This is one of the topics I've been meaning to catch up on. Over the years I have tried several flavours of Linux distributions (SuSE, Redhat, Debian, YellowDogLinux and most recently Gentoo). Despite the obious improvements over the years in the area of user experience I'm still left underwhelmed.

The main reason for that is, that I'm looking at all of these distros purely from the viewpoint of an unexperienced user. I'm looking at Linux as a possible 'Windows cure' for people such as clients, my father-in-law or friends who are a) stuck with the PC-platform for one reason or another (usually no budget for a Mac or just recently having bought some shiny, new PC-box). Personally, I'm quite happy with my 'Mac for desktop' and 'FreeBSD for server' setup, thankyouverymuch.

While all of those distros looked good (except, of course, the horrible default theme that SuSE has slapped onto KDE), but in practice - for a multitude of reasons that I'm plain too lazy to get into right now - they just proved way too cumbersome for the people trying to use the machine.

The good news is, that this might have changed. Enter ubuntu - a new, debian-based Linux distro with two main goals a) useability and b) regular, tested, well-defined (if oddly named) updates. Check out the scoop here, here, especially here and - of course - here.

I played with it on an old 500MHz P2 system for two afternoons before passing on the hardware-cum-system to a good friend who will embark on an IT-education starting next year after being laid off as electrician. For the first time, I had the feeling that this Linux distro might feel accessible to an average user. It's very sensibly pre-configured in my opinion and I'll be following up with great interest on how my friend (a complete beginner to computers, with not even Windows experience, lucky soul!) will fare.