[bro]

My main reaction is: Finally a real review. I don't agree with most of his critique though. Generally I do think Ubuntu could use a few more 'advanced' buttons but that's it. There have been a few very nice rebuttals on this already.

But it has to be said that I finally found a review that goes beyond "I installed distroX and it worked nicely..." usually followed by a list of features that can be found in the release notes. There should be many more of these attempts to really review a system critically. Though this author seems to have been digging for problems that really are good features after all.

A really good review would actually use and stress a system for a while. I must say that many distro's looked nice, where easy to install but where lacking features I wanted that I only find out after a while. Like having small repositories, a slow/small forum and general lack of documentation. These are all outstanding features of Ubuntu. Some other distros just got slow or very unstable after a little while (ahum pclos ahum).
These things can be hard to review if you write a review with a lot of knowledge and no need for fora or documentation. Or if you don't actually use it and therefore don't find out if essential apps are in the repos or how stable the system is in daily use.

Another thing I notice on the reactions here is the notice of 'the average user' or 'audience that ubuntu targets'. Considering it's popularity it's save to say that Ubuntu at least also reaches many advanced users. And without surprise. Having the knowledge is one thing, wanting to spent a lot of time configuring and fine tuning another. I use linux for a while now and I could probably work with Debian or even Slackware too. But why would I want to? As mentioned above: pre-configuring is the whole point of distro's. Ubuntu should do everything and I should do nothing - regardless of my ability to do it. I order pizza's too, even though I'm not a bad cook.

As for ease of installation, one should know that the 'average user' never ever even considers to install an OS. They may consider to install other software if someone else told them repeatedly that it's going to be easy. So I don't think a few intelligent questions there will hurt. Have you heard of anybody installing linux that did not know what partitioning means? Doesn't happen in my world. Also I don't care if installation takes me 20 minutes and 6 clicks or 30 minutes and 15 clicks. When it's done it's done and I get to the real work of 'being an end user' - which is much more interesting, time consuming and fun in any case.

For a next release of Ubuntu I would like to see better KDE integration though.