Isn't it interesting how small things can be the impetus for big change? I had been having trouble with the Firefox web browser on my home machine - it did not matter where on the page I would middle-click, it would always assume that I wanted to search for whatever was in the clipboard buffer. That was really a problem when I was actually trying to do something completely different: either copy the text from the clipboard onto a field on the page, or make a big jump on the page using the scroll bar. Since my home machine was the only place where I had the problem I decided to install another Linux distribution: SimplyMEPIS. I had been running PCLinuxOS and I was happy with it until I started having trouble with the browser.

You are probably wondering why I did not install Ubuntu 6.0 LTS or Fedora Core 5, both of which I use at the office, on my home machine. It basically boils down to wanting to have all the multimedia "stuff" and not having to install them myself. Since SimplyMEPIS and PCLinuxOS are smaller players in the Linux world, they can get away with distributing the multimedia "stuff" that Ubuntu and Fedora cannot because of licensing issues. I know both Ubuntu and Fedora have had 3rd party scripts written for them that actually make the install of the multimedia "stuff" easier; but it is still not as easy as just having them installed right off the bat.

Good night!