Like this reply. You give no specific reasons why you wouldn't choose Ubuntu.

Okay, I'm done. I'll be sure to put you on my s*** list of members to avoid in helping.

Regards.

So you wern't trying to insult me by calling me a fool? That is news to me. I am shocked that a moderator would be so insencitive to that kind of thing especially in their own forum. I did appriciate what you had to say up untill that point. Needless to say I choose not to respond with condasending words to you.

Michael

No. Even Takla got the joke referencing the A-Team in a followup post. Oh well!

Well, then I do owe you an apology for my missunderstanding that was a joke of some kind. I still don't get it though. Anyway, I am sorry for the misunderstanding on my part.

I have tried Ubuntu and they don't have a centralised control center that meets what I am thinking of. I find it still an arkayic method. I don't really want to offend those who find Ubuntu to meet their needs so that is why I havent posted my reasons for not wanting Ubuntu.

I like the control center that the old Mandrake used but would like to have it ported to use a Debian based distro. as I like Debians package management system and care to lessen the dependancy problems I have experianced with RPM distro's. I hope that is clear enough and makes sence.

I know what you mean, but very much doubt that any existing distro fulfils your needs. Either stick with Debian, or try Mandriva.

Thank you BrianL, I have been thinking that this was the case. Would you happen to know of a developer that would concider taking on the task of converting the source code from the Mandriva control center to work on a Debian system?

Thank you for any input regarding this.
Michael

Well, the previous posts mentioned Linux Mint, however since you mentioned that Ubuntu is out of the question you might wanna cross that recommended distro of the list (Mint is actually a derivative of Ubuntu).

Although, you mentioned that you didn't like the archaic Control Center as a reason that you've turned down Ubuntu. May I ask for some examples or specifics? Like Mint, there are other derivatives of Ubuntu out there (Kubuntu, xubuntu) and if a distro is based on Ubuntu then it's based off of Debian. If it's based off of Debian then it can use apt-get and Debian style packages and package management.
EDIT: I do notice that there is MEPIS, and Linspire, both which are Debian based.

No. I think you'll just have to be satisfied with using the distro that comes nearest to what you want.

I would say Mepis. It's Debian based, uses KDE as the WM. The control center also looks like what is in Mandriva.

I would imagine the control manager is mostly specific to the desktop environment of one's choosing, no the distro. I wouldn't know nowadays, I don't use desktops that often as I primarily deal with servers. And most configurations I deal with on the command line, it's more efficient anyways. And if you like the control manager of another distro, what's stopping one from porting it to another one or to customize it to mirror it, etc.

I doubt you will find anyone interested in trying to port those tools.
What tools are missing anyway?

The main desktops have mega-control-centers. If some functionality is missing you would probably be better off filing a wishlist bug with them.

At present I am definantly looking into the sudjested distros. I am not ruling them out simply because they are derivatives of Ubuntu. I do realise that each distro has it's own flavor of controls.

I will attempt to be a little more specific. I think what I am mostly looking for are wizzards that would setup things like DNS, internet connection sharring, firewall, etc. However I would like them to have graphical point and click type interfaces and be located in a centeral Graphical interface very simular to Mandrake's DrakeConf and Xtools.

I have been hoping that maybe I have just missed a distro. that has such an interface that uses the debian package management system. However it looks like I am going to have to learn to program if I want to port these tools (as I see to them) into a debian based system.

Thank you I am checking out Mepis but so far I havent been able to get it to install correctly as I am left with an un-usable display.

Thank you trickykid for the reply. My main problem with porting the tools and wizards that I would like to have into Debian is that I do not have the ability to program. I think they are writtten in python. I have tried to use Alien to convert the RPM to DEB but only part of the stuff worked and it wasn't very stable. Also some of them need to be re-written to use the commandline tools native in Debian so I don't mess up the system stability for others that may be interested in using them.

Thank you for the sudjestion. I will see if it would do any good.


Thank you all for your input and sudjestions. I appriciate them all.
Michael

dns (as in the dns setting for your internet connection) - any network/internet tool likely provides a place for dns server entries

internet connection sharing - there is usually a graphical tool or two available to do this, often as a part of the network config tool and/or the firewall tools

firewall - fwbuilder, firestarter, guidedog, mason (not really a gui but gui easy)

If you want them centralized then maybe create a little interface to the various tools or at least a folder with shortcuts to the various tools.