That drives me crazy, too. I blame a lot of it on the online computer press and "pundits," who keep equating Linux with Ubuntu. Ubuntu also has a lot of money and apparently they send out a lot of press releases touting all their developments and the lazy computer press doesn't bother to do any original investigation but just regurgitates the press releases.
Well, they also release every six months, so that would naturally keep them in the news. I don't hate Ubuntu, but I don't like the "bleeding edge" nature of it. It's frustrating. Everything works "out of the box" ... almost -- and it's the "almost" that drives me crazy. It seems like, just when you think you've got it set up and running nicely, something inevitably goes wrong. I have Mint 10 on another petition because my Dad (who lives about 500 miles away) has Linux Mint and it makes it easier for me to remotely support him by going step-by-step on my computer. But almost every time I boot into Mint, I've got to go to a terminal and type in "pkill nautilus" and "pkill gnome-panel" or, otherwise, I just have a blank desktop and a mouse cursor -- and no one seems to know how to fix it, though others have the problem. And I like Mint quite a bit more than pure Ubuntu, but it's frustrating also. I think Ubuntu should drop to once-a-year releases and put something out that's a bit more stable.
I tried many distros in my early years with Linux (I started with Linux 11 or 12 years ago) but VectorLinux was so much faster than the others that I stayed with it. My hardware was on the bad side in those days and a distro's speed was important. With VectorLinux 4.3 there was a great leap forward in usability and polish and I lost any desire to use other distros. It's been Vector all the way ever since and I couldn't be happier with Linux.
Absolutely. I still boot into CentOS (want to learn Red Hat) and, though I like the distribution just fine, VectorLinux is so much faster -- and it comes default with clearer and better fonts. And it just works "out of the box." Great distribution.
As for the traffic on this forum, I find it just about right.
If you post a problem, at least you'll be able to find any responses you get. People complain that when they post on the Ubuntu forums, their message scrolls down very quickly and finding any responses is difficult. People on our VectorLinux forum are almost always friendly and do their best to help solve problems.
The thing that drives me nuts about the Ubuntu forums (and to a lesser degree, the Mint forums) is that you've got so many people who just have to write some kind of response -- even ones that are rude and completely off base -- just so they can waste their time and yours. Why? Why bother? I'll never be able to figure it out.
At any rate, welcome vectornewb. I've used Light, but my favorite is the Standard Deluxe XFce version.