I’ve been using Ubuntu as my main Linux distribution since 2005.  Not that I used it that much, but not until 9.04 was it good enough to use as my main laptop OS.  Before that I just ran it as a virtual machine or on spare pieces of junk lying around.

It’s been getting prettier every update, with the exception of 10.04, the update that put minimize and maximize buttons on the wrong side of a window in emulation of MacOS.  To me MacOS has always felt like a clunky, thrown-together, visually distracting OS that makes it very annoying to get anything useful done — BSD UNIX from 1990 with a few coats of paint sprayed on.  Luckily it’s just a quick config setting to put the buttons back where they belong.

The latest, 10.10, changes its primary font to something that almost looks a little cartoony compared to the previous font, but after spending a few days getting used to it I really like it.  It’s crisper, cleaner, and smoother, but it does emphasize how poor some of the web fonts are that it ships with, especially Arial, which is far too wide compared with its counterparts on Windows and OSX, and Times New Roman, which is so thin and weak that it’s hard on the eyes.

Canonical has accomplished their mission — they’ve made Linux a usable desktop OS.  In the process they’ve dragged others kicking and screaming into the future.  Fedora, for instance, has improved its look greatly ever since Ubuntu started making them look bad.

I still prefer Windows 7, but if I have two systems I’ll take one of each.  Each one has better apps for certain tasks and I can get more done with access to both.