Debian VS Ubuntu, considering jumping distros

Yeah, I guess me too. I think that while Ubuntu is quite nice distro, it begins to get weird. For instance, I was trying to install Jack, but I couldn't find a way to turn it on. Also, I don't like that Ubuntu will be switching to their new shell. Sure, it's nice on netbooks, but it just won't work on desktop PCs. So I'll either jump to Debian or Kubuntu (but then again, people say that KDE is hard to configure).

how the heck am I supposed to know which exact chipsets are residing on my mainboard?!

lspci and lsusb :)

My choice is currently still Ubuntu, though I am not so happy about the direction Ubuntu is going. I am considering jumping to another distro as well, someone mentioned Arch Linux offers very up-to-date packages and Gentoo looks interesting to me as well (though I am not so confident I'll manage to install it properly - all those hardware questions, how the heck am I supposed to know which exact chipsets are residing on my mainboard?! I am not sure I want to do all that research...).

I just started using Gentoo a few days ago, and whilst it's not as KISS as Arch, it's still absolutely awesome. TBH it's not terribly difficult to compile your own kernel (make menuconfig; make && make modules_install) and if you make a mistake you can always go back and fix it later, which is something that IMO was missing from Arch. Eventually Arch gets so complicated that you just have to throw it out and start again

Oh, and managing Python interpreters/CPython versions is as easy as eselect

how the heck am I supposed to know which exact chipsets are residing on my mainboard?!

lspci and lsusb

Yeah, but do I have console access for issuing those commands during installation procedure? Oh, I guess I have, most probably Ctrl-Alt-F1 or so will work already during the compilation dialog. Hmm, maybe I'll give Gentoo a try then.

Last time I tried it I found it so absolutely tedious to go through all the compilation questions that I eventually gave up on it during kernel compilation setup.

Compiling your own kernel is the most fun. ;)

But if it seems tedious you can use genkernel or rip LiveCD's generic kernel.

You could always try Linux Mint Debian edition. It has pulseaudio I think, but no unity interface, Yet still feels like Ubuntu Lucid Lynx in the GUI, if that is what you are used to.

Right now I'm considering another distro for when upgrade time comes. Ubuntu as of late has been getting quite a few questionable changes made to it including the inclusion of this hydra known as pulseaudio and of course the window controls. Can somebody tell me how different Debian is from Ubuntu? From what I've gathered it seems that this is a more conservative and less bleeding edge distro than Ubuntu and has less problems, but I don't know because I've never messed around with it. Would I have to strip out pulseaudio or go through any other annoyances like that?

You could always try Linux Mint Debian edition. It has pulseaudio I think, but no unity interface, Yet still feels like Ubuntu Lucid Lynx in the GUI, if that is what you are used to.

emphasis mine.

I don't think including pulseaudio is a good thing. I always had problems getting it to work when I used Ubuntu. Because of this, I have pulseaudio disabled in my USE flags so it never infects my Gentoo system.

lol disabled. I completely stripped out pulseaudio and installed audio hacks and STILL have a .pulse folder in my home directory. That thing is a virus/hydra that should NEVER hit a desktop OS.

Pulse's a pain in the butt. I was trying to do a Let's Play of Pokemon Stadium 2, but the damn thing a) required 30 megs worth of bloatware only to get it going and b) no matter what I do, it still does something to the audio so I can't sync it for crap. I'd like a JACK, please... See what I did there? JACK? Heh... Heh... Man, I can't get Ke$hA outta my HEAD!