Available Now: SimplyMEPIS 8.5 RC1

The beta releases for the upcoming SimplyMEPIS 8.5 ended with the fifth version, launched at the beginning of last week. Therefore, Warren Woodford uploaded last night (February 23rd) the ISO images for the first release candidate of SimplyMEPIS 8.5. As usual, this development release is ready for testing for both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures, and it includes a few updated packages, some improvements, and various bug fixes. At the moment, there is no release announcement for SimplyMEPIS 8.5 RC1, but we've downloaded the ISO images and took a look inside at the available packages, and their respective versions:

· New NDISwrapper for Linux kernel 2.6.32;
· Updated the QtCurve theme for KDE SC;
· Linux kernel 2.6.32.8;
· X.Org 7.3;
· Support for EXT4 filesystems;
· KDE SC 4.3.4;
· Mozilla Firefox 3.5.6-2;
· OpenOffice.org 3.1.1-12;
· Google Gadgets 0.11.0-2;
· K3b 1.70.0 Beta 1;
· Kdenlive 0.7.6;
· Synaptic 0.63.1;
· Gdebi 0.5.9;
· BIND 9.6.1-P3;
· Busybox 1.10.2-2;
· CUPS 3.8-1;
· GCC 4.3.2-1.1;
· HPLIP 3.9.4b-1;
· Proprietary Nvidia video driver 185.18.36;
· Samba 3.2.5.

About SimplyMEPIS and MEPIS LLC

SimplyMEPIS is a Linux distribution based on Debian Lenny. It features an LTS (Long Term Support) kernel and provides users with upgrades for all important packages. The MEPIS Assistant tools ensure that SimplyMEPIS can be used successfully in a desktop environment.

MEPIS LLC was founded in 2002 by computer industry veteran Warren Woodford to realize his personal vision for a version of Linux that was not only complete and secure, but also easy to use and install. MEPIS LLC provides consulting services for system and business analysis, product strategy, architecture design and software development. SimplyMEPIS functions as the testbed for a MEPIS Linux core used to build and deploy secure server/desktop solutions and virtualized data centers.

Download SimplyMEPIS 8.5 RC1 right now from Softpedia. Remember that this is a development release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only.