I run Ubuntu on my laptops and workstation. SportsTwo runs on Ubuntu server edition, too. Today, just in time to compete with Windows 7, Ubuntu released version 9.10 of their operating system. They name their OS versions... last one was Jaunty, this one is Karmic Koala. Upgrading to the new operating systems is quite automatic and done over the internet. It doesn't cost $.10. So the upgrade/install on my workstation took about 4 hours. I'm doing my laptop right now, after seeing it work on the desktop. Their servers are downright slammed, it's that popular. If you want to read about it: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/29/ubuntu_9_10_review/ I like it because it's 64 bits and all the software is 64 bits. The more memory you have, the faster it goes. After booting, as you use the system it gets faster and faster, because it uses your free memory to cache stuff read from disk. You get a choice of several desktops, not just one like in windows. I mean window manager, built-in default applications, etc. I use gnome, but I also have KDE installed and use it once in a while. The desktops are a bit more powerful than Windows, IMO. You can have multiple desktops and switch between them (built in feature). So you can have one with your mail, another for work, another for S2 (browsers), etc. The eye candy features are superior in Ubuntu, too. I'm not saying you can't buy or find freeware downloads for windows to provide similar functions, just they're not built in, and not likely 64 bits. I'm attaching a screenshot of my desktop so you can see if it looks neat to you. I'm running chrome browser, and you can see the software update going on in another window. At the bottom is an app launcher bar, similar to MacOS... The screen shot is my laptop (1900x1200). Oh yeah, I have paid for only a few programs under Ubuntu - all programming tools. You can download and install all the available apps (10,000+ of them) from the desktop.
When I switch desktops, it looks like this (I had to set up the borg cube effect): Each face of the cube is a desktop, and you can see my windows mapped on the faces of the cube. This is what KDE desktop looks like, and when you hit alt-tab to switch between windows: Under gnome, my alt tab switcher looks like this:
