[ale] Is this really Ubuntu?

[Brian Pitts]

David Tomaschik wrote:
> Ubuntu is, by far, the most polished Linux distribution I have ever
> used.  I have never seen problems like those you describe, to be
> honest.  You did download 7.04, and not the 7.10 beta CD, right?  In any
> case, perhaps you should give openSUSE a try.  I've heard good things
> about it as well.  Also PCLinuxOS.

OpenSuse 10.3 hit the mirrors today. The best news I see is that 
installation now requires only one cd instead of five. A summary of new 
features can be found at http://news.opensuse.org/?p=400

My problem with distributions like PCLinuxOS boils down to 
infrastructure. Where's the bug tracker? Are there timely security 
updates? etc.

There's an informative chart at 
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20070924#editorial which shows 
whether or not a set of popular distributions have bug trackers and 
security mailing lists. I've reformatted it below.

Both:
Ubuntu / Kubuntu / Xubuntu
openSUSE
Fedora
Debian
Mandriva
CentOS
Gentoo

Security mailing list only:
Slackware Linux

Bug tracker only:
Sabayon
Arch
Freespire

Neither:
PCLinuxOS
Linux Mint
MEPIS
Damn Small
Zenwalk
KNOPPIX
Puppy
Dreamlinux
VectorLinux
sidux
UbuntuStudio

-Brian