I just installed Debian with the new graphical installer and I must say debian is definitely moving in the right direction. The install was about as easy as anything which is atypical of past Debian installs. Well done! Keep tweaking it.

Anyway, I installed GNOME and could basically get it to do everything I wanted with the look and feel, except one thing. The "Start" menu items are each about 3/4 of an inch apart, even at 1280x1024 res. What do I need to do to bunch them up and get a reasonable size menu. To clarify, I don't want the fonts to be any smaller, just have everything closer together.

TIA,

check out System Tools -> Configuration Editor in the menu...through it you can edit many things in Gnome...like the amount of pixels that is shown when the "auto hide" option of the panels is turned on. it might help you...