Stop mis-quoting me! I said "A good Network Admin never has to leave his desk unless there's a hardware failure."

Hmm, I don't think I've EVER heard one man refer to another as "a total sweetie."

However, I agree that it's good to have friends that you know you can call at 2am.

*Citation Needed*

You're kidding, aren't you? I'm glad that he finds his wife beautiful, but I think she's VERY unattractive! Yes, I think Angelina has a sexy face, but she is WAAAAY too skinny; if you can count a woman's ribs, then she needs to eat more! That being said, I do find my OWN wife to be far and away the most beautiful woman I've ever met, and have had many comment on how pretty she is. And no, you CAN'T have any pictures ;-)

Here's to hoping all the rest of you married /.er's also find your own wives to to be the most desirable, beautiful, wonderful women on the planet! And yes, I mean BOTH of you!

They can...if it's Rock 'n' Roll! /ducks

Here's an example: I'm building a "Media Center" on Ubuntu for home use (watching movies, playing Hulu, running emulators, playing MP3s). I'm not doing anything very advanced, but it has taken me several installs to get something even marginally working!

First install with 8.04, couldn't get the DVD codecs to run correctly. No problem, wiped it and installed 9.04 because it was supposed to be slicker and easier. Guess what? NONE of the codecs would load, dvd playback wouldn't work, and the USB wifi was dead in the water. Ooookay, let's try MythBuntu: Supposed to be very user-friendly, and I can customize it to NOT do the MythTV part, and just run what I want. Wiped, installed, and could never get ANY functionality out of it; not even firefox would connect. Lovely. Okay, back to Hardy Heron, at least the WIFI card worked, right?

So, after one more wipe and install, Hardy is up and running. Great, let's drop VLC on it. Oooh, no go, some big dependency issues. No problem, I'll tweak the software sources, run apt-get update, and try again. Great, got VLC! But wait, the DVD codecs are proprietary, so I have to find the proper version and download/install THOSE now. Get them installed, and suddenly VLC plays DVDs beautifully; perfect! Mp3s working? Check! How about some of the AVIs I've ripped from my DVD collection in the past? Ooh, sorry, no go; I need more codecs! Of course!

Alright, lets give VLC a break, and try out Hulu/YouTube: No go, not running the right version of Flash. No problem, it gives me a download link; I click it, it's downloads/runs the .deb, and...fails! Wrong version of libpango installed! Well, I'll just update it...wait, it's already the NEWEST version? Hmm. Okay, I'll simply remove the Adobe Flash 10 plugin, and install version 9. Oh, now FireFox doesn't recognize that version? Huh. Eventually, I got a version of Gnash able to run Flash on Hulu/YouTube. Perfect! Except when I maximize the Flash playback, it gets REAL jittery, and can almost make you motion-sick! Plus, I tried to install XBMC, only to have the launchpad toss me some 404 errors.

Now, I am by far no Linux newbie; I built and maintained the SLES and SLEDs at a School Corp. at my last job (about 100 desktops, integrating with our Netware 6.5 server for authentication/filesharing), and I've dabbled with various distros over the years (including installing Debian on a all-in-one PPC!) However, Ubuntu is NOT ready for ANY "ease of use" title, nor can your average Joe pick it up and have it "just work." Until Ubuntu can give the average person the same "Hey, I bought it and it works!" experience that Windows does, it will be seen as little more than a diversion for those tired of viruses.

That being said, I'm completely on your side of hoping that Ubuntu DOES become a way to not just run Windows apps flawlessly, but to outshine it's competitors in security, ease of use, and dependability as well. That is the start of a much better world!

Uh, you DO realize the guy you're arguing with was AGAINST Reagan, right? Most "Hannity-wannity-be" "right-wingers" idealize Reagan. I'm just sayin'.

You still use NetZero carbon? Man, I switched to DSL Carbon years ago!