Interesting, johnsfine. Although please note ~ I put in a Seagate 320 GB 7200rpm HDD instaed of the factory 160 GB 5400rpm one; and have 2 GB's of ram instead of its factory 1 GB.

Anyways, I'm formatting a CD and getting it ready for Debian! Excited!

I'm considering using KDE because of what Eric said; I mean if it gives me a performance boost/less bloated then I'm all for it. Plus, Linus criticized GNOME for being too idiotic...and I'm trying to steer clear of that. Is KDE the better choice? I'm not very familiar with it. (Only used it twice...Slackware and VMed BackTrack)

malekmustaq, I just read your post ~ (it snuck in) and I must say you make a good case for slack. I have been told by many people Slackware is the best. But; for now I'm going to try Debian -- from what everyone said it matches my needs. Plus I'm familiar with the way it works. Thanks, though, every point was valid and on the mark.

KDE is even more Windows-like than Gnome. If you want to try for new ways of desktop handling, try the ever-popular Blackbox (or Fluxbox) for lightning speed. crystal-fvwm and enlightenment (dr17) are other excellent choices, the latter even features 3d effects (with ecomorph) that integrate seamlessly into its sleek design.

But don't even try WMs apart from the mainstream unless you want to experiment with the way you use your computer - if you need a task bar and a menu, you should maybe stick with Gnome. e17, in comparison, has completely eliminated the need for any kind of interface for me (except for a battery and temperature monitor).

Hey guys...me again...

Well, the drivers have killed me again. Debian 'detects' wlan0 (wireless) but when it scans for networks it shows nothing (there should be at least one albeit weak). Well, I decided to proceed by entering my ESSID and password (hidden network) and sitting here on Windows, I'm pretty sure I/my ISP uses DHCP. Well, that was a no-go. So I manually put in my info (IP, subnet mask, sgateway, servers) and Debian gave me no error. Then it took forever to set the system clock, and finally, after installing the core system and selecting mirrors, did I only realize that I'm not connected; my Wireless card (it didn't detect my wired Ethernt for some reason) is not supported by Debian. Every mirror led to an error. So now I'm left with the basic, core system. How, oh how, do I fix this mess?

Xfce has a task bar and a menu (see attachment).

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Well, you can try ndiswrapper but my advice is re-install Ubuntu or maybe Mint. Here's why:

I moved from Suse to Ubuntu at release 7.04. Been a happy customer ever since.

I have an early, like 5 years old, 64bit computer at home running Ubuntu Studio 64bit 9.10 and, aside from a few sound issues with 9.10 (e.g. disable pulseaudio) it's fine. Boots like greased lightening.

My 2-year old Toshiba labtop (work), 32bit, runs Ubuntu 9.10 straight; boots up so quickly that I'm working (having also logged in) while my desktop, running XP, hasn't even got to the login screen yet. And the desktop computer is some mega dual core intel thing.

Installs and upgrades are a doddle, finds the wireless OK, normally everything works, with maybe just a few tweaks. E.g. big issues with ATI Radeon card on my Tosh when going 9.04 -> 9.10 for a while but got it sorted. (Default drivers aren't always the best.)

So the slowness to boot is not a general Ubuntu problem and it's not a bloatware problem either. I'm not rushing to defend Ubuntu (I couldn't care less what people use) but I have seen several threads in the Ubuntu fora about 9.10 and slow boot up. The X11 service, I think, is partly to blame but if I recall correctly it's completely solvable. Maybe if you can't get your computer to boot up quickly, you should figure out why *before* distro hopping?

The problems you're having with debian suggests that you've still got some learning to do. I'm sure you'll get there in the end but it might have been quicker to sort out your problems with Ubuntu.

Personally, I use Ubuntu as a means to an end. The last thing I want to do is to spend hours manually installing/deinstalling/configuring stuff. I can happily accept that Debian/Centos/Gentoo/SL/Suse/Mandriva/Puppy god knows what else are all better in some way but I'll tell you this: Ubuntu 9.10 boots fast.

Bloatware? That's Windoze.