I have switched all my computers from Debian to Arch Linux, with the exception of my servers. Not that Debian isnt a great os, I just like the idea of Archlinux and keeping it simple. Arch is much easier to maintain once set up and I prefer pacman to Debians aptitude ( which is number 2 in my book and far ahead of everything else ) Jen is still using, and refuses to switch, Linux Mint which is ok by me I guess. On a side note, the info after this entry is still valid but I fear not very usefull now as hal has been updated and USB mass storage devices are now correctly detected and the correct file permessions are set automatically now.

One problem I've encountered was in using kde with any Debian based distro you could not access any usb hard drive larger than 8 gigs formatted in NTFS. I spent a long time trying to figure this one out so here are the instructions if you feel like giving Debian w/ KDE a try ( and i feel its worth it.)

Use nano or vi and create a new file named "/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/20-ntfs-config-write-policy.fdi"

After that is made, insert the text that follows, save, and then run "/etc/init.d/hal restart"

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
<device>
<match key="volume.fstype" string="ntfs">
<match key="@block.storage_device:storage.hotpluggable" bool="true">
<merge key="volume.fstype" type="string">ntfs-3g</merge>
<merge key="volume.policy.mount_filesystem" type="string">ntfs-3g</merge>
<append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">locale=</append>
</match>
</match>
</device>
</deviceinfo>

Jennifer however, prefers Linux Mint. I convinced her to give linux a try and it was the first one she agreed to. After some time, I switched her from Mint to PCLinuxOS. She was able to get around in the KDE interface but didn't like it as much as Mint so we tried Fedora 8 and back to GNOME it was!! Fedora worked great and was a great all around distribution, with one exception. The Fedora team completely rewrote the network-manager code for a number of reasons, but after the updated code WPA2 w/ PEAP no longer was an option. As our college uses this protocall it was not going to be a keeper. After a few other "test" distro's, she asked me to please put Mint back on