MEPIS Linux is a Debian-based desktop Linux distribution designed for both personal and business purposes.

Warren Woodford has announced the availability of the first alpha build of SimplyMEPIS 8.5, a distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 "Lenny", but with KDE 4.3.2 as the main desktop: "November 21 was the seventh anniversary of MEPIS Linux, so it seems fitting that Warren Woodford has uploaded the alpha release of MEPIS 8.5.

Warren Woodford explained the rationale behind the 8.5 release: 'Many users have asked that we support the KDE 4.3 desktop, yet other users have asked that we continue to support KDE 3.5.10.

So in the spirit of our ongoing updates, we are building 8.5, not as a replacement for 8.0, but rather as an alternative for those users who want KDE 4.3. We will continue to support 8.0 with KDE 3.5.10 in parallel with 8.5 and KDE 4.3.' The 8.5 alpha defaults to a 2.6.32-rc8 kernel."

Update (via Distrowatch):
The second beta release of SimplyMEPIS 11.0, a user-friendly distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux, is ready for download and testing: "Warren Woodford has released SimplyMEPIS 10.9.90, the second beta of MEPIS 11.0. This beta is available from MEPIS and public mirrors. Warren reported on the progress of 11.0: 'First, I'd like to congratulate the Debian team on the release of Debian 'Squeeze' a few days ago. This MEPIS beta is primarily based on the Debian 'Squeeze' final but with a 2.6.36.2 kernel, KDE 4.5.1, and Firefox 4.0b10.' Woodford continued: "After the release of the first beta, it became apparent that there were lingering issues related to booting the CD to a graphical login. Thanks to the investigations and recommendations of the MEPIS testers, we believe we have fixed these problems in beta 2.'" Here is the full release announcement. Download: SimplyMEPIS-DVD-TEST_10.9.90_32.iso (939MB, MD5), SimplyMEPIS-DVD-TEST_10.9.90_64.iso (943MB, MD5).

MEPIS Linux is a Debian-based desktop Linux distribution designed for both personal and business purposes. It includes cutting-edge features such as a live, installation and recovery CD, automatic hardware configuration, NTFS partition resizing, ACPI power management, WiFi support, anti-aliased TrueType fonts, a personal firewall, KDE, and much more.

Warren Woodford released the source code for the MEPIS Installer and MEPIS System Assistants under the Apache License, in the Fall of 2008.

Major releases occur about six months to one year apart, based mostly on Warren's availability to produce the next version.

MEPIS Community now has a repo team that strives to keep packages up to date between releases, by maintaining a separate 'Community Repository' of various application packages, and has become a major player by producing the artwork and documentation for each release.

Recent releases:

• 2009-11-22: Development Release: SimplyMEPIS 8.5 Alpha
• 2009-11-06: Distribution Release: SimplyMEPIS 8.0.12
• 2009-08-25: Distribution Release: SimplyMEPIS 8.0.10
• 2009-07-24: Distribution Release: antiX MEPIS 8.2
• 2009-06-22: Development Release: antiX MEPIS 8.2 Test 1
• 2009-04-27: Distribution Release: SimplyMEPIS 8.0.06

According to Warren Woodford, the name MEPIS is pronounced like "Memphis", with the extra letters removed. Basically, it is pronounced "MEP-us" with a short "e" ("meppis"). Originally, the word "MEPIS" didn't mean anything in particular; it came about by mistake. When Woodford misunderstood a friend over a bad Skype connection, he decided to use the name because it was a simple five-letter word and there were no other companies or products with that name.

Downloads

Buy From MEPIS
Get the latest version of MEPIS on CD, DVD, or by download directly from MEPIS, click here. If you use a free version of MEPIS, please consider making a donation to support further development of MEPIS Linux.

Free Downloads
You can download testing and released versions of MEPIS for free from the mirror sites listed below. Sometimes the testing versions are in a testing directory and the released versions are in a released directory. Sometimes the mirrors are a bit behind the MEPIS Premium download site. Some mirrors get out-of-date from time to time. If you can't find a particular version at one site, it may be available at one of the other sites.

Newly Uploaded ISOs
The first day or two a new ISO is released, a particular mirror may not have the ISO or they may have an incomplete copy. This is caused by the mirror attempting to grab the iso before it has completely uploaded to their source site. If this happens, the ISO may be unusually small or it may give cloop errors when a CD is booted.

If different mirrors offer ISOs of different sizes, the larger ISO is probably correct. If a mirror site has a bad ISO file, it should be replaced during the next automatic update at that site. Most sites update once per day.

New Mirrors
Do you know of a mirror that is not on our list? Do you want to set up a mirror? Is there a problem with the mirror list? For all mirror related issues, please email support@mepis.org

Package Pool Mirrors
deb http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.mepis.org/mepis/ mepis-8.0 main (University of Kent)
deb http://fr1.mepis-deb.org/mepis/ mepis-8.0 main (MEPIS Community)

ISO Torrents
http://www.tuxdistro.com/torrents.php?cat=220 (tuxdistro.com)

North American ISO Mirrors
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/mepis/ (University of North Carolina)
ftp://ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributions/mepis/ (Georgia Tech)
http://ftp.uwsg.indiana.edu/linux/mepis/ (Indiana University)
ftp://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/pub/linux/mepis/
ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/linux/distributions/mepis (Washington University St. Louis)
http://mirror.cs.vt.edu/pub/MEPIS/ (Virginia Tech)

European ISO Mirrors
ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/mepis/ (Technische Universität Wien - Austria)
http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/mepis/
http://ftp.sh.cvut.cz/MIRRORS/mepis/ (Studentská unie ČVUT - Czech republic)
ftp://ftp.sh.cvut.cz/MIRRORS/mepis/
ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/distributions/mepis/ (NLUUG - Netherlands)
http://ftp.surfnet.nl/ftp/pub/os/Linux/distr/mepis/ (Surfnet - Netherlands)
ftp://ftp.surfnet.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/mepis/
http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/mepis.org/ (Mirror Service - United Kingdom)
http://rm.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/mepis/ (Garr Network - Italy)
http://ftp2.uk.freebsd.org/sites/mepis.org/
ftp://ftp.belnet.be/packages/mepis/ (BERN - Belgium)
http://ftp.belnet.be/mirror/mepis.org/
http://darkstar.ist.utl.pt/mepis/ (OSS Mirror - Portugal)
ftp://ftp.linux.org.tr/pub/mepis/ (Linux - Turkey)
ftp://ftp.linux.kiev.ua/pub/Linux/Mepis/ (Linux - Ukraine)
http://ftp.linux.kiev.ua/pub/Linux/Mepis/
http://ftp.cc.uoc.gr/mirrors/linux/mepis/ (University of Crete - Greece)
ftp://ftp.cc.uoc.gr/mirrors/linux/mepis/
ftp://ftp.tpnet.pl/pub/linux/mepis/ (Polish Telecom)