Morgantown, WV, Jan 26, 2009 — Warren has uploaded ISO files for RC2 of SimplyMEPIS 8.0 to the MEPIS pools. The files for 32 and 64 bit processors are SimplyMEPIS-CD_7.9.95-rc2_32.iso and SimplyMEPIS-CD_7.9.95-rc2_64.iso.

For RC2, the kernel has been updated to upstream version, 2.6.27.12. Kvm 83 is available from the MEPIS pool to better match the virtualization configuration of the MEPIS kernel. Grub has been updated to fix a “stage 2″ error that was encountered in some rare circumstances. The MEPIS Assistants were updated to work with virtio drivers. Bind9 was updated to 9.6.0-P1 to support NSEC3 for DNSsec.

SimplyMEPIS developer, Warren Woodford, reports, “I apologize to anyone who was expecting 8.0 to be final by now. It’s taking longer than I had hoped but I think we are very close to a final release. MEPIS is based on Debian Stable and our delays also gives time for Lenny to become final. The changes from the developers at Debian have been coming very quickly. At this rate they will finish Lenny soon.”

ISO images of new MEPIS pre-releases are published to the ‘testing’ subdirectory at the MEPIS Subscriber’s Site and at MEPIS public mirrors. To support the ongoing development of MEPIS, community users are encouraged to go to the MEPIS store at http://www.mepis.org and become MEPIS subscribers.