Debian as a desktop system

[Lynn David Newton]

  js> I don't know about Hans' reasons, but here are my top 10:

All very good points.

  js> 2) It works, reliably, on AMD64 (debian doesn't, yet).

That's good. My two desktop machines are both AMD64.

  js> 6) It's pared down to a reasonable set of
  js>    applications (2 browsers, 2 email clients, a
  js>    few games and accessories, 1 office suite,
  js>    etc...) in the base install.

I saw on the distro's web site that they favor Gnome. 
Is KDE flat out not included?

I used Gnome for years, but when I moved to SuSE last
November, I gave in and switched to KDE, learned to
like it, and haven't looked back.

What sort of sysadmin support is provided? I happen to
like SuSE's YaST. Not that I don't like being able to
do things from the command line, which I've done for
more years than I care to think about, but sometimes
you want to do something you flat out don't know how to
do, but YaST does. As I've come to believe, Debian is
great, particularly for keeping things updated, but is
less friendly about admin processes.

I have no intention of switching from SuSE; I'm just
asking for information because when someone like
der.hans with his knowledge and background recommends
Ubuntu, it provokes my curiosity.

-- 
Lynn David Newton
MontaVista Software, Inc.
2141 E. Broadway Road, Suite 108
Tempe, AZ 85282
Phone: 480-517-5047
Email: lnewton at mvista.com