More adventures with Mepis

Had a real busy day, the battery in my car which is supposed to put out 600 cold cranking amps only kicked out 21. It is a wonder the car still started, but Chevy's turnover fairly easy anyway. The 30 minute replacement operation turned into a couple of hours. I called a friend to assist me and we got it done. Things don't usually go as smoothly as we'd like. I had better luck with my computers. As you know I made the switch to Mepis 7.0 and it just works. I am learning to like KDE desktop, it has so much stuff, but I miss Xfce. So, I installed Xfce as an alternate desktop and am in the process of setting it up. To see all the tools Mepis offers in Xfce is making me feel I made a good choice. Mepis does something that other distros should pick up on. Instead of the missing manual that nobody provides anymore, Mepis comes with a desktop link to a manual installed on the live-CD or your hard drive. Not an internet link to a web site or a help file. It is clear it is the manual, you don't have to look for it. Then I read that Mepis uses Ubuntu repositories, but the truth is that it uses some, not all. Mepis is compiled from Debian "Etch" which is the latest stable version. So a better choice is to seek out the Debian repository sites. I am not clear which Ubuntu versions Mepis 7.0 is compatible with. Some Ubuntu based .deb packages will not work properly on Mepis.
My second machine, a 32 bitter took a major change, I removed Mepis 7.0 (is this guy fickle or what?) and swapped and reformatted the drives. In the Mepis camp, there is this distro called AntiX. It is Mepis, but very skinny. It reminds me of Wolvix, small with lots of tools and apps. It is just over 350MB in size and is full of light weight stuff. It has Fluxbox and Icewm for the desktop and looks great. As a hit and run live-CD it is adequate for rescue work or an office you take with you. And as I will use it, to manage files on my network and explore and tinker and tweak and general geeking out. What happens to all those other live-CD distros stacked on your desk? I like to from time to time revisit neighborhoods I have known and do demos for friends. Promoting Linux is not easy as one distro is good at somethings but not at others. The coolness factor depends on how much Linux you understand and appreciate. Eventually you get past all the flash and want the functionality too. Mepis and AntiX are an interesting combo.