Morgantown, WV, Feb 20, 2007 — 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.

MEPIS Linux founder Warren Woodford began, a year ago, to migrate MEPIS from Debian to Ubuntu packages, and in July achieved the first Ubuntu-based simplyMEPIS release. In light of the recently announced Linspire/Ubuntu collaboration, DesktopLinux.com asked Woodford to clarify the MEPIS/Ubuntu relationship.

To get the discussion going, we forwarded Woodford a statement that had been posted in our discussion forum by a reader (“archtoad6″) of a recent DesktopLinux.com article, regarding the relationship between MEPIS and Ubuntu. In addition, we added a few of our own questions.

Here’s what we learned…

Source: desktoplinux.com

An anonymous reader writes “Blender, the cross-platform, open source 3d suite, has released version 2.43 along with a website redesign. This version brings powerful new features within reach of every person. These features include sculpt modeling, retopologizing tools, render passes, render baking, support for multi-uvs, enhanced fluid simulator with particles, new rigid body engine, numerous new compositing modes including defocus (DOF) node and much more. Feature videos are also available.”

Source: New Blender Released

RadarSync writes to plug their page of links to Vista drivers. Listed are many drivers that Microsoft doesn’t have and that aren’t easily found on the manufacturer’s sites. For Intel alone, 364 drivers are currently linked.

Don’t tell me Microsoft forget something, Baldy

Source: Listing of Vista Drivers

With an introduction of a new Firefox extension in PHP, Terry Chay comments in his blog about the nitty-gritty that he had experienced working on it. He first explains the purpose that this extension allows PHP scripts to send debugging or profiling information to Firefox’s Firebug without having to write the page itself. He says the standard way of debugging in PHP involves echoing code to the screen. The fact that PHP is a scripting language makes this an way of debugging on the Web. But this may lead to some breaks in your site. This is especially relevant when you are debugging a well formed XML or JSON response, he says.

Source: Debugging PHP with Firebug

One of the best ways of growing a strong community now a days is to start a forum. There are a plethora of forums for Unix and Linux and new ones are coming up all the time. Out of all these, a small section of them have risen to the top by virtue of their dedication and some good luck.

Source: All About Linux