If I may, I would like to mention that I see at least two kinds of dysfunctionalilty in the list and forums that may lead me away from Ubuntu, by comparison with my experience with Gentoo. 1. On the Debian mailing lists of old, newbies often were excoriated, put down, with a curt "RTFM". This is counter productive. Why do "experts" need to insult and harangue newbies? When I moved over to Gentoo, I don't think I ever saw such rudeness on the mailing lists. On the contrary, the politeness of the knowledgeable list community was exemplary. 2. On Debian and Ubuntu lists I see many unhelpful posts from people who are themselves clueless, but want to be helpful. On the Gentoo list, by and large, responses were helpful. This has, for me, made it very difficult to find the answers to my own problems about Ubuntu. I have had better success with Ubuntu this time around, and it's much, much easier to maintain the system. I mean to cast no aspersions, but I may move back to Gentoo at some point due to both the solidity of the system (albeit it may be much more difficult to set up and maintain) and the excellence of the support---documentation that is always up to day, a bug system that is incredibly up-to-date and useful, and . a list that is free of desultory and unhelpful pollution. What is accomplished by the incessant attacks? Further alienation. Alan