Ubuntu - coming soon to a desktop near you?

Since the back-end of our “Powered by Nine” system runs on Linux, I’ve been using the OS more than ever. I have used it in the past couple of years for one project or another, but only generally for running single applications and using the server platform. It’s a lean, mean workhorse, and it was great for what we used it for.

But when it comes to desktops, I never thought it’d even approach Windows’ level of usability, mainly because the GUI seemed incomplete. My thought is that if the GUI feels incomplete, you’re not going to get any converts. It seems as though for each application I wanted to install, I had to drop to the command line and resolve some dependencies before moving forward with the program. I also had to find the right packages to apply, and that takes spending some time with my best buddy Google.

Maybe for IT nerds like myself, that’s not a huge inconvenience, but for your average end-user? I doubt they want to spend the time and brainpower on it. Not to mention they’d need to be comfortable with a command line, which hasn’t been true for a large section of computer users since Windows 3.1.

I’ve been on Ubuntu desktop 10.04, and I’ve liked it so far. It looks like someone finally made a strong, stable GUI that strikes me as pretty complete. I know there are loads of Linux OS out there with great GUIs, but since Ubuntu is a market leader, I thought I’d test-drive their latest. This one could be a big player, it might even compete with low-end Windows machines.