Help me rank distros in difficulty level

[mamamia88]

In *buntu if you choose install third party software the video driver will be installed automatically (though I prefer to install it myself to get a more updated driver from xorg-edgers)

In Mangero Linux it is installed automatically if you choose the non free image and it is more up to date than Ubuntu's.

As for codecs, if you use Windows media player it doesn't play most media formats out of the box. There is a reason that VLC is so popular even on Windows.

Exactly if you use vlc and certain music players then it really doesn't matter if it doesn't include the codecs because you won't notice.

[kevdog]

I'm not sure if saying all Linux distro's lead you to the same place is a completely accurate statement. I guess this depends on what you mean as the same place. If you count using the internet, emailing, etc, then you are right. If you count the maintainence of a system, then I would say you are wrong. One example would be the process used to control system daemons. For example sysV scripts vs upstart vs systemd. The scripts to manage daemons and runlevels across these different choices are different and not interchangeable. Systemd can make use of sockets to activate various daemons -- like an ssh daemon, whereas the other two service managers can not. Package management is also greatly different between distributions, with some distributions not supporting as large of package base as others -- forcing the end user to either install software from alternative sources such as ppa's, AUR, or from source code. At the end of the day, I would admit these differences are not probably very important to many users, however they may be very significant to other users.

[buzzingrobot]

I'm not sure if saying all Linux distro's lead you to the same place is a completely accurate statement..

Just that Linux is Linux and that you can do what you want to do on any distribution. Some things may need to be done differently, that's all.

[mamamia88]

Just that Linux is Linux and that you can do what you want to do on any distribution. Some things may need to be done differently, that's all.

What he said. Distros are like cars. Some may brake automatically for you or parallel park themselves but overall they are more similar than different. I can either opt for the everything package and remove the stuff i don't want manually or I can buy a junker and build it up but the end result is the same. Personally I'd rather take a weekend to setup arch 100% properly and not really have to worry about it again then reinstall every 6 months or so just to get more up to date stuff but everybodies different.