Mepis Gnome Remaster

Mepis Gnome Remaster is an unofficial remaster version of Mepis, changing the default desktop from KDE to Gnome.
More information including download sources is available in mepislovers forum.

Mepis is always one of my fav distro as it always works for me.
However after using Ubuntu I am getting used to gnome, so I am really glad that now there is a gnome version of Mepis.

I installed it on my aging laptop (Toshiba Tecra PIII 850Mhz 256MB RAM) and as I expected mostly everything works out of the box.

Some notes:

1. Boot up and shut down takes a little bit longer.
2. Screen resolution is perfectlly configured.
   As always, Mepis automatically recognize the trident cyberblade chip used by this laptop.
3. My wifi usb adapter works out of the box (it uses zd1211rw driver).
   By default nm-applet is not available, connection is exclusively handled by Mepis Network Assistant and so far it works flawlessly.
   (Edit: the new Mepis Network Assistant has been improved, now I can see and choose the available connections just like using gnome net work manager)
   
4. I removed the sensor applet from the panel as it showed error message.
5. I canged the default boot splash, wallpaper and theme as they are too "strong" for my taste :)
   Changed the boot splash from Applications / System Tools / Configuration Editor menu, select apps | gnome-session | options | edit splash_image.
   I also added upper panel as I am more familiar with two gnome panels.
   
   
   
   
6. Suspend to RAM works out of the box.
7. By default there is no office application, so I installed Open Office 3.0 by following the steps from here.
8. Other than Open Office I also installed gthumb (for simple picture resizing and editing) and system-config-printer-gnome (printing tools).
9. In the main menu there was "Debian" sub menu which was disabled.
   Enabling this sub menu reveals many important applications (for example: HPLIP printing/fax tools)
10. Like the original version of Mepis, multimedia support (flash, java, mp3) works out of the box, but Mplayer could not play my dvd movie.

So far using Mepis Gnome Remaster in my old laptop has been a very positive experience. Everything is just running smooth and stable.
Most notably it feels light and fast, better than any other Gnome distro I tried on this laptop.
I like it a lot.


(Last edited: 06/04/2009)

Mencoba OpenBravo ERP di Mepis 7.0

Selain PostBooks, OpenBravo adalah salah satu aplikasi ERP opensource yang sangat populer. OpenBravo dirancang sebagai aplikasi berbasis web, sehingga setelah diinstal di server, untuk mengaksesnya cukup dengan menggunakan browser, yang bisa dijalankan dari Linux, Windows ataupun Mac.

Ada banyak referensi dan tutorial mengenai cara menginstal OpenBravo di linux, dan salah satu yang menurut saya sangat bagus buat pemula adalah ini:

http://www.moixo.com/en/setup-openbravo-ubuntu-feisty-fawn

Untuk menginstal OpenBravo, tahapan yang diperlukan adalah sbb:

1. Instal dan setup Java SDK
2. Instal dan setup Tomcat dan Ant
3. Instal dan setup PostgreSQL
4. Instal dan setup OpenBravo

Khusus untuk point ke 3 yaitu setup PostgreSQL, saya mengikuti tutorial yang juga cukup bagus dari:

http://www.murti.web.ugm.ac.id/2007/11/24/how-to-install-openbravo-on-gutsy/

Akhirnya di salah satu partisi yang berisi Mepis 7.0, saya coba install OpenBravo versi gratisnya yang terbaru (2.35-MP1).

Dari coba2 sesaat OpenBravo, memang terasa aplikasi ERP ini sangat bagus dan lengkap. Tidak heran jika OpenBravo saat ini menduduki ranking atas di sourceforge.net untuk kelompok aplikasi enterprise maupun finansial.

Beberapa link OpenBravo:

http://www.openbravo.com

http://sourceforge.net/projects/openbravo

http://wiki.openbravo.com/wiki/Openbravo_ERP_installation#Bitrock_installer

http://wiki.openbravo.com/wiki/Getting_started_with_Openbravo

http://wiki.openbravo.com/wiki/index.php/User_Manual

http://wiki.openbravo.com/wiki/index.php/User_Manual_2.3/Financial_Management


Beberapa screenshot:










Sekian dulu.

.

Old laptop and Mepis 7.0: very nice indeed :)

This is my note for Mepis 7.0 installed on my old-linux-friendly laptop :)
(it's Toshiba Tecra 8200 PIII, more here).

KDE fonts
By default Mepis already rendered the fonts correctly on the laptop's LCD screen, but I did some mess.
To restore the correct displayed fonts, open from menu: Control Centre > Appearance & Theme > Fonts go to "Use anti-aliasing" and select "Enabled" then click "Configure" check "Use sub-pixel hinting: RGB" and select "Hinting style: Full"



Firefox fonts
At first I was a little confused because Firefox rendered horrible fonts of the websites.
After several trial and error, it turns out that the trick was very simple.
This is what I did: in Firefox menu go to Edit > Preferences > Content and go to Fonts & Colors section and click Advanced.
Then un-check this box "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above"



Wireless
My usb wireless adapter (it is 3Com OfficeConnect Wireless model no: 3CRUSB10075) works out of the box with Mepis.
But first I had to activate the Network Manager (it was not activated during system boot).
This is what I did: from the main menu, open System > Mepis > MEPIS Network Assistant.
In the General Tab go to "Interface Configuration Mode" section and check "Automatic (networkmanager)". I left other sections as it is.



In the Wireless Tab: because I am using WPA encryption in my wifi set-up at home, I fill in the SSID name and WPA-key.



In the Interfaces Tab: choose "Start at boot" and "DHCP".



To connect to other available Wireless Network, just right-click the KNetworkManager applet and click the desired network from the list.



(Later on I found this detailed and excellent guide by Zerias).

Suspend to RAM
At first suspend to RAM did not work, then I found the work around from Mepislovers.org forums, which is very simple:

open /etc/powersave/sleep
find this line:
SUSPEND2RAM_FORCE=""

insert the word "yes" between the quote marks, so it looks like this:
SUSPEND2RAM_FORCE="yes"

Save it and reboot (in my experience, it seems reboot is compulsory in this step, otherwise suspend to RAM will not work).

To suspend just right-click the KPowersave applet and click Suspen to RAM



Suspend to Disk
Works out of the box.

OpenOffice Impress
By default OpenOffice Impress is left out in Mepis and since sometimes I need to open presentation files, I just installed it from Synaptic.

Over all
This laptop works great with Mepis 7.0, it feels light and stable.
I have no problem with sound and video.
I feel it is faster than Ubuntu, yet with 256MB RAM, running Firefox and OpenOffice together is still not that fast :)
Over all, with Mepis on it, I must say the laptop is very nice indeed.

L 99 99 ...

Judul di atas bukan nomor cantik motor saya yang ada di Surabaya dulu..

Itu adalah pesan yang keluar di layar ketika saya booting, lengkapnya: L 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 ........ lalu booting berhenti alias hang.

Yes my friend, minggu lalu hard disk yang kedua (hdb) di pc saya telah corrupted dan tidak bisa diakses. Padahal Ubuntu Edgy ada di hdb8, dan tentunya data-2 yang lumayan penting lainnya juga ada di situ.

Sempat panik juga, tapi setelah berkonsultasi dengan om Google, ternyata kalau ada pesan L 99 99 itu berarti hanya MBR nya saja yang terganggu, sedangkan data lainnya kemungkinan besar masih aman.

Akhirnya kemarin saya sempatkan install Mepis terbaru di hda (dual boot dengan WinXP) dan grub saya instal di MBR hda.

Hasilnya hdb sudah bisa di akses lagi :)



Tinggal mengedit grub menu di hda, maka Ubuntu sudah kembali lagi.

Kenapa saya instal Mepis bukan Ubuntu ?
Pertama karena Mepis memiliki utiliti (Mepis System Assistant) yang sangat enak untuk memperbaiki system boot (seperti di gambar di bawah ini)



Ke dua karena dukungan multimedia yang sangat bagus di Mepis, semua sudah tersedia, tidak perlu repot2 instal sana sini. Jadi untuk sementara browsing tidak terganggu.

O, iya Mepis versi terbaru sekarang terasa lebih cepat dan stabil, tapi Firefox kadang2 suka hang dan Open Office juga sangat lambat (dengan ram 256 MB).


(Padahal paling nggak suka baca postingan soal hard disk yang rusak...)

Simply Mepis 6.06

Simply Mepis adalah salah satu distro yang sangat user-friendly sehingga cocok buat para pemula.

Distro yang dirancang oleh Warren Woodford ini adalah salah satu distro favorit saya, dan saat ini versi terbarunya adalah versi 6.06.

Beberapa kelebihan Simply Mepis adalah:

1. Live CD, cukup masukkan CD lalu restart komputer, maka Simply Mepis siap dioperasikan tanpa perlu di install ke hard disk.




2. Sangat gampang di install, setelah dijalankan sebagai live CD, Simply Mepis dapat di install cukup dengan beberapa klik mouse.




3. Dukungan hardware yang sangat bagus, hampir semua komponen PC dan laptop langsung dikenali.

4. Software aplikasi yang lengkap, antara lain: Open Office versi 2.0 yang sangat kompatibel dengan MS Office, browser Firefox versi 1.5 lengkap dengan plugin multimedia, java dsb.

5. Simply Mepis mendukung berbagai format multimedia lengkap, mulai mp3, dvd dsb.

6. Progam tambahan yang sangat berlimpah melalui repository Ubuntu, didukung oleh synaptic package manager, yang sangat memudahkan untuk menambah, mengupdate dan menghapus program.

7. Support dalam bentuk dokumentasi dan forum, yang sangat lengkap sehingga sangat memudahkan pengguna mencari referensi sesuai keperluan.

8. Dan tentu saja, Simply Mepis dapat diperoleh sepenuhnya dengan gratis melalui download. Namun jika kita ingin memberikan dukungan dana, tersedia pilihan untuk memberikan donasi.

Links:
Website http://www.mepis.org/
Download di sini
FAQs - http://www.mepislovers-wiki.org/index.php/Main_Page

Beberapa review:
raldztech
knolinux