distributions

Gentoo is my favorite Linux distribution. However, I recently tried out ubuntu which bills itself as Linux for Human Beings''. Ubuntu definitely has that OS X feeling ofit just works”. if you want to try out Linux, or you are a hard-core linux geek tired of fiddling with settings, ubuntu is definitely nice. since it’s debian based, you only have to install once, and upgrades are typically painless. out of all the obscure programs I use, I’ve only run in to 2 which weren’t available in ubuntu. kubuntu-desktop was the first package I added after the install, since I like the KDE desktop environment and can’t stand the Gnome desktop environment. the only problem I’ve had with ubuntu is that when updating packages, it can sometimes munge up customizations I’ve made in /etc, things like what screen resolution to use. I solved that problem by turning /etc into a git repository :) I suspect the typical ``Human Being” (i.e., non-linux geek) won’t really be customizing much, if anything, in /etc, so they should be safe.