I don't think this discussion is actually heading towards any useful outcome, other than perhaps that of nostalgia. We are in the situation where we have an otherwise good distribution (debian) that is not keeping up with current releases in a stable and reliable fashion, simply because the depth/breadth of the distribution is so great, that fixing all the release critical bugs, for all architectures is a such a massive task, that releases can only (practically) happen every couple of years. We have a second distribution, possibly at the other end of (at least one of) the scale(s), which, due to it's lack of depth/breadth is able to provide stick to a much tighter release cycle. But it doesn't stop here. Both distributions have a 'length' if you will. That is, the length of time in which they are practically run-able on a system. The greater this 'length' parameter, the bigger range of specs the distribution will support. Now, the crux of the matter is that if we take these three parameters, possibly more, and work out the net-volume of the distribution, we can approximate the amount of work that is required to get the distribution to that state. You can imagine that debian requires a huge amount of work, as it has a greater length, depth and breadth than Fedora; however this does not mean that is a better distribution. In order to work out what is the most suitable distribution to use, you must consider what parameters you require from that distribution. For most users, who have reasonably up to date PC's, they require a reasonably up-to-date distribution, with moderate application depth and very little need to run on antiquated hardware. Now I concede there are several obvious flaws in my metrics, but I maintain they describe the problem well enough to explain the major constraints affecting operating platforms (OS + Software). Lets cut the crap, Fedora is not going to run on a 386, it operates in a completely different part of the usage space. The majority of Linux users would consider it an utter travesty if Fedora were to make the colossal effort required to have the OS run on hardware that is equally well served by other distributions, rather than spend the time keeping up with the current hardware releases and enhancing the performance of existing drivers, etc. You must realise that advancing is where the operating system will generate the greater value, not only to the new users who have a nice stable system, but to the existing userbase who are able to reap the benefits of a broader userbase. Hell, you might even get ncurses/readline versions of the new and improved applications written for the expanded userbase! In short... If debian wants to keep up to date, they need to either a) Reduce Package count b) Reduce Architecture count c) Increase work input (more developers) d) Reduce support for older hardware, however this is somewhat tied in with architecture support, and is less of a burden on it's own. Pretty simple stuff, and already suggested iirc. Regards James