Interestingly, I left Mandrake for Ubuntu. I use KDE. Gnome has some nice things, but I'm used to KDE and it's what I prefer to use. I actually am not interested at all in the KDE vs. Gnome arguments- they both work well for some people. I happen to find KDE works better for me for what I do (kate and konqueror is my preferred way to do web app development). Ok, I probably could work my way up to an argument for KDE, but that's not all that I'm interested in.
When I started using Ubuntu a month ago, I went straight to to hoary and grabbed kde 3.3 out of universe. Haven't looked back and things work well enough to use for me. I'd be using a standard debain install, but frankly, what is most attractive about Ubuntu for me is the regular schedule of releases. The philosophy and design of debian is attractive, but I don't want to wait and wait and wait for new releases of software.
So here I am. I'm not a super linux head. I know macs much better, but I can stumble around enough in the dark to make things work. apt-get is a powerful enough tool to let relatively new people to linux get what they need. Which is why I like debian based distros. Mandrake, while nice in that recent software comes with it, leaves me a bit shaky. I much prefer apt-get to urpmi. There are some great things about Mandrake, but I was willing to leave it for apt-get. And I'm happy about that.
I guess my plug is for debian with a release schedule that includes the software I want to use. I love what debian is, I just get a bit impatient. So maybe one way to look at why people want to run Ubuntu is not just that it has a great implementation of Gnome (it does), but that it is a darn tootin nice install of debian.
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