I'd like to know the relative pros and cons of Debian testing, Sid, aptosid/sidux, Mepis, Antix etc. and what are the pros and cons of using liquorix.

Has anyone made a comparison between the various smxi-compatible distributions/Debian releases? Are there anywhere some reviews?
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smxi works on debian systems, period. The fewer features work, the less the system is truly debian compatible.

Mepis and Antix use too many non standard methods, in xorg.conf, in grub menu.lst, in /etc/fstab, to ever achieve full smxi support, but to the degree they are genuinely compatible, smxi works.

Of the new ones, I think Epidemic and Linux Mint Debian testing edition are the most interesting ones, mepis just has not updated to use standard debian methods yet, especially with xorg, hal/udev and grub.
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I use sid, after a few years of sidux/aptosid and kanotix before that.

No problems with sid at all, for me. The biggest advantage is to be free of the warped screwed-up sidux techno-dictatorship.

I also use the liquorix kernel - which works fine.
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antiX has changed some of the non standard (Debian) methods mentioned by h2 in his post.

There is a noxorg cheat at live boot so xorg.conf will not get created and this carries over to install.
Grub menu.lst is only different in its entry of antiX on the first line.

/etc/fstab sill uses 'non-standard' /dev/device rather that uuids or label, but users can easily change this.

smxi works without issue on antiX.
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thanks for a the update anticapitalista, good to hear you're helping tweak some of those issues in antix.

So there's a nice pool of possible distro options out there now, most featuring debian testing, which is nice to see.

You were certainly ahead of the curve on using debian testing I'd say.
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I can understand someone using smxi to install graphics drivers and other software on debian testing, but why use it for upgrading? Shouldn't debian testing be stable enough to not require the helping hand of smxi? Or is testing not as stable as I've been led to believe?

Perhaps it's due to my sidux background, but isn't smxi primarily a tool to help make debian sid stable?

Btw, on the topic of choosing a distro combo, the main advantage to picking a smaller spin-off distro such as sidux or antix, is the community. You're in direct contact with the very developers of the software you are using. This might not be possible at all with large distros like debian.
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testing isn't that different than sid in my experience, except for the package version mismatch testing, the login in smxi is the same, people can set holds on broken testing packages etc. And the alerts for packages being removed/replaced are there, it's up to the user what they run.

If you get a new kernel, or a new xorg, and you use a non-free driver, then smxi will let you know that you need to reinstall, and you can reinstall, especially with nvidia, to the new kernel, then reboot for a one step seamless upgrade.
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