you give Shuttleworth credit for knocking the rough edges of of Linux, well I suppose that's what Canonicals PR people are telling you. Why don't you take a quick look at Mandriva 2008.1 and their 2009.0 Release Candidate. Now those are real examples of everything Canonical claims but hasn't yet delivered on.

May the force with you ...

You give Shuttleworth credit for improving desktop Linux, but really he, or that is Canonical, have not done that good a Job. Ubuntu with it's GNOME desktop looks unfinished, and the browns make it look dowdy, boring even, and the usability is no better than any other GNOME Desktop.

What you want to do is take a look at Mandriva Linux, then you will see a Linux Desktop where usability has been at the forefront of the minds of the developers.

I whole-heartedly agree w/tracyanne. My personal impressions of Ubuntu is just that. Further, I've tried each of the buntu's on various platforms (old and new) and I have always run into some tweak issues that require more effort than should be expected of an 'ordinary' user (whoever or whatever that is).

I also don't want to make less of the *buntu groups efforts. They've done an excellent job of raising Linux awareness. It just strikes me that sometimes there is too much hyperbole and sales pitch going on.

I had purchased boxed sets of Mandriva back during v7 and 8. However, I haven't looked at it lately. Thanks for the heads-up, tracyanne. I'll add that to my list of distros-to-try.

Ubuntu is fine if you don't mind getting your hands dirty. If you need to configure more than the basics, the command line is the only way. There is no doubt that both OpenSUSE and Mandriva are far more powerful. And if you use your computer to more than just surfing with Firefox, they are also more user friendly. For the advanced linux user who prefer configuring the config files manually, it's more a question of taste.

Taking all things into consideration, this discussion hints at part of the reason why desktop adoption has been so slow. While Ubuntu's contributions may not be all they're cracked up to be from Canonical, the pervasive tendency of fans of other distros to immediately decry any other distro (Ubuntu) because of accolades given to it continues the public impression that GNU/Linux is only for hard core sys admins or geek hobbyists.

You can achieve similar effects in user awareness by not saying "Ubuntu sucks! Mandriva/PCLinuxOS/Fedora/etc is better!!" but instead saying "Yeah, Ubuntu did some great work! Why not look at "Other distros" too and see what other kinds of options might also work for you?"

If we actually tried to look like a "community" rather than a bunch of little camps yelling at each other, we might actually get somewhere.

One of the biggest issues for any flavor of Linux has always been and will be 'Drivers.' I could not believe how fast Fedora 9 was able to recognize my 500G MyBook. I didn't even have to mount it. And when my Laptop running WinXP crashed, it was a Linux live CD that allowed me recover my lost data (Mount the C drive and 'cp' to the MyBook). The Windows recovery CD failed.

Linux Desktops in general are making giant leaps in competing with the two other guys.
One of the most notable changes has been KDE4 with the addition of Plasma/Plasmoids. There are so many great features, just look at Compiz, you just need to know where to find them.

@Toby Deemer
I agree with you. We should try not to yell at each other. And yes, Ubuntu is a fine distro. I think the most important impact of Ubuntu is that it has pushed forward the linux desktop. Made it more user friendly. Maybe most important, Ubuntu have done great things on the marketing side. But at the same time, it's important to note that it's not Ubuntu alone who has done this. Ubuntu wasn't the first user friendly distro. Even though Shuttleworth does great things for linux, it's allowed to criticise him. He not a God afterall :), and we all make mistakes. I think he often make it seem like Ubuntu is the first with things, when they are not. This happens with every distro release, and I'm sure this annoys developers upstream and in other distros. He's great at marketing, but at the same time he pushes the (non Ubuntu) community away.

Anyways, I have to say it's really great to hear Shuttleworth is going to improve the support of important upstream projects!

Shuttleworth with Ubuntu has made a great contribution in terms of building awareness and community (and adding in money, which certainly helps). Ubuntu has dashed the Windows presumption that new/typical/inexperienced users won't roll up their sleeves to get things working, including a rather heavy dependency on the command line. And other distros are getting a look from users who cut their teeth on Ubuntu and are now ready to check out alternatives; so a thanks is due for that, too. Having said all that, it IS time for Shuttleworth's crew to start doing the kind of meaningful upstream work that Fedora, openSUSE, and Mandriva have done all along. Mr. Shuttleworth, thanks for stepping up but how about a bit of humility and recognition that it will be quite a while before the Ubuntu team approaches the contributions made by the other projects. After all, where do you think those new hires will be coming from?

Shuttleworth with Ubuntu has made a great contribution in terms of building awareness and community (and adding in money, which certainly helps). Ubuntu has dashed the Windows presumption that new/typical/inexperienced users won't roll up their sleeves to get things working, including a rather heavy dependency on the command line. And other distros are getting a look from users who cut their teeth on Ubuntu and are now ready to check out alternatives; so a thanks is due for that, too. Having said all that, it IS time for Shuttleworth's crew to start doing the kind of meaningful upstream work that Fedora, openSUSE, and Mandriva have done all along. Mr. Shuttleworth, thanks for stepping up but how about a bit of humility and recognition that it will be quite a while before the Ubuntu team approaches the contributions made by the other projects. After all, where do you think those new hires will be coming from?

Have to agree. I started using Ubuntu .. not the first Linux distro I ever used but it's the first I used for a long time... I'm still running it and now am comfortable enuf to start looking at some others (thanks about the heads up on Mandriva)

We do need to stop the "this distro sucks" talk ... I see Linux as being Linux .. distros are what like dialects ... I'd like people to dump Windows and try Linux .. any Linux to see what it's like ....Isn't that what we'd all like to see?

To hell with the 100 Linux distros and their 100 different ways of doing things and the 100 fighting fiefdoms. I don't have the desire or time to check out 100 different distros to find the one that is best optimized for my taste or technical level, and then do it again every year or two to see what has changed. The best thing to come out of Ubuntu is the "600 pound gorilla" effect: get the users channeled into some kind of mainstream direction, and hope that at least some of the squabbling developer teams will follow.

So why is it that the Sharing option is not in the menus of my fresh 8.04 LTS install? A little less OpenGL flash and a little more basic stability and usability, please!