Is Openpandora Ready...

[dflemstr]

You can also try out linux (Ubuntu) in a web app with out installing or downloading anything. The site hosts a temporary virtual machine for you to log in to as well as ssh. Its pretty slow but it might be worth a try to someone new to linux.

http://www.click2try.com/catalog/Linux/Ubuntu-Desktop/details

I agree with this post from earlier:

Also, you may want to steer clear of Ubuntu. Nothing rubbed me the wrong way worse than that particular distro. I give this advice based on the impression that I got from your post, which suggests you're interested in learning the system, not just clicking around on a distro that mostly treats the user like an incompetetent idiot.

-God Ginrai

I don't. I'm using ubuntu right now. While I like to learn about linux, which I have, I also like things to work without having to tinker with them when I'm trying to get some work done. I like to choose when I want to learn about the system and when I just want to use it. Ubuntu gives me that choice. Now I understand that some people don't like the various hacks in ubuntu, such as the mangled-to-oblivion pulseaudio, but I wouldn't count being easy to use against ubuntu. I like the easy proprietary driver installation and even some of the wizards. Don't get me wrong, I fire up ye olde terminal and emacs (gnu) daily, but I get to choose my battles. I think ubuntu is a good first system where you can quickly get accustomed to package management and all that. Later you'll bump into the command line and learn stuff about it. Bottom-up learning can be very exhausting in linux, which is why I recommend a top-down approach to my friends who are interested.

All these are a matter of opinion, suit yourselves

...and I guess that I'll add my opinion to the stack. (Sorry for the double post; this answer appeared while I was typing)

If you want the no-brain-required-to-do-basic-work feature that Ubuntu provides, while still having a system that is more stable (because Ubuntu, as said, contains very many hacks and non-ideal compromises) and where you can actually go under the hood and it'll still make sense (which isn't possible in Ubuntu to the same extent), try Fedora. It's the second most popular distro in the world (according to distrowatch.com), contains the best and newest of the Linux community while still being stable and easy to use (to all others: the days of Fedora instability are practically over), and it contains many killer features that don't exist yet in other distributions (for instance PackageKit and pure PulseAudio). Check it out if you haven't.

Oh and BTW, to those of you who want to see where Fedora is heading, check out the brand new package build service overview system and social package maintainer's site: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/community/

EDIT: GodGinrai was faster. Just strenghtens my "point"

 

[bzar]

Funny, I can work in Fedora without having to tinker as well. Also, Fedora doesn't treat me like I'm an incompetent dolt. I've heard that the same is true for SUSE.

-God Ginrai

I'm not comparing distros here, I've heard good things from those two as well. My last encounter with fedora didn't end so well, as there was some hardware issues, can't remember what. Anyways, I'm not too sensitive about how the OS "treats" me, as long as it lets me do whatever I want. Do you have any specific examples about ubuntu treating you like "an incompetent dolt"? I'm not trying to get into an argument here, I'm just interested why some people, usually the more linux-savvy kind, find ubuntu so repulsive. I've used linux for quite a many years and tried different distributions, but somehow ubuntu always seems to give me most bang for the buck (meaning things done in a given amount of time).

EDIT: cleaned quotes

 

[bzar]

...and I guess that I'll add my opinion to the stack. (Sorry for the double post; this answer appeared while I was typing)

If you want the no-brain-required-to-do-basic-work feature that Ubuntu provides, while still having a system that is more stable (because Ubuntu, as said, contains very many hacks and non-ideal compromises) and where you can actually go under the hood and it'll still make sense (which isn't possible in Ubuntu to the same extent), try Fedora. It's the second most popular distro in the world (according to distrowatch.com), contains the best and newest of the Linux community while still being stable and easy to use (to all others: the days of Fedora instability are practically over), and it contains many killer features that don't exist yet in other distributions (for instance PackageKit and pure PulseAudio). Check it out if you haven't.

Oh and BTW, to those of you who want to see where Fedora is heading, check out the brand new package build service overview system and social package maintainer's site: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/community/

EDIT: GodGinrai was faster. Just strenghtens my "point"

As said, my last encounter with fedora wasn't very successful, but I'm willing to give it another go when I have the spare time. Who knows, maybe I'll get it to work properly this time.

EDIT: cleaned quotes

 

[dflemstr]

I'm not comparing distros here, I've heard good things from those two as well. My last encounter with fedora didn't end so well, as there was some hardware issues, can't remember what. Anyways, I'm not too sensitive about how the OS "treats" me, as long as it lets me do whatever I want. Do you have any specific examples about ubuntu treating you like "an incompetent dolt"? I'm not trying to get into an argument here, I'm just interested why some people, usually the more linux-savvy kind, find ubuntu so repulsive. I've used linux for quite a many years and tried different distributions, but somehow ubuntu always seems to give me most bang for the buck (meaning things done in a given amount of time).

Well, in Ubuntu, a lot of shortcuts have been made to make the system more user friendly. For instance, all Ubuntu users have surely seen the "Program not found, use the following command to install it" or similar on the console when the user types an unknown command?

Well, as it turns out, that little feature has been implemented very hackishly by modifying /etc/profile to do various dkpg queries, that not only take a lot of computer power to complete, but also break very easily if, for example, your system is installing packages while you are at the terminal.

Another example is the packages.list file. That file is constantly being edited by the package management system when the user adds or removes repositories, and when you do things such as upgrading Ubuntu to another version, that file is left in a mess. Other distributions have implemented a system where repositories are stored in individual files (/etc/yum.repos.d/ for Fedora, /etc/pacman.conf.d/ for Arch etc) so that nothing can become messy. Either a repository exists and there is a file for it, or it doesn't and the file is gone. No tedious file editing hacks required, and the user never has to go in and edit that file him/herself. Yes, I know, Ubuntu is moving towards that now, too, by introducing /etc/apt/sources.list.d, but that directory is not being used by the official repositories yet.

Yet another example is the xorg.conf file. In Fedora, there isn't such a file; the system automatically recognizes your hardware and just works. You'll have to create such a file only if you have special needs. In Ubuntu, a default xorg.conf file is generated, that's supposed to cover all the needs of all computers out there, but it just breaks some systems that just don't work with the solution Ubuntu has implemented, and thus there are a gazillion tutorials out there on how to "fix" your xorg.conf.

Another example is the implementation of PulseAudio. Ubuntu has patched PulseAudio so that it not only simply stops functioning sometimes, but there are also problems with ALSA and OSS emulation with it (meaning that sometimes, you'll only be able to hear sound from one application at once). Ubuntu doesn't even use the PulseAudio Volume control per default, and doesn't set up the Gnome Sound settings correctly to make the system even use PulseAudio in the first place; the settings are set to Autodetect, and that autodetection will discover aLSA half of the time, causing problems just because of that. Compare that to Fedora's PulseAudio implementation where there are positional event sounds (so you can hear where a message box pops up just by hearing -- very useful) and you can control the volumes of individual applications per default.

My final example is the whole DEB system that Ubuntu uses. Because Ubuntu wants to retain some compatibility with Debian, and because the Debian folks don't like to update their packages that often in their stable release, Ubuntu is left with a system that feels like it did ~12 years ago. Yeah. Meanwhile, on the Fedora side, RPM really isn't that organized either, but at least there are updates to it relatively often (such as the introduction of deltaRPMs to shorten update download times) and it generally contains less hacks and so-called "hook applications" that the Debian DEB system does.

Oh, and now when the Fedora people have introduced PackageKit integration with YUM, package installation is easy as I don't know what. Ubuntu, because they want somethign similar, of course don't use PackageKit, but instead plan to introduce some package browser application thingie that isn't compatible with the stable and working PackageKit system, just because it's "easier to use". Yeah, right.

 

[WizardStan]

None of those examples seem to be treating the user as an idiot though. They may be less than ideal solutions, but they all seem to be solving a similar problem to what other distros do.
Quite the contrary, your example about xorg.conf seems to indicate that it is Fedora that treats the user like an idiot. No xorg.conf file to work with? Do they think I'm a moron who can't use a text editor? <-- tongue in cheek humor, not a valid argument!

 

[bzar]

First, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to write this lengthy post. I really like to find faults in the systems to acknowledge their existence. If I never knew something could be done better, and IS done better than in my current setup, I'd be left with a system that's not the best for me around. I will take these things you have mentioned into account the next time I feel like reinstalling (which should happen right after I've tinkered my current setup into a formless blob beyond any hope)

Well, in Ubuntu, a lot of shortcuts have been made to make the system more user friendly. For instance, all Ubuntu users have surely seen the "Program not found, use the following command to install it" or similar on the console when the user types an unknown command?

Well, as it turns out, that little feature has been implemented very hackishly by modifying /etc/profile to do various dkpg queries, that not only take a lot of computer power to complete, but also break very easily if, for example, your system is installing packages while you are at the terminal.

I had no idea about the breaking. Most of the time this feature is really non-productive. For example if I try to start, say jed in a computer it isn't installed in it suggests that I install a package called... "jed"! I've had maybe one or two occasions where this particular feature saved me an apt search. I agree, this one is just not needed.

Another example is the packages.list file. That file is constantly being edited by the package management system when the user adds or removes repositories, and when you do things such as upgrading Ubuntu to another version, that file is left in a mess. Other distributions have implemented a system where repositories are stored in individual files (/etc/yum.repos.d/ for Fedora, /etc/pacman.conf.d/ for Arch etc) so that nothing can become messy. Either a repository exists and there is a file for it, or it doesn't and the file is gone. No tedious file editing hacks required, and the user never has to go in and edit that file him/herself. Yes, I know, Ubuntu is moving towards that now, too, by introducing /etc/apt/sources.list.d, but that directory is not being used by the official repositories yet.

I don't add and remove repositories every day, or every week for that matter. So the constant editing isn't so bad. Leaving a mess after an upgrade on the other hand is. I haven't bumped into any problems regarding this, but I might in the future, so it's good to know. As you point out yourself, ubuntu is moving toward the light here. I'll put this one in the "keep an eye out" pile.

Yet another example is the xorg.conf file. In Fedora, there isn't such a file; the system automatically recognizes your hardware and just works. You'll have to create such a file only if you have special needs. In Ubuntu, a default xorg.conf file is generated, that's supposed to cover all the needs of all computers out there, but it just breaks some systems that just don't work with the solution Ubuntu has implemented, and thus there are a gazillion tutorials out there on how to "fix" your xorg.conf.

I haven't needed to touch the xorg.conf since ubuntu 8.10, so I really can't say anything about this. I have however seen that it actually doesn't contain much of anything anymore. I'm not sure but I think there's some kind of autoconfiguration at play here. Like the one you mentioned.

Correction! Yes I have. My laptop has an intel chip and ubuntu 9.04 doesn't play very nicely with those. I had to add a line for it to work almost nicely. Should be fixed in 9.10 though.

Another example is the implementation of PulseAudio. Ubuntu has patched PulseAudio so that it not only simply stops functioning sometimes, but there are also problems with ALSA and OSS emulation with it (meaning that sometimes, you'll only be able to hear sound from one application at once). Ubuntu doesn't even use the PulseAudio Volume control per default, and doesn't set up the Gnome Sound settings correctly to make the system even use PulseAudio in the first place; the settings are set to Autodetect, and that autodetection will discover aLSA half of the time, causing problems just because of that. Compare that to Fedora's PulseAudio implementation where there are positional event sounds (so you can hear where a message box pops up just by hearing -- very useful) and you can control the volumes of individual applications per default.

I always wondered why the app independent volume control wasn't the default setup. The gordian knot known as "pulseaudio in ubuntu" is a known bugger to me. This is one of the actual reasons not to use ubuntu I have known. Not enough by itself to toss all the nice things though.

My final example is the whole DEB system that Ubuntu uses. Because Ubuntu wants to retain some compatibility with Debian, and because the Debian folks don't like to update their packages that often in their stable release, Ubuntu is left with a system that feels like it did ~12 years ago. Yeah. Meanwhile, on the Fedora side, RPM really isn't that organized either, but at least there are updates to it relatively often (such as the introduction of deltaRPMs to shorten update download times) and it generally contains less hacks and so-called "hook applications" that the Debian DEB system does.

I haven't found anything major to complain about in the DEB system. The deltaRPM is a nice idea, I've read about it before. This is one for the "learn more" pile.

Oh, and now when the Fedora people have introduced PackageKit integration with YUM, package installation is easy as I don't know what. Ubuntu, because they want somethign similar, of course don't use PackageKit, but instead plan to introduce some package browser application thingie that isn't compatible with the stable and working PackageKit system, just because it's "easier to use". Yeah, right.

As long as I can install most every program I need with a single shell command, I don't actually care what the GUI version is like . It's a nice plus for the uninitiated ones though.

Whew!

 

[dflemstr]

None of those examples seem to be treating the user as an idiot though. They may be less than ideal solutions, but they all seem to be solving a similar problem to what other distros do.
Quite the contrary, your example about xorg.conf seems to indicate that it is Fedora that treats the user like an idiot. No xorg.conf file to work with? Do they think I'm a moron who can't use a text editor? <-- tongue in cheek humor, not a valid argument!

My point was rather that Ubuntu treats the user like an idiot while turning the whole system upside down, while Fedora treats the user like an idiot by using (IMO) smart and well-tested systems while still leaing the option open for non-idiots to dig deeper.

Also, an example where Ubuntu simply goes over the top with treating everyone like idiots:
How many package management frontends are there? There's the Add/Remove Applications on the Gnome menu, there's apt-get, there's aptitude, theres Synaptic, there's the new Package Browser Ubuntu's been working on, etc. Each of them have a different learning curve, and each of them basically do the same thing. Do they really think that an user can't just use a checkbox marked with "Install" and then press an "Apply" button; do they instead have to make a new tool entirely where one of the few differences are that there are individual "Install..." buttons for every package in the list? I mean seriously!

Also, think about the "proprietary drivers system". Ubuntu hasn't implemented PackageKit, a system that automatically would provide the feature of installing proprietary dirvers with a nice interface. Instead, they make a dialog that pops up on boot saying "There are drivers available for your system ..., they will make your computer actually work, but are you sure you want to install them? Maybe you don't want to have Compiz enabled or a faster system in general? Hey, dude, chill, I was just asking. You sure? Ok, then, I'll install them if you really insist...". OK, I can understand that there are some FSF activists who really don't want any proprietary drivers on their systems out there, but I personally think that tose users are smart enough to realize what this single little popup actually will do to your system, so they won't need an explanation to tell them what proprietary drivers are and why there might be some political reason not to install them.

I could go on and on about this but I won't because I know that the gp32x.de server hard drive space is limited.

 

[bzar]

None of those examples seem to be treating the user as an idiot though. They may be less than ideal solutions, but they all seem to be solving a similar problem to what other distros do.
Quite the contrary, your example about xorg.conf seems to indicate that it is Fedora that treats the user like an idiot. No xorg.conf file to work with? Do they think I'm a moron who can't use a text editor? <-- tongue in cheek humor, not a valid argument!

Just to point out, that it was mainly God Ginrai who said that ubuntu treated the user like an idiot. Dflemster chiefly had technical issues with it. I would however still like to hear examples about this treating as an idiot.

EDIT: Dflemster was as fast as a very fast thing. It seems he thought the user was treated as an idiot also

 

[dflemstr]

None of those examples seem to be treating the user as an idiot though. They may be less than ideal solutions, but they all seem to be solving a similar problem to what other distros do.
Quite the contrary, your example about xorg.conf seems to indicate that it is Fedora that treats the user like an idiot. No xorg.conf file to work with? Do they think I'm a moron who can't use a text editor? <-- tongue in cheek humor, not a valid argument!

Just to point out, that it was mainly God Ginrai who said that ubuntu treated the user like an idiot. Dflemster chiefly had technical issues with it. I would however still like to hear examples about this treating as an idiot.

EDIT: Dflemster was as fast as a very fast thing. It seems he thought the user was treated as an idiot also

Treating someone as an idiot isn't a Bad Thing™; it just means that the system is easy to use. If you sacrifice system stability for idiot treatment, however, THAT is a Bad Thing™.

 

[bzar]

How many package management frontends are there? There's the Add/Remove Applications on the Gnome menu, there's apt-get, there's aptitude, theres Synaptic, there's the new Package Browser Ubuntu's been working on, etc. Each of them have a different learning curve, and each of them basically do the same thing. Do they really think that an user can't just use a checkbox marked with "Install" and then press an "Apply" button; do they instead have to make a new tool entirely where one of the few differences are that there are individual "Install..." buttons for every package in the list? I mean seriously!

This I think I can answer. Add/remove programs is intended as the main installer. It has a filtered list (no libraries or anything) of applications, very beginner-friendly. Synaptic is a power tool for those not comfortable with a CLI. It can do about anything the command-line versions can, and shows all the packages. Apt-get and aptitude are redundant CLI interfaces, but I think both have their groupies and there's actually no harm in having both. The need for a CLI interface in addition to the GUI ones should be self-evident

Also, think about the "proprietary drivers system". Ubuntu hasn't implemented PackageKit, a system that automatically would provide the feature of installing proprietary dirvers with a nice interface. Instead, they make a dialog that pops up on boot saying "There are drivers available for your system ..., they will make your computer actually work, but are you sure you want to install them? Maybe you don't want to have Compiz enabled or a faster system in general? Hey, dude, chill, I was just asking. You sure? Ok, then, I'll install them if you really insist...". OK, I can understand that there are some FSF activists who really don't want any proprietary drivers on their systems out there, but I personally think that tose users are smart enough to realize what this single little popup actually will do to your system, so they won't need an explanation to tell them what proprietary drivers are and why there might be some political reason not to install them.

I don't see any significant difference between ubuntu's proprietary driver installation and that of the packagekit's. Both seem to (if I understood correctly) notify the user about available drivers for their system and give an otion to install them. The shown dialog windows and choices of words aren't a major point, as long as the functionality is basically the same. Enabling compiz by default is in my opinion a nice touch, because I see it as the default state for an ubuntu desktop, rather than the effectless desktop. It's easy enough to turn off if you like. Many users (the normal kind) however would not find it in the appearance config dialog and would miss the whole thing.

I could go on and on about this but I won't because I know that the gp32x.de server hard drive space is limited.

 

[bzar]

Treating someone as an idiot isn't a Bad Thing™; it just means that the system is easy to use. If you sacrifice system stability for idiot treatment, however, THAT is a Bad Thing™.

This, I can wholeheartedly agree to.

 

[God Ginrai]

Also, think about the "proprietary drivers system". Ubuntu hasn't implemented PackageKit, a system that automatically would provide the feature of installing proprietary dirvers with a nice interface. Instead, they make a dialog that pops up on boot saying "There are drivers available for your system ..., they will make your computer actually work, but are you sure you want to install them? Maybe you don't want to have Compiz enabled or a faster system in general? Hey, dude, chill, I was just asking. You sure? Ok, then, I'll install them if you really insist...". OK, I can understand that there are some FSF activists who really don't want any proprietary drivers on their systems out there, but I personally think that tose users are smart enough to realize what this single little popup actually will do to your system, so they won't need an explanation to tell them what proprietary drivers are and why there might be some political reason not to install them.

I don't see any significant difference between ubuntu's proprietary driver installation and that of the packagekit's. Both seem to (if I understood correctly) notify the user about available drivers for their system and give an otion to install them. The shown dialog windows and choices of words aren't a major point, as long as the functionality is basically the same. Enabling compiz by default is in my opinion a nice touch, because I see it as the default state for an ubuntu desktop, rather than the effectless desktop. It's easy enough to turn off if you like. Many users (the normal kind) however would not find it in the appearance config dialog and would miss the whole thing.

I think dflemster's point was that if you had 7 different things it wanted you to install, Fedora would just tell you once that you needed to install things, whereas ubuntu would pop up a different dialog for each different thing.

That dialog example is basically the biggest part that bothered me about the ubuntu user experience. It's like they had to ask you if you really wanted to do what you did every step of the way. That is what really got me about the system treating the user as an idiot. (It was like Clippit had a damn Operating system to frolic in)

-God Ginrai

 

[Poem58]

I tried a live CD (might have been updated Knoppix not sure), but due to my laptop hardware I guess, I had NO internet access. It couldn't find my wireless.

Wireless drivers have gotten a lot of attention since Linux version 2.6.24 (that came out about a year ago IIRC). So if your laptop used a wireless connection, you might want to check out a newer live CD.

Someone had posted a while back that there was a Basic program that would likely be ported. If not then I guess I use the old computers and learn something new to get the Pandora's res etc. In any case, I'm excited. So much to learn, so much fun to have. even when a Pandora 2 comes along I can see using the Pandora 1 for many many years to come.

Well, as you have put it yourself, BASIC isn't a very modern language.

I am sure that you would have more fun and learn more about how modern programming works if you'd start using Python or a similar language. Trust me, the learning curve is minimal, and Python is an ideal language to get started with Linux programming, especially with PyGame or PyQt (the former a game library, and the latter an UI/general purpose library that is the awesome ).

If you're used to VisualBasic or something similar where you have a Form that you drag Buttons onto and doubleclick to add code, etc, there's always Mono and VisualBasic.NET that you can use (To all others: No, there's no patent issues with using Mono and you should really embrace it as a good runtime, because it IS easy to use and damn fast. No flamewars, politics, or personal biased opinions please). In fact, you can download MonoDevelop for your computer right now without issue and try out how it feels on your Windows computer (Google it).

Thanks everyone for the responses, although I seem to have sparked a Distro war, sorry. The Live CD I downloaded was something I wanted to try this spring so that was only a couple of months ago. For some reason my Acer laptop may just have strange hardware as if I remember correctly there was no sound as well as not being able to find the wifi. Wired connection is not an option for me either. So I played around for a few minutes but that was it. Basically, I'm more interested in what Linux can do for me with the Pandora more than Linux in general. I do want to be familiar enough to have some skills on a PC if necessary, however that has never come up before so it's not the priority.
As for basic, I'm not interested in Basic for serious programming, just to be able to do the limited things I used to do many many moons ago with the updated Pandora abilities if possible.
I have only used Visual Basic for a couple of tutorials in a Networking course at the Institute in my town, but never used it enough to produce my own programs or even really understand what the heck I was doing. Which is why I said I will be learning a new language from scratch. The Basic I learned was Extended Basic version 1.1 or something on my SVI-328 and the Apple II language as well. Neither of them was something I was extremely skilled at. Never made any graphical games, never figured out how to collide sprites etc. But what I did do I found fuin, which is why I hope to be able to do that again. even if it is on some old emulated system. Much like some people here want to pay thier first old DOS game ( I had no computer during these years) I wanted to get back the feeling of what I used my first computer for.
Yeah, when it comes down to learning a new language (which is probably a necessity if I want to use the Pandora as I did for my first computer) I am getting the Idea Python would probably be my best bet. Which might be really fun. Just like my first PC, I'll get to learn a programming language to get my new computer to do things for the first time.
This will take me back to being 12 again. Long before the pain and the medication and general crap my life has become. I can't wait!

Thanks again, and I will be talking to you all later when it comes time for me to figure out the new language. Or maybe I'll start now...(nah, it'll be more fun on the Pandora!)
I guess as I'm only a couple of years away from being 40 I just want to recapture a little of what was facinating to me in my youth.
At least this time, as I learn I don't have to sit in front of the television and wait for the program to save to cassette tape. My how far we've come!

 

[Tom`]

Well, I use Kubuntu. Never had any problems with it (well, no Kubuntu-specific problems, anyway). Fedora, on the other hand, refused to work with my (common, well-supported in other distros including Ubuntu and Debian) wireless card. I found a bug report citing the same exact hardware and error, but it had been open for quite a while and never fixed. So, back to Ubuntu.

I quite agree that Ubuntu has some audio problems, but apart from that, I haven't had any personal experience with the other problems mentioned. I do vastly prefer apt to RPM, though - I used to use Mandrake (back before it was Mandriva) when I first started using Linux, and it was constant dependency hell. I only have one complaint about apt: if an install is forced with a missing dependency, it completely breaks apt. In my case, I had scanner software that required a particular library version, that wasn't in the repo. I linked it to the library that was already there, and it worked fine, but apt wouldn't install or upgrade any packages until I removed that one.

Still prefer it to RPM, though the situation may have changed since I last used an RPM-based distro regularly in 2005 or so...

 

[dflemstr]

Well, I use Kubuntu. Never had any problems with it (well, no Kubuntu-specific problems, anyway). Fedora, on the other hand, refused to work with my (common, well-supported in other distros including Ubuntu and Debian) wireless card. I found a bug report citing the same exact hardware and error, but it had been open for quite a while and never fixed. So, back to Ubuntu.

I quite agree that Ubuntu has some audio problems, but apart from that, I haven't had any personal experience with the other problems mentioned. I do vastly prefer apt to RPM, though - I used to use Mandrake (back before it was Mandriva) when I first started using Linux, and it was constant dependency hell. I only have one complaint about apt: if an install is forced with a missing dependency, it completely breaks apt. In my case, I had scanner software that required a particular library version, that wasn't in the repo. I linked it to the library that was already there, and it worked fine, but apt wouldn't install or upgrade any packages until I removed that one.

Still prefer it to RPM, though the situation may have changed since I last used an RPM-based distro regularly in 2005 or so...

Yeah, since YUM came out, the dependency hell is gone. Oh, and nothign against Mandirva, but their package system is kinda broken, especially since less and less peopel are using it nowadays.

OH, and it's very strange that you had a driver problem, because Fedora not only sometimes uses the same kernel as Ubuntu, but also tends to use an even NEWER kernel, which means that it technically is impossible for Fedora to have less drivers than Ubuntu, if no one has changed the .config file in a bad way or if we're not talking about proprietary drivers, of course.