better explain my last statement before i get flamed to death...
i don't really like any distro that changes the original settings of my everything.
that's why i like slackware sooo much. out of the box functionality is nice for my family and all...but i want full control and knowledge of everything that happens on my system. that's why i dislike mandrake, and am impartial to suse and fedora (haven't ever tried debian, don't know enough about it to make an informed opinion.) i've tried arch linux, didn't work well on my laptop with the ver. i tried...i've tried a ton of the others...just never got around to debian...
ok, justified now...

Maybe your company (OutOfTheBox) should make me a distro. Thanks for the tip on getting suse up. I still think i'll give ubuntu the first try, it's just so different that it excites me, and i already ordered its cd.

As for all you distro haters out there, don't be too predjudiced. If your bad experiences aren't in the current version (i had bad experiences with mandrake 9.1) then don't bash the distro as a whole. ( I have no opinion on Drake 10 cuz i haven't tried it.)
And thanks again for all your opinions and help.

did you guys know ubuntu is already at number 9 on distrowatch's list of distro site hits? It's now more popular than FreeBSD and Damn Small according to the numbers! woot.

btw, does anyone know if ubuntu supports usb wheel mice out of the box? I have a usb mouse plugged in a ps/2 port with an adaptor cuz i didn't feel like configuring it as usb. Suckdows xp gets really picky about that adaptor in games so i want to use it as a usb mouse all the time. And does ubuntu set up scroll wheel in general by itself?