Ubuntu One: I wish we could have something similar for Debian users (ideally, it should be extended so that we could sync our calendars, contacts, liferea data etc.).

usb-creator: seems the easiest way to create a bootable usb stick containing a complete and customisable environment. I am aware of the existence Debian Live, but I must say I haven’t given it a try yet.

Desktop orientation: Ubuntu users are in a large majority desktop users. Ubuntu is imho desktop-oriented, and I particularly like the artwork coherence (from boot loader to default desktop).

When trying the upcoming new Ubuntu 8.10 release, and after installing the VirtualBox clients on the guest, I had the following issues:

First, the video driver refused to give me more than a 800×600 resolution. This can be worked around by adding the following lines in the xorg.conf file:

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "Configured Video Device"
        Driver          "vboxvideo"
EndSection
 
Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "Configured Monitor"
EndSection
 
Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "Default Screen"
        Monitor         "Configured Monitor"
        Device          "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

A second issue was the mouse grabbing which did not work at all. Adding the following lines in the xorg.conf file has fixed the issue:

Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier   "Configured Mouse"
   Driver       "vboxmouse"
   Option       "CorePointer"
EndSection

You need to restart Xorg after amending the file so that the changes are taken into account.

Both issues are due to the fact Xorg 7.4 is supposed to automagically recognize the hardware – but it seems like this is not always the case (or it refuses to use it, not sure what’s happening in that particular case).