Yep, I found that the other day but forgot about it till your post. Thanks for the reminder.

Sumguy, you'll be fine. You seem to have your wits about you so I think all that I can say now is have fun and ask questions if you need to. Let us know how you go.

Thanks. It really is wonderful to have so many nice people just a mouse-click away, who are always willing to help and make life easier for us noobs!

You can (please don't) search out all the posts of a member. If you looked at my early posts you would be shocked that folks put up with my ignorance.

We were all noobs at one time. Folks helped us out. Surely we can do the same for folks silly enough to try something new and different.

Have FUN.

On another [non-computer related] forum I participate on, there's this guy who does computer repairs, who ridiculed me when I mentioned that I use Linux/Ubuntu. That caused me to question his knowledge of computers. Either he is very ignorant....or simply protecting the OS (Windows) which likely necessitates the need for his services in 99.9% of the jobs he encounters! (And this in a thread where Windows users were complaining about viruses and the poor performance of their state-of-the-art latest/greatest computers!)

I really love MS. I am particularly grateful to them for Vista. Without that I would still be allowing their products in the house.

Lol

I believe there's a reason why Ubuntu is nb 1 in distro watch, and it doesn't resume just to the fact it's far more user friendly. I have at least some experience with linux, and I can install and use almost any linux distributions just as well as I use windows, or even better because of linux flexibility. Ubuntu I think it's the best choice for a laptop or netbook.

Some think if they've managed to install arch, slack or gentoo somehow they're better, because indeed those distros are harder to get on with until you make them functional. But linux doesn't only resumes to its installation process. This is like buying a stock table, you assemble it and you say "Hey this table is the best table ever just because installing it took me 5 days" while a better more stronger table, that has a more easy to install kit could only take a half an hour to install.Take Debian for example, Ubuntu being only a more accessible Debian, even a linux user with medium knowledges can install it but if you ask me it's the most stable and diverse OS out there, even compared to windows. Even Debian so called unstable it is actually very stable compared to the stable releases of other distros.

Anyway every linux has a terminal, and that's the strongest aspect of linux and not its installation process. Master the CLI, so there won't be many commands and commands possibilities that you don't know, and it doesn't matters you're using Ubuntu, Slack, Gentoo or PClinuxOS, only then you can call yourself a true linux user.

I have to agree with you just about 100%.

To add to the comment about Debian stability, Ubuntu is not quite as stable. It is pretty stable though. Their regular releases, like the one coming out this month, are based on Debian unstable and the LTS (long term service) releases like 10.04 are based on Debian Testing.

That does not point to Ubuntu being unstable. It points to the basic rock solid stability of Debian.

Ah, these hot headed partisans.

Glad I never make waves.

Hmmmm. I agree with both of you, but not 100%. Ubuntu's stability is because of its Debian heritage, in my extremely humble opinion you just can't beat Debian's dpkg and extensive testing procedures. Having said that, Ubuntu's instability, and I still have a very soft spot for Ubuntu, is because of its must have 6 month release cycle and the things it adds on to the Debian base. Things like (Widget's favourite) Plymouth, and (my favourite) ureadahead just wreck what could be a beautiful relationship. Things like these examples need more than 6 months of testing before they should be unleashed on the general, and often noobie, Linux user. Now that Ubuntu isn't linked to Gnome's release cycle they have a great opportunity to ditch the 6 month cycle and actually allow a decent testing regime to be put in place.

Lol, are you forgetting who your chatting to?

Well you have pointed out some instabilities in Ubuntu but I think that comparing any distro to Debian on stability is a losing proposition. Hard to beat Debian.

I think that, overall, Ubuntu stands up well, stability wise, with just about anyone else. I admit that I am looking at more than just stability of the installed OS. Installation media stability (where they seem to be slipping) and reliable support. This seems to me to be part of overall stability.

The 6 month cycle is not going to change. They should emphasize that it is actually a 2 year cycle of the real, LTS, release and that the releases between are experimental/development releases aiming at the next LTS.

Ureadahead (your favorite) is needed very badly to make (my favorite) Plymouth work at all. Ditching both would make people that are now excluded from using Ubuntu a good bit happier.

I do not know how Unity is going to turn out but think that it is not real good on a desktop box. They better start advertising their other variants better or the only folks using Ubuntu will be tablet users.

They really should get a little more tolerant of the fact that some folks may not always agree that just because they come up with something doesn't mean it is the Gods collective gift to computing too.

No, I am fully aware who I am "chatting" with. Just thought you might get a chuckle out of it.

I moved to Debian before Unity was forced onto the Natty testers. I know very little about it apart from what I am reading on the net. Some of the reports are good while others are not. I might give it a whirl when final release is made just so I can make my own mind up but I wont move from Debian for it.

It was a rhetorical question, and yes I did get a chuckle.

I started working on a replacement for 8.04 before the final for 10.04 was out. I still can't really use 10.04. For one thing 8.04 boots faster and anything shuts down at least twice as fast (unless I use Alt+SysRq+b). It works fine on my wifes Sys76 Pang but is just not a replacement for an LTS for me.

Debian testing with the Liquorix kernel is fine. I am here to stay.

Unity may work on a tablet. It is sort of interesting unless you want to have a lot of things going at once. Then it is a nightmare. They have no intention of putting in any Unity config gui. You do it all through gconf or compiz. A "conformation free experience" according to Mark himself. There is a blacklist (somewhere, I haven't looked for it) that will not let you put some things on the launch panel. I have not looked for the file that controls what is on the launch panel but if I were going to use it there is crap on there that needs to go. With a touch screen it would be better but putting out an OS that is using Unity as the default desktop seems to be abandoning desktop box and Laptop users pretty much strikes me as stupid.

I think that Xubuntu, Kubuntu and Lubuntu, in that order, will bennifit. Lubuntu would be #2 if it were a full member of the family.

That right there is the best evidence of how trouble-free Ubuntu is, and why so many people choose it, including many very geeky techno-wizards! It's not just a "kids' distro" only for new Linux users.

It brings Debian's awesomeness to non-geeky kids like me. I've used Debian before! Net-install, Xfce desktop, had alot of fun building it. But I'm back to Xubuntu now, and have no plans to try Debian again for a long while. By the time I finished building my own Debian Xfce just-for-me perfect mixture (which took months as I learned by trial-and-error), I found that what I ended up with was little different from Xubuntu! So I'm like, "geez, all that work has already been done for me, just the way I like it... why not just use Xubuntu!"

I wrote a li'l article (here) about the snobbery of some folks who attack Ubuntu as an "inferior" distro or as the "selfish, ungrateful prodigal child of Debian" (in fact Debian has always been reluctant to accept patches and improvements from "downstream," yet at the very same time never reluctant to whine that Ubuntu "doesn't contribute" and "takes credit for Debian's work"). Ubuntu is like 75% unaltered Debian, but "tamed" for "ordinary desktop users" like me, for whom a computer is just another household appliance rather than something I'm going to devote alot of time to.

Ubuntu is good for kids like me, but it's also good for Debian because it brings alot of new people to Linux, and especially to Debian, and those news users contribute money, ideas, and code. It's all good.

There must be a zillion Debian derivatives (Mepis, Ubuntu, Knoppix, PureOS, Crunchbang, etc)! If Debian is so "user friendly," why was there ever a need to fork it? Because - at least for awhile and I hope it's changing - the Debian community has been snobby and elitist (I can tell you from experience that they don't like kids!) and uppity. They refused to improve because "we're Debian! Perfection! There is nothing to improve." But then Ubuntu (most of all) proved them wrong. So did Knoppix, Mepis, and others.

Hey, Debian is awesome! And maybe in a few more years it will be as easy to install and use as Ubuntu/Mint/etc are. But for now, I find Xubuntu not only easier to install to install and use, but better on my hardware than my custom-built Debian was.

-Robin

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