Hi,

  It's been a while since I took a few distro's recent releases for a test
drive. I've stuck with Ubuntu not because I love it but because it was a lot
easier to get a working desktop with than my favored Fedora. With recent
releases and how fast things improve in nix world, I'm wondering if other
major distros have gotten better at the desktop. Can anyone say whether the
recent releases from Fedora, Mandriva, or even OpenSuse make setting up your
desktop easier?

  I should mention that at one time I had written down every step and
command I used to get a working desktop with Fedora 6. This, for me, means
including nvidia drivers, ndiswrapper with broadcom driver (at the time
bcm43xx drivers didn't support faster than 802.11b speeds), compiz,
multimedia playback, and my personal favorite apps/games.

  Ubuntu enables easier installation of nvidia, ndiswrapper, and multimedia.
Has Fedora gotten better or are they still in a death grip with purist
theology? I thought Mandriva felt a little lite as a desktop, and YAST2
makes me crazy. How are these doing?

  Yeah, I read some reviews, but those only say so much. Besides, I've
always gotten good feedback from PLUG members.

Thanks,
-j