And I think you know by now that I'm not just stirring it with comments like this - I *really* do want to know what I've missed.
You are not quite in the target market for Ubuntu, so I'm not surprised that you're missing the message :-)
For desktop users who want to *use* their machine, as opposed to *playing with* it, Ubuntu is an OS that doesn't give you too much choice - similar in many ways to OS X.
For server admins, Ubuntu promises the stability and security responsiveness of Debian, with the up-to-date features that Debian doesn't provide.
(I say "promises", because we haven't even seen a version upgrade yet - should be possible when Hoary Hedgehog is released!)
It's not really the system to base a tinkering or development platform on, and my guess is that you're both :-)
-jim
