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Hello, this post got a bit long, so the direct questions are below the dashed line. They're all a bit qualitative, though, so the information between here and there would help in answering.
Normally, I'd worry that this question is too vague to post at all, but since I have to post something anyway to keep my account open, I thought 'why not?'. I wasn't sure if this forum or '#! Discussion' would be more appropriate, so please move me where I need to be if this post is in the wrong forum.
I've only been using linux for about a month, and so far I've been running Ubuntu. Specifically, I've been running the Awesowe wm installed over Ubuntu, so I haven't been using Unity or, for the most part, any of the GUI components of Ubuntu -- so I've gotten semi-comfortable using the terminal for standard day-to-day stuff.
Today I bought an Asus laptop, and I noticed that the Ubuntu forum has a whole separate subforum for Asus users (Dell is the only other manufacturer they have this for), and it makes me wonder if I shouldn't just stick with Windows on this new box; getting used to linux on this Toshiba has already been about as much hassle as I care to deal with, and for the most part, the OS and the laptop got along.
An acquaintance suggested crunchbang to me recently, but he had no way of knowing how weak my linux-fu is, so I dunno if I should take the recommendation seriously. I know #! is designed to be streamlined as opposed to Ubuntu which seems to shoot (with varying degrees of success) for ease of use, but is a bit bloated. That sounds ok to me -- the Awesome wm is designed that way as well, and I've only had to fall back on any ubuntu widgets once or twice in my noodling with the system. And on the plus side you all are supposed to have a more supportive community here, which isn't hard to believe -- the ubuntu forums often feel like the blind leading the blind.
I'm running a bit long here, so I'll try to be concise:
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1) What problems are Asus laptops prone to when using linux which other laptops are not? To what extent are they avoidable, and will someone here help me do that if I get #! ?
2) How much less user (newbie) freindly, in general, is #!, compared to Ubuntu, and how so? Are there many good resources? (If anyone here is familiar with Awesome, in particular, I'd love to hear from you).
3) I'm kind of used to the way Awesome functions at this point -- it has no window boarders or buttons and most window controls are implemented through keyboard shortcuts (Mod + M to maximize, Mod + (number) to send a window to a different desktop, etc, etc). How easy is #! to customize? Could I get it working in this sort of manner with not-too-much complicated work involved? (Here, the likelihood of catastrophic failure for a novice user is the metric for "complicated", not the number of steps)
4) I can't get my new ipod touch to work on ubuntu for the life of me, and I don't want to jailbreak it unless there's a way to do that which in no way alters its default functionality if I can avoid it. Can someone help me with this? It's the hassle involved in making this kind of day-to-day stuff work smoothly that makes me hesitate to go on with linux on my new box, but I figure the solutions must exist. The streamlined performance of linux in general seems like it would barely pay itself off if every new activity took several hours to prepare to work smoothly, as I've been having to spend.
5) Can someone give me (or point me to a brief rundown of the steps I need to take to get #! up and going on my new laptop (I mean vis-a-vis making sure my drivers are in order and all my hardware's gonna work, etc)
Thanks for reading my novel. Look forward to the responses.
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Will take a shot, though didn't read all that closely, more like skimmed. Wasn't that the post was over long, I do that with all reading material ... cuz have the attention span of a fruit fly. In no particular order.
Honestly have no idea, think #! out of the box is extremely user friendly, if you can right click, tons of stuff is right there in the default menu and a bit of reading in the forums will clear up much, if you/someone has questions. Openbox is also well documented too many places online to mention.
Zero idea about the ipad, buntu is one of the more mainstream distro's from what I understand, thusly does more for hardware compatibility/support than others. Pointless 2 cents is try it, see what you think and go from there. Depending upon the size of the hard drive, a person can multiboot w a ridiculous number of gnu/nix distro's if they felt like it with no real problems resulting imo.
Some common cbiz abbreviations. This will save me time and yet @ same time tell folks what the babble is supposed to mean.
Vll ! = ( Viva la gnu/Linux !) Vl#!! = ( Viva la #! !) Last but not least, UD ... OD ! = ( Use Debian ... or die !) 
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(Welcome to the forums btw
)
Can't help with the hardware details, but here is my experience with cb on a Dell Inspiron...
First ubuntu, then got fed up with the extras and tried crunchbang/openbox. Loved the distro but had wifi and tablet probs, so tried ubuntu with fluxbox. Better for a while, then the upgrades kept breaking things ( and I didn't like the idea of a relatively lean UI hiding the bloat below)
So last year I came back to cb - EVERYTHING worked out-of-the-box (except for external monitor, but that's another issue)
I guess your new laptop has OEM/Win partitions already, so you could scrunch that up and install cb to what's left. That way if it doesn't suit you will still have the factory set-up. (You have tried the Live-CD haven't you? Any probs should show up there)
NOOBS: this forum is the nicest to new-to-linux users anywhere I have seen, so you will invariably find friendly help with any queries.
Enjoy your stay
(A waiter will be around to your table shortly, with coffee and cookies)
Artwork at deviantArt; Iceweasel Personas; SLiM #! Themes; Openbox themes
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I have little input for most of your questions. I can pitch in with the fact that I've not got my ipod touch to work (correctly/completely) with any Linux distro either, including Ubuntu, since iOS 5. This (well, plus my lappy's lousy attitude towards sleep/hibernate/resume) is why I still dual boot with Win7.
Also remember that #! functions quite well as a live system. In other words, install it to a USB stick and play. Dive in, screw things up, break it beyond repair... then reboot and it's back to stock. When you decide you want some things permanent, make a persistence file (or two) so things come back after a reboot. Then install it for real when you feel more comfortable about what you're doing.
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Welcome to the #! community. Apart from coffe and beer later on, let us dig into business. 
You already use Awesome, that is a big plus because the #! community is in general tied to Window Managers and minimalism. You would play nicely with the community. Many of us use apart from the official Openbox, some tilers and other WMs like Spectrwm, DWM, you can name them all and even some more obscured and of course a tiny portion of us also enjoys Awesome.
Secondly, I would try the #! Live CD, could give you a first start to test harware and usability. It comes with Openbox as its WM and this one can be configured to all your imaginable likings and of course with just using the keyboard if you want. Maybe you will like it, if not, the whole Debian repository is there to pick Awesome or whatever and the community will serve you with plenty of help and incredible knowledge. 
1) What problems are Asus laptops prone to when using linux which other laptops are not? To what extent are they avoidable, and will someone here help me do that if I get #! ?
Not sure, as I said, try the Live CD. Some Asus users surely will chime in with their experiences.
2) How much less user (newbie) freindly, in general, is #!, compared to Ubuntu, and how so? Are there many good resources? (If anyone here is familiar with Awesome, in particular, I'd love to hear from you).
#! is really not that bad regarding user friendlyness, not sure, I am more or less an experienced user.
But from the get-go it is set up perfectly to begin to work with your system, even with all codecs by default. But hey, you use Awesome, then Openbox is nothing difficult for you to explore how it works. I would say it is baby easy. 
The package management is just the same as in Ubuntu, as you might know, Ubuntu is a Debian derivative and #! is a Debian spin off but a true one. Some things are more raw here and without Ubuntu's baby sitting. No software center and update managers by default, you use Synaptic here or the command line. But everything you might need additionally can be installed from the huge repo just like with Ubuntu.
The big resource for new comers is the Quick Reference. We have also a Wiki, a bit outdated but still a good read and of course the forums and community will give you all you could need.
4) I can't get my new ipod touch to work on ubuntu for the life of me, and I don't want to jailbreak it unless there's a way to do that which in no way alters its default functionality if I can avoid it. Can someone help me with this? It's the hassle involved in making this kind of day-to-day stuff work smoothly that makes me hesitate to go on with linux on my new box, but I figure the solutions must exist. The streamlined performance of linux in general seems like it would barely pay itself off if every new activity took several hours to prepare to work smoothly, as I've been having to spend.
Icrap
can be pretty volatile on Linux systems. I cannot help you with it. Maybe someone is using this stuff here but sure not many. I know some players support it better some of them worse or not at all.
5) Can someone give me (or point me to a brief rundown of the steps I need to take to get #! up and going on my new laptop (I mean vis-a-vis making sure my drivers are in order and all my hardware's gonna work, etc)
Again, I say, the Live CD is the first thing, later you can decide to install it. Sure we will guide you with probable problems. Most problems are WiFi related or with the graphics driver. You could also post your hardware specs here and we can take a look.
Edit: Damn it, typos!
Last edited by ivanovnegro (2012-03-29 23:46:57)
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1) What problems are Asus laptops prone to when using linux which other laptops are not? To what extent are they avoidable, and will someone here help me do that if I get #! ?
A) Sorry, I don't have a definitive answer, but, If there is a Ubuntu form for that then that's where you should look. It's likely that #! will share similar problems since Ubuntu is a fork of Debian. I'd even go so far as to say that #! may have more issues than Ubuntu, since Ubuntu has a faster release cycle and is more up to date than Debian stable. As far as help goes, this is an active and friendly forum that has plenty of helpful people, so you should have no trouble finding help.
I have an Acer netbook and it works fine with #!. Asus and Dell seem to be the most troublesome.
2) How much less user (newbie) friendly, in general, is #!, compared to Ubuntu, and how so? Are there many good resources? (If anyone here is familiar with Awesome, in particular, I'd love to hear from you).
A) That depends on your definition of "user friendly". For most people that means "operates exactly like Windows," which is a fallacy since Windows is not very user friendly.
If you are looking at this question from the viewpoint of someone with little computer experience, or someone that doesn't have a lot of pre-conceptions of what an OS should be like, then I'd say #! is very user friendly. If you are looking for something Windows-like, then I'd recommend Linux Mint 10 or 11.
As far as Ubuntu goes, it depends on what version of Ubuntu. Gnome-3/Gnome Shell & Unity are horrid, and I'm not too thrilled with the way KDE is going either. Xfce is quite nice if you are looking for a traditional desktop environment OS.
3) I'm kind of used to the way Awesome functions at this point -- it has no window boarders or buttons and most window controls are implemented through keyboard shortcuts (Mod + M to maximize, Mod + (number) to send a window to a different desktop, etc, etc). How easy is #! to customize? Could I get it working in this sort of manner with not-too-much complicated work involved? (Here, the likelihood of catastrophic failure for a novice user is the metric for "complicated", not the number of steps)
I have no experience with Awesome, but from what you described it sounds like #! will be something you will like. Most functions in #! are accessed through a right-click mouse menu, or keyboard shortcuts.
4) I can't get my new ipod touch to work on ubuntu for the life of me, and I don't want to jailbreak it unless there's a way to do that which in no way alters its default functionality if I can avoid it. Can someone help me with this? It's the hassle involved in making this kind of day-to-day stuff work smoothly that makes me hesitate to go on with linux on my new box, but I figure the solutions must exist. The streamlined performance of linux in general seems like it would barely pay itself off if every new activity took several hours to prepare to work smoothly, as I've been having to spend.
The problem here is not Linux, it's Apple's proprietary, incompatible OS. Their products just don't work correctly with anything but iTunes. Even their Bluetooth implementation is crap. I really don't understand why Apple crap is so popular. I have no trouble getting non-Apple stuff working with Linux.
When other companies try anything proprietary the consumers go ballistic on them. But when Apple does it, people line up in droves outside the Apple store to buy their crap on release day. It's like everyone's brain is stuck in ass-backwards mode with Apple.
My best advice for anyone interested in Apple compatibility is to set your system up as dual-boot with an Apple/iTunes compatible OS (Windows/Mac), or set up Windows/iTunes in a VM so you can run it under Linux (you could also try Wine, but that's usually more trouble that its worth).
5) Can someone give me (or point me to a brief rundown of the steps I need to take to get #! up and going on my new laptop (I mean vis-a-vis making sure my drivers are in order and all my hardware's gonna work, etc)
A) That depends on the specifics of the hardware in the laptop. Without a detailed hardware description I can't really answer that other than to say what I've already said. Asus and Dell seem to be the most problematic, so expect trouble. The most common problem I've seen people complain about are the Alps trackpads. If you are using a laptop as a desktop replacement then that is easily solved by using a mouse.
Last edited by Tuber (2012-03-30 00:00:27)
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who don't.
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Welcome to the forums! Post your hardware specifics, and you will get some good advice.
Personally (to play devil's advocate) I do not see any advantage of #! + Awesome vs. Ubuntu + Awesome. Maybe I am biased because Ubuntu was my first distro, and it got me off to a good start (with the help of the almighty Ubuntu Forums). If you install Ubuntu 12.04, you will get newer software applications and kernel, better hardware support, and long-term support through 2017.
That being said, #! is pretty slick; people with a certain type of personality try it and say "oh yeah!!!" Why not burn a Live CD or Live USB and give it a try today! 
ps the reason ubuntuforums.org has an Asus sub-forum is because support is good, not bad. Asus was one of the first companies to bring Linux to the masses. I'm typing this from my Asus EEE. 
(edit: I assumed you were sticking with Awesome; if you want to give Openbox a try instead, definitely check out #!)
/hugged
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Wow, I'm excited about the quickness and thoroughness of the responses. I've got a live CD burning as I'm typing this, and will give it a shot tonight.
This is the Asus I'll be trying it on, if that clarifies anything (although some of the "specs" are not very specific. The processor is an i5 -- that much I know. I'll try to put together the full list later when I've got it up and running). http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/Versatile … ifications
A little disappointed to hear about the ipod thing, but yes, I agree that's noone's fault but apple's. Is it really a lot of trouble to use Wine to sync it?
When I say user friendly, I don't necessarily mean "like windows," but to give a counter-example, one of the first things I wanted to do when I tried Awesome was to change the desktop wallpaper (I consider this the 'hello world' of learning an OS). To do that in Ubuntu is straightforward -- you follow some menus, flip some switches, press some buttons, and done (like Windows
). I found a way to change it in Awesome that involved finding a particular .lua file (as I recall) and changing a line. I had to resize the image I wanted to use to fit the screen, but once I did that, Awesome threw an error at me. I managed to resolve that somehow. But then the next time I booted up, that change was over-written. When I figured out how to stop that happening (a .conf file, I think?), I discovered that running nautilus would change the wallpaper to whatever it's set to on the Unity account, and then not change it back again until I reloaded Awesome.
Long story short I had to hop around on one leg, hold my left foot in my right hand and cover my right eye with my left hand and say three praises to the linux gods to get the wallpaper to stay put (or something akin to that). I consider that unfriendly.
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Long story short I had to hop around on one leg, hold my left foot in my right hand and cover my right eye with my left hand and say three praises to the linux gods to get the wallpaper to stay put (or something akin to that). I consider that unfriendly.
Your major problem was that you jumped right from Ubuntu to awesome (aka "aweful" at times here). Give the default #! openbox a chance, and when you're ready (and willing) there are lots of other window managers to try.
If you have problems with openbox, I promise we'll solve them without resorting to the linux god...
Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2012-03-30 02:05:58)
Be eggsalad to each other.
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Okay, after reading that I can say that #! Openbox is definitely friendlier than Awesome.
To use your example of changing the wallpaper, you just right-click to open the menu, go to settings and choose wallpaper.
The problem with Wine is that it doesn't work with as much as it does, and you usually have to tweak it for each and every app. Then when the app is updated it breaks. Running a full OS in a VM can be a bit of a pain to initially set up, but once done it usually works with less tweaking and survives app updates better.
Dual boot is the best solution for compatibility, since it always works. But it's more of a hassle if you need to switch back and forth often, and even if you don't need to use Winblows often, you still need to boot into it to run periodic system and security updates (if you don't then it gets way, way out of date).
Another solution would be to set up a second computer for your Apple/iTunes stuff. Resurrect an old box that's been collecting dust, or get a cheap netbook.
Last edited by Tuber (2012-03-30 01:41:55)
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who don't.
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I loaded up the live CD but I wasn't really sure what to mess around with on there. It certainly looks no more intimidating than Awesome.
Is Chrome the browser? I found the browser in the rt-click menu and it looked like chrome, but 'chrome' in the command line didn't work -- or are programs just not called that way in #! ? (I tried it in 'run program' as well, and then couldn't get that prompt box to go away because I didn't know what to put in it that would work.
How much hassle/ how reliable is a full VM? That'd be easier, I think (once set up) than having to spend a lot of time on my secondary partition tending my music collection. Is it basically that I can take my Win 7 disc and install it so that it runs inside a window as if it were a program running in linux?
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The default browser is "Ice Weasel" which is the Debianised (unbranded) version of Firefox. It's compatible with Firefox and works the same. Chromium can be installed easily, as can any other 'nix compatible browser. The #! menu has install links for Chromium and Opera.
Installing stuff to the Live session is more trouble than its worth. The main thing to do withe live CD session is to check hardware compatibility. Networking, trackpad, sound, video, etc. And to get a feel of the UI.
If something doesn't work from the Live session it likely can be fixed with a full install, but those are the things you might want to ask about here after testing it live.
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who don't.
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@Ageless: The browser is Iceweasel, the Debian version of Firefox.
Edit: Deleted a portion as I am not sure to what refers the VM.
Last edited by ivanovnegro (2012-03-30 03:03:01)
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The default browser is Iceweasle.. (firefox's cooler cousin) 
My experience with VM is that it's high maintenance.. I'm sure someone with more experience in that area will chime in.
Did all your drivers load with the live cd?
Did your wireless load?
JEEZ Ivan and Tuber.. you two are fast!!
Last edited by falldown (2012-03-30 03:01:50)
Peachy's Wun Lua / Peachy's v9000 / Conky PitStop / My DA Page
........
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How much hassle/ how reliable is a full VM? That'd be easier, I think (once set up) than having to spend a lot of time on my secondary partition tending my music collection. Is it basically that I can take my Win 7 disc and install it so that it runs inside a window as if it were a program running in linux?
If you want easy, dual boot is the way to go. I have not tried Win7 in a VM. XP worked pretty well last time I tried it.
As far as media is concerned it's simple to link your Windows media folder to Linux. Since Linux can read/write ntfs/fat32 file systems.
If you want all media shared you can replace your Linux media directories with links to your Windows folders (and mount the Windows data partition from fstab). You can share email the same way. I'm doing that between Linux Mint/Thunderbird & #!/Icedove. I have a shortcut in place of the .icedove directory pointing to the .thundirbird directory in Mint. Should work with Windows as well, but I run Windows so infrequently I haven't bothered to set it up (in this case you would have the email folder in Windows, and point Linux to that folder).
If you want some media separate just add links to your Windows media folders inside your Linux media directories.
To mount a Windows partition from fstab you'll need to add a line similar to:
/dev/sda2 /home/username/windows ntfs-3g defaults 0 2
Adjust the device name and directory path as need for your personal set up (and don't forget to create the mount directory). After that you can link to any folder in Windows.
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who don't.
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ok got it back up and running now. Internet doesn't work, really. I'm sure it would if I knew more about the (ethernet) connection I have here in my dorm, but I'm kept in the dark about that.
Basically there is a utility for establishing a connection up in the top right corner, but I dunno anything about the connection I use here -- the landline has always just worked immediately upon my plugging it in.
The wireless connection in my room is so unreliable that I don't think I can draw any conclusions about wireless drivers from here -- although I do know that I will want a utility that actively seeks connections once I'm up and running, which this doesn't seem to be doing (but maybe that's just that the wireless card's not active).
I'd like to get the live CD on the internet so I can check stuff like video/sound.
edit: I was able to get some AV files off my external harddrive, so the AV drivers are confirmed. Good performance. Also impressed that the drive mounted right away with no hassle. I can't tell if it's getting USB3 functionality or not, though (USB 3.0 is a novel concept for me) -- does the fact that I plugged it into a USB 3 port and was able to get stuff on/off mean that USB 3 plays well with this install, or would the port just work like a 2.0 drive if there was some kind of driver issue there?
Anyway I think I'm sold -- this is definitely better than Awesome. One thing I'm gonna want to do right away is disable tap-to-click and generally get the touchpad working properly (I should be able to scroll in any direction by dragging two fingers around). Is that a likely scenario? Being relegated to a usb mouse might be a deal-breaker.
Last edited by Ageless (2012-03-30 03:53:22)
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Welcome to #! you got the BIG Welcome! ...pretty standard.. 
User Friendly! Well mostly just works out of the Box and lots of Friendly People...so User Friendly..
As was suggested stick with the Defaults to start with.. if you find OpenBox intimidating to modify then you can easily install Xfce4.. ask we will give you a few apt-get commands to get the base installed. Xfce4 configures a bit easier but not quite so lightweight..I use both...
Surprised that your internet failed.. Could be from issues in or outside of your box.
However we can get your Asus connected. First we would take a look at the Hardwire Nic and Wifi Nic that you have.
..From a command line post the last 5 or so lines from
lspciand maybe an
lsmodand
sudo ifconfig -aWe can see your Hardware, the modules loaded and how the network connection is configured.
OHCG #!, Jessie,, Siduction-13.1, Slackware 14, Bridge,, Sabayon 13.4,
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I managed to get my dad's iPod Shuffle working with linux using usbmuxd and Rhythmbox. Apparently it works with the Touch too.
on the outside looking in
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@Ageless: hi! welcome to the community! i see you're getting settled in nicely.. even already convinced to run #!, great!
i think the suggestion by 47 to use Rhythmbox for your ipod would be the best one. i've tried using stuff like GTKpod and Gnupod without luck. in ended up installing Rockbox on my iPod to bypass all the apple-stuff, but i don't think that's an option for the Touch.
about your touchpad: just quickly looked for some threads, here they are, might be useful to you:
- Disable tap-to-click: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic … aptoclick/
- Multitouch scrolling: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic … r-on-acer/
remember it is often best to just start a separate help-thread for a particular issue instead of a big thread of lots of issues. so consider that in case you, for example, can't get your ipod to work.
if you have any questions, feel free to ask.
good luck!
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@Ageless: If you have only been using Linux for a month and you're already using awesome WM as opposed to a full-fledged DE then you are in the right place. I still have a soft spot for XFCE, but I am learning more about OB and Fluxbox everyday.
Also, if only for the sake of the forums, you are definitely in the right place. You won't find a more knowledgeable, nice, and welcoming to noobies group than this one. Some other forums that I have visited look down on noobies. Not this one. This and the LM forums are the best on the web.
Welcome and have a cup of java and a muffin on me.
mikhou
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Crunchbang tries to offer the best out-of-the-Openbox experience available, and it largely succeeds.
Openbox is a relatively lightweight window manager that has less quirks than most and plays unusually well with external tools like scripts for more sophisticated window managedment or GUI configuration tools. The flip side to the latter is that hand-editing is more annoying than in most competitors - xml instead of plaintext, but still fairly clear.
Underneath you have the Sta(b)le branch of Debian which is about the most solid base this side of BSD if you don't require the latest and greatest. And most would consider BSD less user-friendly (more technical with more low-level stuff left to the user, very conservative when adding hardware support. Great if it works, but for a laptop I'd expect frustration or at least serious work).
So if you prefer relatively frugal GUIs and well-tested rather than cutting-edge software, Crunchbang is about the friendliest solution with the friendliest community - technical expertise and "suffering fools gladly" is a rare combination.
Of course, you can upgrade to Testing or Unstable... but if I wanted a rolling release model I'd use a distribution built for that.
LEGO won't be ready for the average user until it comes pre-assembled, in a single unified look, and glued together so it doesn't come apart.
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