I tried installing Debian 64 on my machine and ended up having some display issues and this was my only machine so I needed to ask for help. I decided to throw in Knoppix 3.7 Live CD and ask for help on my machine. This ended up loading "Ubuntu" live 5.04 Hoary.

I must say this was very very amazing when it loaded. I have had this live CD for a few months in my desk with no intention of using it but it recognized EVERYTHING!

- Onboard sound = great
- Onboard gigabit LAN = great
- Nvidia 7800GTX PCI-Express card = great with 1280x1024 resolution!
- Plays .mp3's and .mpg's with zero configuration.
- Gnome 2.10

This thing is very nice and I am very amazed. If Debian 64 does not work out, I may decide to install Ubuntu instead.
Is there a major difference between running Ubuntu vs Debian?

Great to here that it went so well with Ubuntu. My friend had a similar experience the other day. He had never used Linux before, but was impressed by the way that it booted straight from the live CD, even configuring his wireless connection automatically which has been known to be a pain in the arse before.

Yes - I still prefer Debian since Ubuntu just makes it to easy for me. I feel the need to struggle and learn something if it does not work right away but I am happy to see Linux coming along so well!

Main difference ifor me s Ubuntu gives you more pretty graphical tools for configuring things and it makes a tad harder doing stuff from the command line. If it's easier with Ubuntu and it's grabbed your hardware, I'd say stick with it rather then struggling with little things in Debian! If you're happy with the system taking care of more things for you, fine, but if you want that bit more control and understanding, try preservering with Debian. In terms of the packages, Debian testing puts you on par with Ubuntu with a similar chance of finding packages don't always play together and causing problems, but don't be surprised if you run Debian stable and find it feels outdate to Ubuntu

I haven't tried Ubuntu, but have been running Kubuntu, and as you have all said, it is an amazing distribution. Not only did I upgrade to KDE 3.5 through apt-get, but everything is quick, easy to configure from the installation and a beautiful default theme.

Not only is that all good, but this is the first distribution I have used ( I have been running Linux for 3 or 4 years now ) where everything worked no matter what it was without so much as a glitch or crash.

My sound keeps up with games, themes and icons are easy to install.

The only things that Kubuntu lacks that I have found is support for wireless USB and many configuration tools.

I disagree. Ubuntu doesn't have that many graphical tools to configure stuff. It has Synaptic by default which you can install in Debian as well and it has the update manager. If you want graphical tools you're better of running Mepis. Ubuntu is somewhere in between Debian and Mepis I think. There's plenty of tinkering in the terminal with Ubuntu when you want to set everything up just the way you like.

We weren't comparing it to Mepis, or any other distros except Debian, otherwise it could go on + on if you consider the SuSE + Mandriva graphical control tools for example

Well, I was comparing it to Mepis .

I just don't see Ubuntu being harder to configure from the terminal than Debian. To me it's exactly the same coming from Debian Sid to Ubuntu.

I've just spent the evening trying to help a friend of mine install Kubuntu 5.10 on his laptop. The primary reason for choosing Kubuntu was its download size - just 1 CD - and then the fact that Ubuntu/Kubuntu seem to quite popular these days... according to Distrowatch at least.

Unfortunately, we had some problems... The install itself went relatively fine - relatively, 'cause at some point the text 'graphics' partially disappeared (you could still make out part of the progress bar) and a lot of different messages appeared. I take it these reflected what the installer waqs doing behind the curtains, so to speak.
Apart from that, the install was quite a breeze.

Not so with the Kubuntu itself. We wanted to get some files from the Windows-partition on the HDD, but found that we couldn't access the partition at all - no reading rights either. I sudo'ed a chmod to change the permissions, but was astounded by a 'access denied' message (I don't recall the exact wording though)

Second, Kubuntu would not mount my buddy's USB flash drive. Upon insertion of the drive, Konqueror would pop up and complain about /media/sda1 not existing. Creating that exact directory didn't change anything.
Still, this would necessarily be much of a problem, if we could just get on the internet and search some online forums and the like. But no such luck.

Not only had both his network devices (ethernet LAN and wireless) been disabled - The 'Administrator Mode' button that would allow you to enable them was 'trapped' somewhere outside the screen area, and we were unsuccessful in retrieving it by any measure of resizing, moving, adjusting window behaviour etc.
We tried re-installing twice, but it didn't change a thing.

So... Rather unimpressed with our Kubuntu experience, we decided I should just get SUSE for him (as I have a speedy broadband connection) and install that instead.

I still wonder, though - what might have caused the mishaps we experienced? (I hate to be a quitter)

@Conjurer: Hard to say what went wrong, laptops sometimes need special bootparameters. Perhaps the troubles with the screen caused further problems: did you see the screen where you choose the default internet connection (ethernet or wireless in your case)? Anyway, you did not quit, you solved all problems by installing SUSE.

Like the Thread starter I had no problems with installing ubuntu, and was amazed that so much was configured automatically. However, for beginners it is good to know that there can be issues. When there is a problem it is best to ask a question. Do not format windows because it is inaccesible, this is almost always a minor problem that can be solved.

Yes, the internet connection choice showed up all right during the install process - we left it unconfigured at the time though.. Could that be the cultprit?
left it

It just bothers me I am not (yet) able to recommend [K]Ubuntu on a personal basis - that's all.

Oh well - at least my buddy seems enthusiatic enough not to be discouraged by a single failure...

Perhaps that was the culprit. The wired connection would have had the best chance of being auto-configured. That said, laptops need special bootparameters sometimes. I guess that some producers use non-standard BIOS or ACPI, but I am not sure about that.

I switched from Fedora to Ubuntu/Kubunt sometime ago. I say Ubuntu/Kubuntu because I had trouble with my thumb drives in Kubuntu which I did not in Ubuntu.

It is quite easy to have the best of both worlds. Run Knoppix 4.0.2 DVD and note what KDE (kubuntu) packages you want. Install Ubuntu and in "synaptic" click on "KDE enviroment" (probably "universe" for more packages.). Install what seems necessary and log out, change "session" and log in "kde" Now you can load in any additional packages you want. I prefer "Adept" to "synaptic" for no good reason. Ubuntu and Kubuntu are just one big distro really. They have broken it down this way so it is only a one CD install, but IT IS ALL THERE (you do need the internet, preferably coble, DSL or satelite )
The Forums are great and there is a lot of help out there.