The new beta of MEPIS 8, like MEPIS 7, is based on Debian rather than Ubuntu. Creator Warren Woodford decided to switch to Debian in the summer of 2007. Specifically, MEPIS 8 is being built on the forthcoming Debian 5, Lenny.

Xandros announced that it was going to revamp the community distribution Freespire, basing its next version on Debian instead of Ubuntu, and using it as a precursor for Xandros Desktop Professional. But the company didn’t need multiple for-pay desktop distributions, so Linspire is getting the boot.

Following the release of a Debian ‘Lenny’-based Freespire distribution, Xandros plans to bring out Xandros Desktop Professional 5, which will also be built on “the same open source code base,” with added proprietary bits for “enterprise customers,” the company says.