Ubuntu Linux Instead Of Debian?

I think I might have found the answer to the problem faced by most Debian GNU/Linux users. Debian stable is old. Over two years old. Woody was released in the summer of 2002. As such, it is mainly used in production enviroments where the latest and greatest is given up for stability. While this may be great for a server, it is horrible for a desktop user. I've been using Debian for several months now and I jumped straight into Debian unstable. While I've found it to be quite stable, there have been glitches. But even unstable is not bleeding edge, that is what Debian experimental is for. But I don't think every package that I use has ever been stable all at one time in experimental. So I wait a bit, but otherwise have a more than pleasent and productive computing experience. However, with each apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade, I was worried something would break.

So I had a trade off, not update for a while and wait, than do a mass update and wonder what broke when a quarter of all my packages got updated all at once. Or update frequently, and hope I can just manually roll back a package if something gets broke until it gets fixed. Neither solution is optimal.

But today I read at the Ars OpenForum a post by whiprush (Jorge Castro) about Ubuntu Linux, a Debian based distribution. In whiprush's words, it seems to bring a lot to the table:

• Easy installer (based on the debian sarge installer) - toughest part is partitioning. They're working on a GUI installer for the next release.
• X config is brainless (just pick a resolution). It's X4.3 with lots of patches, some stuff from Xorg. Full Xorg next release.
• Project Utopia out of the box. Just plug stuff in and it mounts.
• Kickass laptop support. Laptop mode enabled, ACPI, CPU freq thing on by default. Tons of wifi drivers out of the box. ipw2200 (centrino), madwifi, atmel, atheros.
• GNOME 2.8, Evolution 2.0, Firefox as the default browser
• Kernel 2.6.8.1, w/ALSA sound
• no root account, you use sudo instead.
• Cleaned up default desktop (ie. no icons on it), most has been moved to a new Computer menu entry
• LiveCD so you can try it out. (Not available yet I don't think)
• Time based release schedule. Stable release every 6 months. Support for a version for 18 months. Basically snapshots of sid with polish.
• Support base of software, most everything else are rebuilds of lots of Debian packages (but unsupported), around 13,000 packages.
• Free and open. The developers are literally an all star team from the debian, freedesktop, and gnome communities. Improvements and fixes go back into debian. This is probably why this distro is going to seriously own, these guys know what's up.

So I get the latest stuff, it all works, and I don't have to update, I can wait 6 months and then I know I can update everything and it will work. And all of the things I had to learn how to configure (mostly hardware stuff, X working out of the box is awesome, as is the ipw2200, which is what will be coming on my laptop) work out of the box. And it's based around GNOME. And it includes Evolution 2.0, something that isn't even in Debian unstable. This is cool.

I can't wait to take it for a spin on my laptop. The final release doesn't come out until the end of October, but I figure there should be no problem giving it a spin and updating once it comes out.