pidgin and everything went up fine.

This is certainly a great rescue distro: easy to use, responsive, elegant, and functional. The only flaw I found is that it does not fit a CD...which is the same case of the alpha release of SimplyMEPIS 11. Is Linux moving to Live DVDs instead of Live CDs?

IM clients and possibilities

Most Windows users are familiar with MSN Live Messenger, which they call "the chat program" (not accurate technically speaking because MSN Messenger is an instant messaging (IM) service, not a chat). They believe that it is the only way you have to communicate with friends who are away if you do not have Skype.

However, thanks to the proliferation of botnets and MSN viruses, Windows users might have noticed how their sessions with MSN are plagued by unwanted messages ("See this video", "click here for an offer", blah, blah) and by unreliable log in time.

When I migrated to Linux, one of the first things I discovered was that you can keep using MSN Live although you are not running Windows. You do it with one of the many Linux IM clients...and the beauty is that you do not get the problems that are associated to MSN Live Messenger. You have to learn to compromise, though, as their functionalities are different.

aMSN

This program is an MSN Live Messenger clone. It can enable video calls, but not conferencing. For those who like IM with a cam, this is a good option. I have tried it from Mandriva to Mepis (Linux-Linux) and it works. The cam feature does not seem to work from Mandriva to Windows, but it is OK with me because I was never fond of the video cam sessions anyway. As MSN Live Messenger, this IM client works only using MSN network. That might seem obvious, but I said it because most Windows users think that they need an independent program for each different account they have. So, most Windows users have a program for MSN, Skype, etc.


Kopete
This is the default IM client in KDE. This Linux program is simple and supports many more accounts. One interesting feature is that this little program lets you know when one of your MSN contacts is in invisible mode: that's right, no hiding from the eye of Sauron. The problems: no video.




Pidgin
This is a simple but extremely powerful IM client. Because of the possibility to extend its functionalities, this IM program can control your MSN, Yahoo, and even your Skype account without any hassle. Yes, you log in and you can communicate with all of your friends and contacts with this little thing. It also has a fun feature called "psychic mode" that lets you know some seconds in advance when one of your contacts is typing a message for you before he or she sends it (you read something like "You perceive a disturbance in the force").
This program can also run in Windows. Again, it does not support video but for that's fine with me because I like IM to be fast and reliable. Video is a nice add on, but not an indispensable one for communication.

As I said, the IM experience in Linux can be a little different if you learn to compromise: there are features that you don't get, but there are many others that you were not even aware of and that might enrich your IM sessions, such as data encryption, effects, plugins, etc.

What the Pro-MS Office video does not say

Microsoft released a video attempting to persuade people to use their proprietary office suite. It starts like this:
"Considering Open Office.org? Consider this."

Not surprisingly, there has been a wide reaction to it and some people even claimed that Microsoft had finally revealed its true stance concerning open source software. Although I think that the Redmond company has the right to attack competitors, the information that they used for advertising their flagship product should not be fallacious, as this post proves when discussing the academic productivity issue brandished in the video. Basically, the video's core point is that MS Office (2007/2010) constitutes the best office solution in the market because of two features: its new interface and its interoperability and functionality.

Concerning the former, "Ribbon", as this new user interface is commonly called, has its lovers and haters. What is more significant is that Microsoft is trying to patent it and, hence, the company is becoming "a grave threat to the future of software development", as Mike Gunderloy, a former MS Contractor asserted.

In regards to interoperability and functionality, the issues are not normally visible to the common user. However, those technical flaws represent a major problem for companies that require specific features: 1, 2. What everyone knows is that, by pushing users to save documents in .docx instead of the standard de facto .doc format, Microsoft wanted to create a vendor lock in.

In addition, Microsoft is also slanting information to favor adoption of its office solution. I have heard several times that .docx is an ISO standard, just like .odt. That is simply not true. Basically, ISO approved .docx if certain changes were made to the format. This format version is called ISO/IEC 29500 "strict". The reality is that neither Office 2007 nor Office 2010 can generate the ISO standardized "strict" format and Microsoft has not committed to implement it.

The format that the company is using today is the version known as ISO/IEC 29500 "transitional", which ISO determined was not to be used for the creation of new documents. In other words, it can never be the default format for saving new documents as it does not have the status of an international standard and, therefore, it should not be used for electronic transmission or storage of documents.

This distinction is significant because official documents produced by government institutions, such as schools, have to be created following a principle of interoperability, which Microsoft has admitted not to follow with its default-save .docx.

Of course, the video omitted that detail. I wonder if Bailey Mitchell, who claims having "heard a collective sigh of relief" when the schools in Forsyth County returned to MS Office, and who is last quoted in the video, knows about this and saves new documents in .odt format instead of mindlessly pressing the save button in MS Office and generating a questionable .docx file...

Tux and the Sixth Sense: I See Dead Linux!

"DESKTOP LINUX IS DEAD!!"

It was so comforting to read those features asserting the unquestionable death of the Penguin OS on desktop computers at last. Windows is growing; Linux is disappearing. That's the way it should be. Linux can stay on servers, mainframes, supercomputers, highly important systems, where it belongs, not inside computers used by plain people. After all, why would regular users want an OS that runs on supercomputers sitting on their home/work systems?

When I read the first article about the death of Linux desktop, a shock of unbelief went through my spine. Could it be true? Could the dreams of glory of these obnoxious Penguin lovers be shattered as broken glass by the supremacy of the Redmond empire that we love so much?

More posts came up; all of them reinforced the idea of how Linux plummeted. Hence, a smile of satisfaction appeared in my face as I tasted the wine brewed from victory.

However, something happened which began to unsettle me.

IS LINUX DEAD?

In my city, I had only seen a Linux computer in the wild: it was a bothering little aubergine desktop in a small restaurant. Except for that one, all of the computers that I have seen for public use were nice and friendly Windows systems. So, I expected the owner to come to his senses in a two-month period...Yet, the Ubuntu computer is still there after four months. It's one example of unexplainable phenomena in the world.

Then, I recall that only two professors used Linux netbooks in the Faculty of the University where I work. Those systems were like a pair of little insects; I knew their owners had to switch to Windows soon. But they never did. As a matter of fact, I realized that there is another professor that is running Linux on her netbook and now wants to put it on her laptop as well...And there's a dual boot desktop in one of the offices, too. Every time I see it, the machine is running Linux.

Does that mean that Linux on the desktop is still alive and kicking? No, that's simply not possible! The articles were very solid and convincing. There must be something wrong here.

Let me take a look at numbers again:

From 1 Ubuntu desktop, 1 Mandriva netbook, and 1 Mepis netbook, it has gone to 1 Ubuntu desktop, 1 Mandriva desktop, 2 Mandriva netbooks, 1 Mepis netbook, and 1 Mepis desktop in a five month period.

Slowly, unrest took hold of me as I attended an event in the Faculty last Friday. It was a speech about Open Source!

They are announcing an institutional migration to Linux!

From 4,000 licenses the University paid to Microsoft two years ago, they went down to 500 this year. With the additional budget, the University has managed to acquire new equipment for students. The madness has gone to some regional centers, where they have already substituted their Windows systems. The University is also promoting open culture with a repository called Kérwá. As if all this were not enough, the University has a mirror server for ... (the horror!) Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and there is even an institutional customized version of Open Office!

My colleagues who went to the talk also want to migrate to Linux and Open Office! Didn't they see the beautiful video Microsoft produced explaining why you shouldn't? Or how the grades of students are affected negatively if they use Open Office instead of MS Office for their assignments?

Maybe people are actually reading the EULAs and they do not like the idea that you become a serf of Microsoft (a Microserf!)....I mean, if you neither own MS Office nor the proprietary formats (.doc, docx, etc) in which you save the files, how can you claim that the documents you produced are yours?...Could that be the reason explaining why professors and researchers here are gradually abandoning beautiful MS Office and its fair price? Or is it that they read the EULA and discovered that its terms are threatening their productivity?

But the story does not end there... Why should students of a Language School want to install Linux? They are simple users, not engineers! Linux is for GEEKS, not for normal people! Are they so geeky after all? What's wrong with them?? LINUX IS DEAD!!

I have suddenly realized that I must have paranormal powers... Yes, I have the Sixth Sense! Aaaargh!

Wanna know a secret...?
I see dead LINUX!

Is Ubuntu 10.10 the perfect rescue distro?

The coming of Canonical's new release, Maverick Meerkat, has stirred a beehive and we hear a lot of noise among Ubuntu fans lately. Claims like "the best Ubuntu release", "the fastest boot up", and "a truly horrible wallpaper" were repeated in many blogs. All these words in the wind have stung my curiosity.

Although I am not particularly a fan of Ubuntu, in my quest to find the perfect rescue distro, I decided to download the Meerkat Live CD and give it a try. One never knows...maybe Canonical discovered the philosopher's stone.

A rescue distro is what I call a GNU/Linux distribution that can help a computer user backup, restore, and modify files from other OSs sitting on different partitions. That is, a rescue distro does not need to be installed to achieve that purpose, otherwise most Linux distros would do the trick. Another characteristic that I ascribe to a rescue distro is its ease of use: a plain computer user should be able to resort to it without a great deal of effort or technical training.

Can the Meerkat enter the arena and claim the crown? To discover Ubuntu's potential as a rescue distro, I ran my newly-downloaded distro and
I found that the fast boot claim is true, even for a Live CD. The Meerkat started in less than 1:45 minutes, beating my install of SimplyMEPIS 8.5 and the boot of Mandriva 2010.1 ONE in Live mode (which takes a lot longer). There is a catch, however. Even though you see the familiar aubergine desktop, it is not ready for use: you get the installation/trial screen next. So, I chose "try" and the boot up sequence got a little prolonged. I could use the system after 3 minutes had elapsed. That is rather fast for a Live CD in my opinion.

Unfortunately, I cannot say anything about what new features Ubuntu brings for I am not familiar with this Linux distribution. I was not crazy about the wallpaper, but it was not so disturbing as the one I had seen Ubuntu fans criticize so much. I had also heard that this Ubuntu release would bring LibreOffice instead of OpenOffice.org, but I saw the latter.

Positive Side: performance and software
I liked the fact that you get an automatic preview of .ogg sound files by just hovering over the icon (this feature does not work with MP3s, though).
Firefox (3.6.10) runs fast, too. The dictionary is a nice add-on. Hibernation seems to be working (I am not sure because I was running a Live CD, but the computer reacted as it should have). Both my USB card reader and my MP4 player were supported. Wired network connectivity was perfect.

Negative Side: performance
Interestingly, Ubuntu Software Center crashed when I was just browsing the options the first time I used the Live CD (I tried to replicate the crash unsuccessfully, so maybe it was an isolated problem).

Although other partitions are mounted, the Meerkat did not let me delete files from any of them. I can copy files to a Windows partition from Ubuntu 10.10, but it is impossible to copy to or delete files from my Mandriva partition and, therefore, I must conclude that the Maverick Meerkat does not outperform SimplyMEPIS 8.0 for rescuing a troubled OS in Live mode. Maverick Meerkat might be very good to recover files from Windows in Live mode, but it did not work with a Linux system like Mandriva.

I must keep looking.

I know how to use Windows properly, so it's not my fault!

"I know how to use Windows properly, so it's not my fault."

With that declaration and the particular stress on the possessive adjective, Mr. Valmers started his testimony before the inquiring eyes of a judge and the jury members, who began whispering and shaking their heads in disapproval. They had listened to the technical report of a software expert before the afflicted average computer user sat in front of them.

Sensing the effect that his initial words had on the atmosphere of the room, Mr. Valmers paused timidly and cleared his throat before the microphone, causing listeners to tilt their heads for a second that became awkwardly long. Pierced by the prying eyes of the prosecutor, the fifty-something owner of an infected PC wished he could have uttered something like: "I know how to use Windows. I took courses to learn how to use my Windows computer, you know, so do not patronize me, techie." However, he just sat there, mute, as a target for the questions that, sooner or later, would dart from the mouth of the implacable man in front of him.

Mr. Valmers thought for a second. How could he prove that he did nothing wrong according to what he learned in those Windows courses he took? In spite of the fact that the expert had made it clear that such action was a pre-requisite for a secure Windows computer, no instructor had ever told him that he was supposed to disable autorun. Darn pedantic guy! But then, why was it that the stupid autorun feature was enabled by default in Windows if it was so dangerous? Mr. Valmers had done what he was told in four courses to be safe from malware: he bought an expensive antivirus (what a poor investment!), he had that software installed along with MS Security Essentials, and he made sure that the Windows firewall was on as he browsed the Web. Religiously, the man had downloaded antivirus updates and the traitor software never gave a warning of the infection that had him sitting as a fool in front of all those people that looked down on him.

"This is not fair," he heard himself say, "if autorun is so dangerous, or Windows is insecure, I am not to be blamed. I did not do anything to make my computer any more vulnerable than it was when I bought it."

How he wished that Microsoft's CEO, that bad-tempered bald guy, had been there in his place! This guy was actually the one who was responsible for all computer infections...He was the careless person that approved the release of such a defective product for mass consumption!

"It was your negligence that caused the infection. It was your computer, Mr. Valmers, which was spreading viruses to several Government institutions," charged the prosecutor, assuming a stance of superiority. "Your computer," he stressed with poorly-concealed satisfaction.

The possessive adjective lingered for an additional second on the thick air of the room and echoed inside Mr. Valmers' head. "Your computer, your computer," repeated a hypnotic voice while the man felt as an insect pinned on a wall.

All of a sudden, that simple four-letter word opened his heart with hope in a Joycean epiphany.

"Yes, sir, it was my computer," he replied. "But, according to the EULA, Windows is not my software. I do not own it. I did everything in my power to secure my computer, but I cannot do anything to improve the condition of the software".

Murmurs of the listeners grew until they became a tidal wave of noise that forced the judge to demand silence... (to be continued)

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Yes, this is a piece of fiction I am working on. However, it can turn into a reality if people are dumb enough to accept Microsoft's newest trickery: a call for banning sick computers from the Internet. Read about it here.

Microsoft Windows 7 Starter EULA and customer abuse

Today, as I was reading this post, I decided to pay Microsoft a visit and download a copy of their glittering Windows 7 Starter EULA. I read some requirements that unsettled me. Let me transcribe an excerpt of the Windows 7 Starter EULA to tell you why those conditions are simply outrageous:


"By using the software, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the software. Instead, contact the manufacturer or installer to determine its return policy. You must comply with that policy, which might limit your rights or require you to return the entire system on which the software is installed [...].

You may use the software as expressly permitted in this agreement. In doing so, you must comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways. You may not

• work around any technical limitations in the software;
• customize the desktop background
• reverse engineer, decompile [...]

Certain features of other Windows 7 product editions, including Windows Aero and the ability to change the desktop background, are not included in this software." (Microsoft Windows 7 Starter EULA)

I doubt that Microsoft lawyers seriously expect users to comply with those ridiculous terms and conditions. First, an interesting tautological falsehood is created if you must accept the software (Windows 7 Starter) with all its flaws and the license forbids you from "working around technical limitations". If you accept the conditions of this EULA and take Windows vulnerability to malware as one of the implicit "technical limitations in the software", the logical implication is that the EULA itself forbids you to install an antivirus solution to protect your Windows system. Of course, lawyers will claim that the clause refers to improving the OS itself, not "helping it" with additional software. However, the contradiction lies on the fact that the EULA makes the OS and the system an indivisible unit (remember: you must return the computer if you do not accept the license). Therefore, if hardware (tangible, made by an OEM) is ridiculously bundled with software (intangible, made by Microsoft), why would they claim that other software running on the OS to protect it is not an indispensable part of the system? Because it is third-party software, not Microsoft's, they will probably say. Well, how about the hardware the OS is running on? Is not that third-party, too? Why is it that I must return the hardware if I reject the software (Windows), then? After all, the hardware was not made by Microsoft. I suppose that Microsoft representatives would say that it is because the OEM agreed to install Windows. If that is the case, then the OEM should be required to agree to the EULA, not the computer buyer.

The situation, however, becomes even more ridiculous with the second clause. The statement is categorical; there is not any ambivalence to it. I guess you can even rephrase it as a biblical commandment: "Thou shall not customize the desktop background".

Basically, dissatisfied people who found third-party programs to change the hideous Windows 7 Starter background are against the law. Yes, they are violating the Second Law of Microsoftics. Period. There is no argument about it. Nevertheless, I do not see Microsoft's legal war machinery aiming its weapons at them. Why not? Well, because the progenitors of the unpopular 7 Starter knew from the beginning that sober people would never comply with such buffoonery and that other software companies would palliate the situation which, in the end, saved Microsoft's face (yes, Starter seems to be a rival for Clippit's unpopularity). That is why the Redmond bully never filed a lawsuit against Oceanis, for example, even though the latter company produced a program designed exclusively to make users break the "unalterable background" law.

Interestingly, Microsoft's failure to launch an attack to force users respect the content of the Windows 7 Starter EULA spawns yet another contradiction: Can this permissiveness be taken as a signal of amnesty toward infringement? If so, then the whole content of the EULA goes void, which means that I can pirate Windows 7 without any concern. But you know how this would end: Microsoft lawyers would not hesitate to take me to court if I do.

I wonder what would happen if people realized how anti-democratic these EULAs are. Not only do these irrational licenses cut your freedom, but they also establish discriminatory policies against users who "rebel" against them. This looks more like fascism than anything else to me. (The image was censored because it depicted inappropriate content for Microsoft, I suppose. After all, any visual connection that you make between this company and fascism is perceived as such regardless of the clearly anti-democratic practices the company promotes. What attribution does this company have to "limit my rights" as an individual and transfer the execution of this violation to OEMs?)

SimplyMepis 8.5 Challenge: Conclusions

Although Xandros introduced me to the world of Linux, Mandriva was my definite choice for both desktop and netbook use. I am a regular computer user, not a techie, so Mandriva became a perfect selection because it is easy to use, beautiful, and functional. However, among the many Linux distributions, there is one that generally goes unnoticed: SimplyMEPIS. This is a distribution that can beat Mandriva's simplicity and, thus, I decided to install it and test it for a week to compare them. Of course, my feedback is not technical; my impressions are those of a common computer user that has used Mandriva for almost two years without any formal Linux training. In the last days of my experiment, this is what I saw:

A. Repositories: Synaptic vs Mandriva Control Center
I had assumed that my previous usage of Synaptic in Linux Mint was enough training to use Synaptic in SimplyMepis. However, I stumbled on the installation of VLC because I used the Debian repositories for that purpose and they have dependency conflicts. I tried to undo what I did, but I could not trace my steps back appropriately and could not improve the quality of video.
However, I could solve the low volume problem. I also had some problems adding the Mepis Community Repositories.
I guess that my problems were generated because you cannot transfer the experience of using Mandriva Control Center to Synaptic so easily after all. In Mandriva, you have Mandriva repositories by default, so it never occurred to me that you had to add Mepis Community Repositories manually.

B. KDE/Plasma crashes
Even though both distributions work with KDE very well, they both have certain issues:
MEPIS: When opening kmplayer, KDE crashes. I think that it is because of the mess I made with codecs trying to install VLC. Sometimes MEPIS suspends the composition and the effects are therefore disabled temporarily.
MANDRIVA: The clock sometimes freezes (only in the netbook). This is corrected by enabling the display of seconds in the clock options.

Concerning performance and ease of use, both distributions can satisfy the needs of users who lack technical computer knowledge or formal Linux training. I feel that SimplyMepis might be a better choice for users who want a simple system and do not really care much for eye candy. In addition, Mepis comes with Java pre-installed, whereas you must install it in Mandriva.

I decided to keep Mepis next to Mandriva in my netbook's HD for further learning.