Several issues recently have pervasively affected my computer. I don't know that they are caused by Ubuntu, but Ubuntu is losing it with respect to the /dev/hdX /dev/sdX issues. It is insuperable that these have not been dealt with at the higher levels by developers. I fear I will be forced to move back to Gentoo, but I find at least that Ubuntu is much more convenient for me as a user. Stablity is of utmost importance, however, and I want to report what has happened to me. I have an IDE drive (PATA) and a SATA drive. 1. /etc/fstab I am afraid to edit /etc/fstab. Doing so led to massive confusion about which devices of /sda1 or /sda2. Inconsistency with long term GNU/Linux policy has left me bereft. Fstab does not agree with "df". I had to admit that my own error led to certain problems in wrongly naming a partition using UUIDs. But should I have to proofread UUIDs? 2. Grub I installed Hardy five or more times two days ago, each time, the MBR seemed to get more confused. Finally, I figured out that nothing I could do would fix the problem. Again and again, I edited /boot/grub/menu.lst, and ran "grub-install" with various parameters suggested by different experts on the Ubuntu forum or on line. Grub would not install. Different error messages were encountered. I eventually installed Gentoo, and was therefore able to get the MBR back to a consistent state. I elected to reinstall Ubuntu hardy (amd64) and what do you know? It didn't boot. Grub stalled at boot. I remembered one of the various conflicting docs or suggestions on the net, and changed the boot device in the grub interactive way from (hd1,0) to (hd0,0). I have to do that every time. Ubuntu installs grub in the MBR of one disk, and boots from the other. I finally edited /boot/grub/menu.lst, and Ubuntu boots. Is this not a bug? The trouble is, which one is the bug? I've seen many, many messages on the Internet about these issues. If I could I'd jump in and help. I wish to make a comment that I hope is not taken as too harsh. Gentoo documentation is much more highly polished, and manages to be up to date. Three years or so ago, I was pleased to discover this, after dwelling for several years on Debian mailing lists, and watching the "RTFM" flames consume user after user. Having come back to Ubuntu after a couple of years, even though I have played with it several times, I am highly impressed by the polish and high degree of integration of parts that has been achieved. Nothing short of phenomenal. I just lost a partition either to personal error or a lack of understanding of the nature of partitions. Actually I have lost two---one my Ubuntu installation's / root directory, after having spent months working on it and installing software. The other one was a 60 GB data partition, lost after an attempt at repartitioning. I cannot blame anyone but myself. I don't remember which OS I was trying to install at the time. I think that in both cases, deleting a virtual logical partition resulted in renumbering, leading to confusion on my part. It hurts, but I cannot make up for the blunder. Another lesson learned? I hope so. One thing I have to add is that because I had saved my system's state with dpkg, I was able within 24 hours to have an ubuntu system up and running with virtually the same configuration! It is a tribute to the development community of GNU/Linux, Debian, and Ubuntu that after installing the basic system, and running "synaptic --set-selections < file" the complete system was brought up to snuff with only two pauses for brief manual intervention. Wow! Bottom line: Ubuntu is a convenient system, easy to install, and well maintained. However, there are a few show stopper bugs that must be ironed out, and the documentation can use some work. I am more productive because I have to spend less time fiddling around. All that being said, compared to two years ago, I have found Ubuntu much more stable. Even the more complicated packages that had been the bane of Debian installations and Ubuntu earlier on----I will refer specifically to avidemux and some other complex multimedia software---are working out of the box now. I haven't run any tests for speed. However, the documentatoni needs work. If I can hold onto this installation, I will try to contribute to the documentation side. Somehow. Should I report this as a bug? I am confused what the underlying cause might be. Alan