Don't Ubuntu? Why are you here?

[bug67]

I must admit, I don't use Ubuntu. I do, however, use an Ubuntu derivative. Most of the time, the forum that is specifically for my particular derivative...well, let's just say you can hear the crickets chirping. There also seems to be little tolerance for the n00b. When answers are made available, a lot of them to run in the vein of "RTFM, n00b!"

So, I come here for my answers. Plus, there seems to be a never ending supply of friendliness and willingness to help. I appreciate that. It has made my Linux experience all the more pleasant.

So if Ubuntu is not your Linux distro of choice, why do you visit Ubuntu Forums. org?

:popcorn:

[malspa]

Although I currently have Ubuntu installed (as well as Linux Mint and other distros), there have been periods where Linux Mint was the only Ubuntu-based distro on my machine. During those times, I still came regularly to these forums, and also regularly used the Ubuntu documentation -- basically because most stuff that applies to Ubuntu also applies to Mint.

[snowpine]

Ubuntu 7.10 was my first Linux distro. I learned a lot from UbuntuForums, and in gratitude, I hang around here and help answer questions (even though I don't use Ubuntu any more).

[XubuRoxMySox]

You never forget your first lover. When I took those first few steps into this new Linux frontier, it was with Ubuntu and with the support of these awesome forums full of very patient, friendly people. Best community of any Linux distro I know.

Even during my forays into other distros (first Linux Mint, then Crunchbang, U-Lite, PCLinuxOS, Sidux, Debian, Salix, and more) I still love this community. And actually, alot of what applies to Ubuntu also applies to many of the others I've played with. Ubuntu is based on Debian, and even PCLinuxOS - formerly Mandriva-based - borrows alot from Debian! Surprising for an RPM distro. But anywayz... When I rolled my own custom-made Debian (Lenny and Squeeze, net install with Xfce), what I ended up with turned out to be almost just like Xubuntu! Except that it was alot lot lot harder to get all my hardware working (in Ubuntu alot of the hardware support is built into the kernel). It surprised the heck out of me to end up almost "full circle" from where I began.

(X)ubuntu has become the yardstick by which I measure every other distro! And besides that, there's this inescapable fact: Choose a distro and you're also choosing a repository. Yet another reason why people keep coming back here. The kernel, the repositories, the second-to-none support, and this amazing community.

-Robin

[Phrea]

I Ubuntu, and will probably continue to.
But if I ever go for another distro, I'll prob keep coming here, it's all about the brilliant community here.

[rollin]

Most of the time, the forum that is specifically for my particular derivative...well, let's just say you can hear the crickets chirping. There also seems to be little tolerance for the n00b. When answers are made available, a lot of them to run in the vein of "RTFM, n00b!"

Lol I think I know the one you are talking about :D I use different systems but the community here is both knowledgable and very helpful a rare commodity in any forum in my opinion! For me I learn lots and try to help.

[devondashla]

I use Linux Mint, and well, honestly this is the only Distro Forum that is active.

[DeadSuperHero]

This community is generally quite friendly, and I enjoy being here.

Also, part of the reason I'm not using it currently is purely technical -my computer is dead and I haven't the funds to repair or replace it. (Maybe with my next paycheck or two, though!)

[linux18]

"RTFM noob" - thats still a lot better than the slackware forums a few years ago

as for me, I use xbuntu a lot,but have tried out puppy 4/5, DSL, debian (doesn't support my hardware :( ) slitaz, tiny core, yopper, arch, zenwalk, chrunchbang, peppermint, fedora and soon pc-bsd and storm os

[sandyd]

I must admit, I don't use Ubuntu. I do, however, use an Ubuntu derivative. Most of the time, the forum that is specifically for my particular derivative...well, let's just say you can hear the crickets chirping. There also seems to be little tolerance for the n00b. When answers are made available, a lot of them to run in the vein of "RTFM, n00b!"

So, I come here for my answers. Plus, there seems to be a never ending supply of friendliness and willingness to help. I appreciate that. It has made my Linux experience all the more pleasant.

So if Ubuntu is not your Linux distro of choice, why do you visit Ubuntu Forums. org?

:popcorn:

I dont ubuntu. I gentoo. but in all seriousness, I love halping people, and since gentoo allows you to understand how every part of linux works , I help here.

[Dustin2128]

Pretty much the same as carlee, except replace gentoo with slackware, and I have a laptop and desktop which run 'buntu.

[Spice Weasel]

I use a lot of distributions, but the main two I use are in my signature. Fedora for the win! I also like Debian and PCLinuxOS quite a lot.

I come here because it's a good community.

[Timmer1240]

I do Ubuntu have been for over half a year I come here because I learn things from the forums seems to be a lot of bright people willing to help with problems around here!

[murderslastcrow]

I know some people with two or four beans that came just to troll. :D They're obviously no longer here to respond to this post, though.

[wojox]

Because Linux is Linux, just different package managers.

[viper250]

phrea i second the motion I'll prob keep coming here, it's all about the brilliant community here.

I use ubuntu hardy heron in my trainer to give people a some understanding of linux
it helps them a lot
I use it occasionally but my main distros are caine 1.5, mepis, debian kde, and crunch-bang
(small network of 10 pcs and 2 servers)

[oldsoundguy]

Every time a new release comes out, there are a bunch of 0-5 posters that come on and cry and moan about some "thing" in their release that is soooooo really NOT Windows and therefor makes the release total garbage. And how EVERYONE should avoid the thing at all costs.
They never DETAIL their problem in the form that could get them some help. Then in a few weeks, it dies down.

Now I wonder if many of those new posters work in Redmond?

[pania]

Ubuntu Forums is very active and a good place to learn from and the Community Cafe is often quite funny. (when the ranters are here).

[Tibuda]

I'm not here.

[Sporkman]

This forum is just a figment of my imagination. I could not not be here...

[handy]

The UF got me going with Breezy 5.10 when it was fresh; it allowing me to dump windows when I retired from my own IT technical service business.

I surely was grateful to be able to get away from windows which at that point in time I had really grown so tired of. I also found it so refreshing to find the wonderfully positive & helpful community here. I had never found anything like it on windows. It reminded me of what we had back in the Amiga days (without internet).

The community was much smaller here then & could therefore maintain more non-Ubuntu specific sub-forums with the resources at its disposal.

Due to this (in my view) we were a much tighter community in those days, but as the numbers grew it naturally caused a dilution of the community to the point that The Backyard sub-forum became a total nightmare for the staff.

People were getting too personal & reporting each other to the staff & fighting with the staff. The level of disrespect & rudeness demonstrated in The Backyard & The Resolution Centre by a growing number of people became intolerable for the staff, most of whom are so kindly volunteering their time for the benefit of our community in a technical support based forum. They weren't here to deal with personal issues!

In the end The Backyard was dumped, so the best we have left for off-topic community discussion is now the Cafe, which is a very much watered down & limited discussion arena due to the modified CoC which put politics & religion off the agenda to prevent the mess that The Backyard became from ever happening again.

We lost a lot of very skilled & helpful members of the community when The Backyard was closed, but circumstances dictated that there was no other choice.

A bit after The Backyard self destructed & due again to limited resources (it would seem) the Other OS Talk, sub-forum was shut down.

This too, unfortunately caused more highly experienced & often long time Linux/BSD users to stop frequenting the UF, which was certainly a great loss in the primary user support sections of the UF.

So these days, when I look around the Cafe at the names of members who are still posting here & that used to frequent The Backyard &/or the Other OS Talk sub-forums, there aren't all that many of them left.

I still come here in the hope of finding something interesting/stimulating to participate in & occasionally have something to contribute.

Due to the number of members here there exists a high daily post count so it is worth a look to see what has turned up. The excellent quality of the forum moderation here is a joy to behold. The Staff keeps the amount of respect required in our posts at an equitable level which thankfully makes it a very rare occurrence for us to have to read someone's irrationally spouted, emotionally driven vitriol.

Coming here is a bit of a habit, which I'm noticing has nowhere near as strong a hold on me as it once did.

After 25+ years of oft intense computing time I've found that computers do start to become boring after a while. Which is why I am now far more drawn to community discussion topics than those specifically focussed on the technical these days. ;)

[Edit:] I distro hopped a lot & checked out some BSD branches, ended up on Arch (that install is now nearly 2.5 years old), have looked at a few other distros on No.2. box since finding Arch, but these days I just sit on Arch on both boxes (use OS X, when there is no other choice), & look forward to Haiku maturing, if for nothing else it is different. I am also tempted by the AmigaOne X1000. Old habits, & all that... :)

[yabbadabbadont]

/me waves at handy

:D

Remember when the games threads moved so fast that the 20 second delay between posts seemed like an eternity? :lol:

Even though I'm using Lucid, I only visit the forums ever three or four days now. Most of the old timers I used to interact with have moved on and I've tired of answering the same questions for the hundredth time. I still occasionally browse the support sections to see if there is some new (or at least infrequent) issue I might be able to help with.

[dsiembab]

I like the community and also
Sorry O & K, my bad

[murderslastcrow]

I'm interested in Haiku for the same reason I'm interested in e17. All-in-one, optimized, and consistent. Sure, Gnome, KDE, etc. are all that way, but it'd be interesting to see a whole OS that goes directly against some of the modularity we're used to for the sake of stability and cleanliness.

Like, really, if you can make something more manageable, it can get better even faster than something like Linux. Who knows, maybe someone will come along to replace Linux by implementing all the same stuff people love about Linux and standardizing/optimizing the Heck out of it.

But I don't see that happening any day soon. XD People are pretty firmly invested in Linux, and it works pretty darn well. Lol, I hate not being able to swear sometimes, I sound like a hick.

[sandyd]

I like the community and also
Ten years ago, a crack commando unit, including myself, was sent to Microsoft by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The M-Team. M as in mandriva
nice one :lolflag:

[handy]

/me waves at handy

:D

):P



Remember when the games threads moved so fast that the 20 second delay between posts seemed like an eternity? :lol:

My wit is too slow for rapid fire face to face conversation these days, so any delay I can get suits me fine. :)



Even though I'm using Lucid...

Not Gentoo?

[bug67]

I'm not here.


This forum is just a figment of my imagination. I could not not be here...


Yup. That's what I thought! :lolflag:

[yabbadabbadont]

Not Gentoo?

Not for quite a while. My old machine takes too long to build large packages from source and tends to overheat when I do. I don't have the time to manage it like I used to have. Also, they don't seem to have the manpower to stay on top of timely security updates these days.

If I ever get around to buying new hardware, I'll probably toss it onto a spare partition. I'm planning on sticking Arch on a spare partition to play with soon. I'll have to figure out how to get grub2 to see my SATA drive first though. It refuses to see it currently.

[handy]

...I'll have to figure out how to get grub2 to see my SATA drive first though. It refuses to see it currently.

I've had no experience with grub2...

I guess I'll use it when I have no other choice. At a glance it looks to contain many improvements, though none of them matter to me & my simple usage.

Good luck with it. :)

[afroman10496]

You never forget your first lover.

Unless she's ******* :P

As for the os im using now, I'm still using Ubuntu as my main OS, I'm just going tiger woods and checking out other distros until Maverick. Currnetly I'm using openSUSE, it's pretty hot, almost as polished as Ubuntu.

I tried Fedora, eew. Couldn't even install Chrome on the KDE version.

Sabayon was pretty nice too, but it was way too buggy -_-
I couldn't get my screen resolution right on MEPIS
Mandriva was sorta annoying
OpenSolaris was a kicka$$ os, but it couldn't get my graphics card right grr >:{
And Frugalware wouldnt even boot.

My first distro was Ubuntu, and my main distro is Ubuntu and it always will be :)

[Austin25]

Nope. I use Ubuntu, but I'd be happy to help anybody who uses another distro. I'm tired of dealing with my mom's iPhone networking problems. Mumble grumble stumble fumble...

[cra1g321]

im always distro-hopping between ubuntu and mint. Usually come here instead of mint forum even when im using mint as the mint forum is no where near as active.

[Noz3001]

I use Ubuntu on my laptop and FreeBSD on my PC. I use my laptop WAAAAAAAAAAY more so I always have this forum open in a tab in case I can help someone with a problem.

[Nick_Jinn]

This community has definitely been a valuable resource even as I switched over to Mint. Mint is Ubuntu, even more so than Ubuntu is Debian. Its just a little more polished and ready to go out of the box, including from live CD. Adding Medibuntu from repositories for live CD eats up too much ram.


But yeah, great community.


Still, I think I would be interested in venturing outside of this community, perhaps towards one that is a little more tolerant about the range of topics being discussed. What other communities are good for Ubuntu based distros and Linux in general?

[XubuRoxMySox]

What other communities are good for Ubuntu based distros and Linux in general?

I visit Linux.com and LinuxQuestions.org alot, but they're not as busy nor as "social" as UF. I'm on Mint forums too but it's downright sleepy compared to this place, lol.

-Robin

[Nick_Jinn]

If you are using Mint you are pretty much using ubuntu. The only difference is your DVDs play, the menu looks more like a KDE menu (in some peoples opinion), the theme is green, and Mint instead of Ubuntu is getting your pennies for Google search bar.

[Dragonbite]

I keep hopping on-and-off of Ubuntu. Currently I am leaning more towards Fedora 13 until I can try openSUSE (Gnome) 11.3 again.

Otherwise, the UbuntuForums are more of a social site than other distro's forums.

[RiceMonster]

Because this forum demands my presence.

[Nick_Jinn]

I havnt tried Fedora in years. I didnt much care for it 5 years ago though.

Is it user friendly yet?

[RiceMonster]

I havnt tried Fedora in years. I didnt much care for it 5 years ago though.

Is it user friendly yet?

Since "user friendly" is an ambiguous term, I would say the best way to find out is to try it. Either that, or you could be more specific and I'll try to answer.

For me, it's more "user friendly" than anything other distro.

[snowpine]

I havnt tried Fedora in years. I didnt much care for it 5 years ago though.

Is it user friendly yet?

Gnome is Gnome... I think you will like it. :)

[Dragonbite]

I havnt tried Fedora in years. I didnt much care for it 5 years ago though.

Is it user friendly yet?

It's better than it used to be; more stable out of the box, thoughtful GUI, etc.

One of the things I like is that it detects my Broadcom wireless card out-of-the-box and it's up and running without having to do anything (a'la OpenFWWF open source drivers).

Of course codecs and proprietary items will take a little more effort but it isn't a killer.

[Nick_Jinn]

I think most people know what you mean by 'user friendly'. Some people get really technical, especially techies :) Imagine that. However, if you apply some common sense you can assume that people are asking whether its noob friendly with an intuitive shallow learning scale for the most basic day to day functions.....like do you have to compile drivers from source to watch a DVD or is it plug and play? Installers make life a whole lot easier for non geeks. If you have to be comfortable with the CLI and cant do most things from an intuitive GUI, that isnt noob friendly....If you want to be really technical you could argue that its actually MORE friendly if you are a dev since CLI can be faster and more efficient, but those people are not going to be asking that kind of question like that, so unless you want to be over technical you can make a fairly accurate intuitive guess as to what people mean when they ask if something is user friendly. They are asking if its arcane or a really obvious/intuitive GUI with easy to identify names and a familiar interface.

Most people understand exactly what you are asking.

Maybe I will try Fedora. Do they have entirely different apps?

[mamamia88]

even if I ever stopped using ubuntu I would still come on here to shoot the breeze. it's just fun

[afroman10496]

By user friendly I mean noob friendly, intuitive interface 'you already know how to use it' or at least a shallower learning curve for the basics if not for the more esoteric functions.....Mint is "user friendly". Slackware isnt, though I hear that its developer friendly so more 'user friendly' from the perspective of somebody who writes their own apps as they need them but not necessarily something you want to give to grandma....unless she is a computer hacker by chance.

Dont most people understand that to be what most people are asking when you say 'user friendly'? Obviously you can get really technical and question whether you are talking about noobs or whether its easier for experienced hackers and devs, but its not really the kind of question they would be asking/phrasing like that, so you can assume that 99% of the time when you hear people asking that they mean to ask if its noob friendly or has a steep learning curve for the basics.....and of course you can run into situations where certain things are easy and other things are hard, like downloading from Synaptic is easy but compiling from source is harder.....both of which can be part of Ubuntu....But for the basics like Watching DVDs, organizing your Music, writting papers and making spreadsheets....it doesnt really get easier than Mint and maybe a few other Ubuntu offshoots.

Maybe I will try Fedora. Do they have entirely different apps?

Pretty much, it has pidgin instead of empathy, gnote instead of tomboy, shotwell instead of fspot, and it includes pino. I woul'nt reccomend it my self though, but that's just my opinion.

If you want a solid RPM distro i'd go with openSUSE. it's really nice :D

[Khakilang]

My body is here facing the screen and my hand is on the keyboard typing something. But my mind is some where else. Ah yes! Try to install Window 2000 on a Core2 machine for my customer. Damn no drivesr supported.

I install Ubuntu on my main machine and use my older machine to test other Distro. Its nice here and the most active forum I find.

[TNT1]

Maybe I will try Fedora. Do they have entirely different apps?

I installed Fedora 12 at the beginning of the year... getting the simple things like java/mp3/video/flash/openoffice/various bits of hardware to work, was such a pita... went back to 9.10 Ubuntu, and everything worked... same machine... Oh, and I found the fedora implementation of security very intrusive and un-necessary for a desktop...

[afroman10496]

and yeah, about fedora, [no offense]I really don't know where the're getting with the whole "free software only" thing. =[/no offense]/

i know free software is important, i'm actually on the gnu side of things, i'm just sayin that if it risks the end user expreience, you have ta' make exceptions.

There are distros for total free software people like gNewSense and [no offense]the end user isn't going to want to use those for... well... end usering the computer ;)[/no offense]. and another thing that i don't find a reason in is the exclusion of mono. i don't give a :-# about mono, i know some ppl do, but why did fedora disclude it? it just messed up the framework of modern gnome, such as - gnote, it doesn't work well, shotwell severely needs an update (but it doesn't mean it's not good, i actuly prefer it over f-spot any day), and you need it to run evolution (which i dispise by the way.)

so, fedora, you just need to lossen down your "philosophises" and make it possible to actually enjoy yourself.


* [no offense] [/no offense] may be missing in some areas ;)

[Water_Spirit]

Ubuntu was my first experience with Linux but I am also a big Fedora 13 fan easy install, best with Nvidia, very stable on my laptop. These forums are very informative so I will drop in from time to time.

[Nick_Jinn]

and yeah, about fedora, [no offense]I really don't know where the're getting with the whole "free software only" thing. =[/no offense]/

i know free software is important, i'm actually on the gnu side of things, i'm just sayin that if it risks the end user expreience, you have ta' make exceptions.

There are distros for total free software people like gNewSense and [no offense]the end user isn't going to want to use those for... well... end usering the computer ;)[/no offense]. and another thing that i don't find a reason in is the exclusion of mono. i don't give a :-# about mono, i know some ppl do, but why did fedora disclude it? it just messed up the framework of modern gnome, such as - gnote, it doesn't work well, shotwell severely needs an update (but it doesn't mean it's not good, i actuly prefer it over f-spot any day), and you need it to run evolution (which i dispise by the way.)

so, fedora, you just need to lossen down your "philosophises" and make it possible to actually enjoy yourself.


* [no offense] [/no offense] may be missing in some areas ;)


I tend to agree.

It makes sense for Stallman and other devs to use those distros, but its not going to help win your cause if you are trying to compete with Windows....and people sometimes dont like the implied connotations of competing, but that is exactly what it is when you want open source to flourish instead of commercial and non free distros....it doesnt mean copying Windows or becoming Windows, it means providing an alternative that people want to use....sometimes when you omit drivers and codecs that are not open source, you actually harm the open source movement more than help it....if the end user experience is lacking then people will walk away and consider open source inferior. In reality its just as good if not better, but not everything has been compensated for yet, so we should only get rid of proprietary software as the open source alternatives are available and work comparatively well.

People are not willing to sacrifice DVD and MP3 support. I think Ubuntu goes too far in keeping Medibuntu out of Multiverse.



The distros that have done the most to introduce open source to the world are the distros that are the most "user friendly" for noobs coming from Windows, but without copying Windows but still being aware of the common skill sets and computer use habits. I think Mint is excellent for converting Windows noobs to Linux.....Its like having a Mac only more customizable and at PC prices. How can you beat that? A few things still need to be polished on the GUI level like networking....I guess multitouch is on the way though, which was a big one.

[Dragonbite]

and yeah, about fedora, [no offense]I really don't know where the're getting with the whole "free software only" thing. =[/no offense]/

i know free software is important, i'm actually on the gnu side of things, i'm just sayin that if it risks the end user expreience, you have ta' make exceptions.

There are distros for total free software people like gNewSense and [no offense]the end user isn't going to want to use those for... well... end usering the computer ;)[/no offense]. and another thing that i don't find a reason in is the exclusion of mono. i don't give a :-# about mono, i know some ppl do, but why did fedora disclude it? it just messed up the framework of modern gnome, such as - gnote, it doesn't work well, shotwell severely needs an update (but it doesn't mean it's not good, i actuly prefer it over f-spot any day), and you need it to run evolution (which i dispise by the way.)

so, fedora, you just need to lossen down your "philosophises" and make it possible to actually enjoy yourself.


* [no offense] [/no offense] may be missing in some areas ;)

Again, this is part of the advantage of Linux; choice.

I hope Fedora doesn't loosen up too much because it counter-balances the likes of Mint, PCLinuxOS and others that throw everything in regardless.

By focusing on the FOSS solution that makes the shortcomings of FOSS painfully obvious which helps in finding out what needs to be improved. For example, instead of giving up and going with the nVidia or ATI drivers and hoping the companies have the best for Linux at heart, they helped develop 3D capabilities in Nouveau.

Likewise, wireless is the other big thorn in Linux's side and Fedora has included OpenFWWF which for some makes wireless work out of the box. Would these be developed if a distro wasn't passionate about FOSS enough to put "their money where there mouth is"?

Now, while I admire their passion, I also cannot live limited by FOSS-only (my CDs are ripped to MP3, Flash works for me, etc.). They don't completely remove those options, though.

For those people that need more "loose" but easier distros, that too is available. Just as I don't want to make Linux like Windows, I don't want all distros to become like Ubuntu. [no offense].

[Oppermongo]

I used Fedora Core a few years ago, on a pretty crappy computer.
But I first visited this forum when I got into some trouble in Ubuntu, being a new user.
Currently, I barely even use Ubuntu anymore, mainly because I bought a Mac Book Pro and have been using Mac OSX and a little Windows 7 since.

I just enjoy the attitude on this forum, everyone is willing to help, I love the community café and problems usually get attended to very quickly.

This is just one of the better forums considering ALL computer problems, no matter what OS you use, you usually get a quick response or get forwarded to the right place :D

[Zoot7]

Mainly because Ubuntu is the first distro I started using primarily instead of Windows (Gutsy and Hardy), not all the time mind you, but 70-90% of the time, Windows occupying the remainder. The forums here are also pretty active, and for the most part not a bad place to visit to talk about Linux in general.

I haven't used Ubuntu since around December now. I don't use Linux as much as I used anymore, but when I do, Debian is what I use these days.

[snowpine]

Fedora users, check out Easylife: http://easylifeproject.org/

or RPMFusion: http://rpmfusion.org/

Please don't tell Fedora what their goals/ideology "should" be until you have used and contributed to the project. ;) Their #1 goal as I understand it is to test software that will someday be used in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Since "closed source" software cannot be tested and improved (or for that matter shipped with RHEL) there is no purpose to including it in Fedora; they would prefer you use the open source alternatives (gnash, openfwwf, nouveau, etc) no matter how buggy because that's how stuff gets better over time. :)

[andrek]

I'm not currently using Ubuntu due to some nasty bug ( https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/399978 ). As soon as it gets fixed, I'm moving back!

[MisfitI38]

I just wait for handy to say something witty.

[MCVenom]

Fedora users, check out Easylife: http://easylifeproject.org/

or RPMFusion: http://rpmfusion.org/

Please don't tell Fedora what their goals/ideology "should" be until you have used and contributed to the project. ;) Their #1 goal as I understand it is to test software that will someday be used in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Since "closed source" software cannot be tested and improved (or for that matter shipped with RHEL) there is no purpose to including it in Fedora; they would prefer you use the open source alternatives (gnash, openfwwf, nouveau, etc) no matter how buggy because that's how stuff gets better over time. :)
And no Mono why? :|

[Nick_Jinn]

I think that the Mint Devs are pretty deliberate and careful about what they add. They are not just throwing the kitchen sink into the distro to make it bloated and full. A lot of thought and effort has gone into making Mint what it is, and it involves a lot of fine tuning and adding things that in my opinion are quite necessary....things that you can do yourself in Ubuntu, but things which make it that much nicer for an out of the box experience, especially for noobs, and also more useful as a live CD.

[phrostbyte]

I'm here because I Ubuntu, but I figure I'd probably even stay if I didn't. The general intelligence quota on the forums discussion have been getting a lot better IMO.