And the thing most people don't realize is that apt-get is only the beginning. There are a dozen or more other apt- suffixes (apt-cache, apt-file, etc.), and the 'package manager' system includes all of dpkg, and aptitude as well.

Thanks, you've given me more reasons to look into Debian more thoroughly. This distro is something!!

"pljvaldez", thanks for the advice, as I'm about to install debian on this computer (after backups) in about, oh, 45 minutes

Allow me to give you some as well if it's not too late. Unless you're certain that you want the stable version (Sarge), install testing (Etch) instead. A lot of people seem to be having problems with the upgrade from Sarge to Etch because of the move from XFree86 to Xorg.

Debian 'testing' is more stable than most other distros you could install.

You mean that Sarge doesn't have Xorg?
how hard is it to get xorg for sarge? (it's too late, I have the DVDs downloaded already )

I don't think you can get Xorg for Sarge. Check www.backports.org

You only need the netinstal cd ... About 130 Mb.

backports seem to show that there is xorg available (yay!).
I don't use the 3d rendering anyway so maybe XFree86 will be sufficient

I tried sarge, but, didn't like it. I'm running Etch and like it lot. I just killed my Suse 10.0 OSS install and installed Etch on my main machine. I'm now running Etch on two units, Mandriva 2006 on my Apache web server, and Slackware 10.2 on my last box.
Debian is the best distro.......................period:-)

excellent. I can't wait to install that (I ran out of time yesterday )

What's the point of using so many distro's? stick to one and learn the lot....doesn't mather much which it is, they can all do the same since it is still Linux and you are using the same software.

What's the point of using so many distros? Good question. Each flavour of Linux teaches you something new. Take slack, for example.
Slackware can be painful to install in the beginning, but, you learn a lot about Linux after manually configuring innittabs, run levels and your xorgconfig file.
There's nothing wrong with trying other distros. I've run a lot of distros and I've come to realize that Debian comes close to being a perfect distro. Heck, I like to play with Linux:-)

***manually configuring innittabs, run levels and your xorgconfig file.***
yeah, that was fun ^-^

Seriously, I'm using currently Ubuntu. My buddy gave me a live CD that had GNOME with xgl (kororaa).

I decided that I'll use Ubuntu, (like I told myself I would do earlier before I started this thread.)

After all, Ubuntu is based off of Debian, close enough

thanks all for your input. When I have more time to play around with linux, I'll absolutely try out Debian

Where not talking horseshoes here.

I went to Ubuntu from Debian proper simply because I feel I have more control over the way things are set up. I run Sarge, and just do the base system install then apt-get my way into a minimal Gnome desktop with the apps I want, alsa and nvidia drivers etc.

The other day I d/led the Dapper Flight 4 Preview, and gave it a burl on a spare partition. It was nice enough, but I think I prefer brown to orange honestly, and the performance was lacking compared to my Debian install.

Yes Sarge is old, but it does everything I need it do, and it's rock solid. I have tried Etch, but it didn't give me anything more than Sarge, so I shelled out the $30 and got a double DVD of Sarge. Very happy!

Oh and to answer your main question, for me Debian is easier than Ubuntu because you don't have to uninstall all their stuff! For example if you *just* want the Sun JDK installed, it's a fair amount of hunting around to get rid of their free java stuff. But that's just me, I like my installs clean.