I have been jabbering on here about moving from Windows Vista to Linux, and the transition is actually moving along well. I thought I was finished - until yesterday.
My chosen distro has been CentOS from go (no I won't switch to Ubuntu). CentOS is a derivative work from Red Hat, and since I am working on RHEL in the office and need to get certified, it's a logical choice. The installer is not dissimilar, the layout is the same, and everything is supposed to be the same as Red Hat except for the graphics and copyright notices. That said, I have noticed a few quirky things with it (no I won't switch to Ubuntu).
Setting up wireless was just short of painful. This is more of a function of my hardware than my OS, but to a point. The OS sets up a series of strange network interfaces, most of which I cannot identify and have bogus MAC addresses associated with them. eth0 is ok, of course, but many of the others are of unknown use to me.
The kernel source is not present in the main CentOS distro, which is in line with Red Hat's methodology (no I won't switch to Ubuntu). This is a royal pain in the *** when trying to compile drivers, NVidia in particular. Some drivers are fine with just the kernel headers while others require full kernel source. Getting the proper source requires a visit to the online repositories.
Wine doesn't want to play either, though that's not a huge concern. The yum repositories do not have wine in them and the source compiles but the binary complains of a missing module without giving additional information.
I forget where I was looking, but somewhere I read about a *different* Red Hat-based distro called Scientific Linux (SL). It is a recompile of Red Hat sources too, and it adds a few jiggly widgets and stuff not included in Red Hat's release. After fouling up my CentOS install on my backup box I decided to give it a try.
The strange network interfaces are gone. The kernel source is actually installed on the box. And wine pulled over without a hitch.
Though I am loathe to reload my main system, I think tonight I am going to wipe the system clean and load up SL 5.4 (not Ubuntu). If all the indicators are right, then this will be the final step to eliminating Windows from my system once and for all.
And, no, I won't switch to Ubuntu or any of its derivatives.