Hi everyone, My name is Micah and this is my first PLUG post. I'm new to 
the area (Mesa) and newish to Linux though I 've spent several years as 
a  Unix user (Digital Unix 5.1) I'm still trying to get the hang of the 
admin side of Linux and so far, I'm enjoying myself quite a bit.  I'm 
currently running RH9 but I'm having a few issues relating to Red Hat 
Network and not being able to pull updates automatically.  If I go, find 
a package, untar it and install it everything's fine. RHN keeps saying 
there's a problem with my login when I try to register my machine. (My 
login works fine, I can get to http://www.redhat.com/network and log in 
and look at my empty systems list and I checked and I do still have my 
free open entitlement.

Anyhow.. I suppose I'm not really looking for an answer for that.   For 
various reasons, I'm looking at dumping RH9 (Or at least pulling the 
drive) and starting over.  Perhaps with Debian, probably Debian (I just 
really like the ideals of the Social Contract, plus I know a few 
Debheads and I figured I could pick their brains when I ran into 
trouble  although..

sometimes I get this odd itch to try Gentoo and lately.. I've been 
trying BSD instead.  If any of you are using Debian, Gentoo or Open or 
Free BSD, could you tell me what things you like about them?  I'm 
currently booting straight into X, which is probably for the best since 
I do a lot of browsing. I just open a lot of terminal windows and go to 
it.   I've tried KDE in the past and haven't really been sold on it ,so 
this time I went GNOME and well, I've not switched back to KDE so I 
suppose that says something.  What is your preferred Window manager and why?

I know I know, questions questions questions.. But I'm sure there are 
answers lurking out there. I have every confidence.  Okay I have some 
confidence.  Alright, I'll settle for hope.

Well, if it's any help, I do know a lot about those other operating 
systems out there like that one from Redmond and that other one from 
somewhere in the Valley (We'll call it Cupertino).  So if anyone has any 
Darwin or *cough* that other non-nix OS let me know.

Geeze, is this really being saved for posterity?  I should learn to 
proofread.