I've been working with Ubuntu since version 8 and I currently have version 9.04 running on one of the test PC's in my home office. Both releases were allot of fun to install and experiment with, however the latest version 11.10 has really impressed me with it's installation ease and all around versatility. I was able to download a bootable iso file and port it easily to a 2GB USB stick which I then used to install on a dedicated Dell Latitude laptop. The install took about 30 min and was painless. The UI is stunning with a side dock of preloaded useful software consisting of Firefox (my favorite browser), Thunderbird email client, Word, Excel and PowerPoint clients (courtesy of LibreOffice). It also came with Ubuntu One cloud storage (free 5GB), and Ubuntu Software Center which is a new offering that makes installing and removing software a snap. The experience is similar to installing apps on a Smartphone or Tablet computer.
The only real problem I've encountered so far is installing a viable Java client that will work with the 'Check Point' web site that Loblaw uses to access our VPN. If I can crack this puzzle, I'll be able to utilize all of the necessary Loblaw Web based apps that I use on my other systems. I may have to go old-school and resort to the built in Terminal app to command line my way through this one...
All in all Ubuntu was never able to break into the mainstream market for a verity of reasons, but in my opinion 11.10 is a fun, free, stable desktop alternative to Windows that I look forward to exploring further in the days to come.
RPM
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