Just thought that I would let everyone in on the fact that the new SimplyMEPIS 6.5 Rc1 can read AND write to windows NTFS file systems.

Just so's you know -
Gentoo: emerge ntfs3g
Ubuntu: apt-get install ntfs-3g
Fedora: yum install ntfs-3g
and that's just the distros I run...

Mepis ain't that special

The technology's been around for a while, it just isn't that reliable. I wouldn't start using it on a regular basis, although for emergency or testing purposes it's great.

In a few years more bugs will have been weeded out, and I suspect it will have a reliablility similar to FAT32 on Linux.

yeah ive known for ages that you can read/write ntfs but i heard that its buggy and can trash your partition so ive stayed away from it

My favorite Live distro SLAX can to it too. I used ntfs-3g to transfer gigs from and to ntfs partition without problem(ACL was lost, of course).

Thanks for the info. Nice to know. But MEPIS is special. To me. I like it better than ubuntu. Haven't tried fedora or gentoo. I don't plan on trying them. MEPIS does it all. For me.
The writing to ntfs is new to MEPIS so I thought that I would share it. Guess I've been leading a sheltered life for too long. Thanks for the update. MEPIS is my choice. That's from the ubuntus, kanotix's, knoppix's, dsl's, debian, vector linux's, PClinuxOS, sabayon, sidux linux's that I have used. I know that I have forgotten some that I have used but MEPIS has been the most reliable. As a matter of fact as soon as I submit the reply I will probably remember a few more that didn't quite cut it. We get a lot of x-ubuntu, x-gentoo and x-fedora users coming to MEPIS and not the other way around so that says something.

Most distros will offer pretty much the same packages. Sometimes one distro will have a package another doesn't but you can always install it w/o the package manager as well. The difference between distros is basically the packaga manager, the branding, and the community.

How do you know it's not the other way around?

There was a thread at mepislovers.org where guys were talking about the other linux's that they tried. There was a lot of x fedora, gentoo, ubuntu users along with x slackware, PClinuxOS, mandrake, linspire, but mostly x gentoo and x fedora. I guess MEPIS outperformed them enough to make the jump over to MEPIS. That's what a lot of the members in that thread were saying. MEPIS is fast and reliable. MEPIS has one of the best linux installers that there is. Try and match that one with the installer that your linux has. If you think you can. Not many installers are as good as the one in MEPIS. MEPIS just does everything well. You can get gparted in synaptic package manager. We have beryl that comes with the install. Our live cd or dvd can load the new nvidia driver for you to play with beryl and 3-d games when you are using the live disk. Does fedora or gentoo do that?
However if gentoo or fedora can load grub to root while installing I would be glad to try them out and let you know what I think of them personally. That is if they have the option of loading grub to root? What are the installers like with fedora and gentoo? What kind of packages do they use? Is it easy to get libdvdcss2, transcode, w32codecs installed with fedora or gentoo? If it is then I might try them out. Otherwise they wouldn't be worth the trouble. I've been spoiled by MEPIS. The MEPIS forums are the best that I've seen for speed and reliable answers. How are the gentoo and fedora forums like? Friendly? It's important to have a good forum if you need some help. You have made me interested in your preferred versions of linux so I may try. If they can load grub to root. :cheesy:

>Try and match that one with the installer that your linux has.
That's easy... http://goodbye-microsoft.com/
Ubuntu also has a similar installer.

>You can get gparted in synaptic package manager.
So? Lots of other distros have Synaptic and can install gparted with similar ease.

>That is if they have the option of loading grub to root?
Sure, I believe Slackware and Debian both have the option of choosing where to install GRUB or LILO. Although why would you want to install it on the root partition anyway? Master Boot Record is generally better, especially if you want to dual-boot multiple operating systems.

>What are the installers like with fedora and gentoo?
They're quite good. Gentoo uses Portage, which you'd be hard-pressed to find a better program that automatically compiles source. And Fedora and other Debian-based distributions come with Synaptic package manager, which makes installing packages very easy.

>Is it easy to get libdvdcss2, transcode, w32codecs installed with fedora or gentoo?
Yep, Fedora has RPMs available, and Ubuntu has the .debs in its repository. I'm not sure about Gentoo.

Fedora is a very buggy distro. Probably because the RH developers use it for testing on innocent civilians, Microsoft style. But there's always CentOS and WhiteBox (and probably several others I don't know of).

Anyhow, this whole Meris propaganda looks pretty lame to anyone who knows anything about linux. Because everything mentioned above is available fro any of the better known distros, and is easily installable on any other distro with a little bit of ./configure

What is a really good surprise is Ubuntu. They have come a long way, and are a really excellent distro. Of course if you take Debian, and tweak it a bit, it will outperform any one of the *buntus, but out-of-the box, Ubuntu is VERY good, compared to almost every other distro out there. Actually, there are already several Ubuntu-based distros outside the *buntu line of products. So I guess the GNU - Linux line of distributions can now split under Debian into Ubuntu based, and Debian based distr.