No doubt that the more you install, mod, tweak, hack the more vulnerabilities and security flaws you create. As for linux, Ubuntu is only going to b installed on my laptop (I can honestly say I've never seen a more in depth, helping community than the ubuntu forums.impressive. As I'm totally new at linux anything). I'm also not goin full linux as I do some graphic design and have some other apps that don't port well to linux or don't work with wine. I'm not to sure what server linux I will b using yet, but I will definatley look at centOS.

I planned on the forums being a seperate domain from the drupal main site. I like a lot of the community mods that are present in vB. I'm not at my comp at the moment so when I get to it I will post the things I'm lookin at in vB that I wanted.

Well, it looks like you either already have done or are in the proccess of doing your research, so you're doing pretty well. Ubuntu is definetely the best choice for linux on your laptop, especially if you're new.

For graphic design, linux is definetely lacking. GIMP is pretty good once you get used to it, but Linux still isn't there in the graphics department (I love my Mac personally, and you'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands).

yea ive looked up a lot. im getting used to Ubuntu, its great. soo much faster that windows. But still gotta keep windows for adobe cs3 and for my zune, oh well. dual boot. And im having my friend look into CentOS, said it was a good reccomendation but he wasnt familiar with it and will be trying it out.

anyways i can thank everyones help enough on this topic, thanks to all. I am going to setup Drupal and vBulletin on seperate domains and use a mod to link the memberships. Oh an i downloaded Drupal 5 to use on another, more small time site and works great for its purpose, thanks for the insight. Ive gotten more out of this thread than i thought i would.

I think drupal is great.I have used joomla and didn`t really like it.Drupal is more complicatted but after a while you will understand it