Alternative "set up and go" distro?

[TheOrangePeanut]

I use Arch on my main PC, but I'm going to install a Linux distro on my laptop and I don't want a distro that I have to set up manually like Arch. I was going to use Ubuntu since that is what I got started with Linux on, but since I'm starting fresh on this PC then maybe I could try something else. Any suggestions?

I'm looking for a distro that is quick and easy to set up with sane defaults, a decently sized repository, and doesn't take much time to maintain. DE doesn't matter, but I do prefer KDE.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I need proprietary codecs (MP3, whatever else) and drivers (video card). If they aren't available in the standard repositories, then it shouldn't be too much work to set up non-free repos and grab them that way.

So what should it be? Fedora, Mandriva, Suse, ... whatever else?

Thanks

[bhishan]

Fedora or Mandriva.

[snowpine]

Ubuntu (including its cousin Kubuntu) is the ultimate "set up and go" distro--that is its main contribution to the Linux world. Since you are asking on the ubuntu forums, that would be my #1 recommendation for you.

Another excellent KDE distro that will be quite familiar to (K)Ubuntu users is Sidux. While it is based on the "bleeding edge" of Debian, it actually is a surprisingly sane and stable distro (certainly no more likely to "break" than Arch).

[kk0sse54]

Fedora

[Tipped OuT]

Fedora

Ubuntu

[lisati]

Xubuntu

[chucky chuckaluck]

i just had to reinstall arch. i screwed up something and decided to give ubuntu a retry. couldn't take (in a "not for me" kind of way). so, i went back to arch. took twenty minutes at the most. (i'm just sayin'...)

[lisati]

i just had to reinstall arch. i screwed up something and decided to give ubuntu a retry. couldn't take (in a "not for me" kind of way). so, i went back to arch. took twenty minutes at the most. (i'm just sayin'...)

Well done for what you have achieved so far, and good luck for the future. Feel to stick around.

[Icehuck]

I like openSUSE and for me it has been a great get up and go distro. Fedora also works pretty well in this category.

[TheOrangePeanut]

i just had to reinstall arch. i screwed up something and decided to give ubuntu a retry. couldn't take (in a "not for me" kind of way). so, i went back to arch. took twenty minutes at the most. (i'm just sayin'...)

Different distros for different purposes. I just don't want to have to update my laptop very often, or worry about something breaking (like the policykit problem on KDEmod last week) that may be fixable in a day, but I'd just rather not deal with it.

I guess I'll probably just stick to Ubuntu. I haven't installed it anywhere since 7.10 anyway. I'll see how 9.04 is doing...