SimplyMepis 6.0 rc1 features a 2.6.15-23 kernel, xorg 7.0, gcc 4.03 and KDE 3.5.3. The software repositories consisted mostly of Ubuntu sources. I couldn't distinguish too much in the area of Ubuntu influence other than that, not that I was expecting a big red neon sign flashing “Ubuntu” on the desktop. Overall, it's a nice system despite the control center confusion. The fonts could be better and the performance definitely needs some addressing. I've already mentioned the two apps that brought the system to a halt for up to 4 minutes or so, but they were the extreme. However, the whole system seemed sluggish and even at times just stopped responding for a few seconds.

On the other hand, hardware detection and configuration in Mepis is superior to most of its competitors out there and it's great when things work out of the box. I guess that's for whom mepis is really made. It's for those people who want to load up a system and have things just work. There isn't too much to do for an old gentoo tweaker like myself.