etc alternatives craziness

[Roger]

OP,

I completely encourage you to give it a try at other distributions (If
you have not done so). I have done it myself (Arch, Fedora, Ubuntu,
Mandrake). At the end of the day
you will realise that there are always annoyances to all of them. You
have to decide what things you are ok with and what things you cannot
tolerate.

Arch Linux is a rolling release so I liked that because that took away
the need to download a CD image every 6 months (sorry but I don't
trust full system upgrades) to have the latest the distribution had to
offer. At the same time, some times things that were working would
stop working because of a recent update to a package. So you had to go
and apply the work around and wait for the next update of the package
so it will get fixed. So I weighted the pros and cons of each side and
made my decision. This is just a simple
example but I think you will get my point.

Shop around and take your time because if you don't, you are going to
find yourself wasting a great deal of time moving around between
distributions. I know from experience.

Maybe make yourself familiar with the whole alternative concept and
maybe you will change your mind and even find it useful.

Don't feel bad if you decide to change to another distribution. It is
your right anyway. Don't let the comments:

>> Hey Eddie, don't let the door hit you on the way out! Oh BTW, don't come
>>  back without eating humble pie

in anyway bother you. Unfortunately emotions run high sometimes.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to get rid off a specific feature
if you find that it gets on your way. Wasn't that one of the reason
that drove many people to open software?
When did it become such a bad thing wanting to do so?

Someone should have pointed out why you should agree with the way is
done, what could happen if you disable it or if anyone knew, how to do
it. Instead of accusing you
of being wrong or blasting you off because you are not doing it "The X
way". (If someone did, then don't take it personal).

Anyway, good luck!

-r

P.S: I don't run Ubuntu in my desktop machine any more, I run FreeBSD.