Ubuntu Karmic

After having looked at Ubuntu 2 years ago and finding it wasn't flexible enough back then (old habbits don't die) recent problems with the Debian kernel made me have a look at it again.

The Debian problems I'm facing:
* fingerprint scanner on my Thinkpad X60 tablet didn't work anymore.
* laptop wouldn't boot randomly, but getting stuck during boot process.
* fluxbox randomly hangs in combination with wine.
* upgrade of X.org screwed the tablet screen rotation.
* Neither NetworkManager or wicd in Debian support 3G dial-up without configuring it manually and then it's half arsed.
* New atheros drivers are acting up very badly.

and many many more.

So I installed Ubuntu Karmic (9.10) and I'm certainly impressed.

* Touchscreen and tablet-pen work out of the box (had to be configured manually in Debian).
* Fingerprint scanner works flawlessly after installing the applications. After a few manual changes, even for gnome-screensaver
* NetworkManager works right out of the box, including internal 3G datacard.
* Atheros card works right out of the box.
* Suspend works flawlessly right out of the box.
* The boot time is amazing. It only takes a few seconds to boot the laptop.

All in all, I'm impressed. We'll see how long it'll survive on the laptop.