The trick to get there is to capture new users without previous computing experience. My wife's sister got her first laptop with Ubuntu installed and after 3 ye

The trick to get there is to capture new users without previous computing experience. My wife's sister got her first laptop with Ubuntu installed and after 3 years she can't stand windows/osx and I can't blame her: Gnome 2.3 is years ahead of both of them but it's only apparent to someone who's familiar with it. If you listen to hear arguments, you'll be amazed of how much of your perception of "good UX" is just a series of habits. The roadblock to user adoption isn't the quality of software/ux, it's making people to make an effort and learn something new. Another issue is hardware quality. Trying out Linux on cheap and flimsy netbooks isn't the best way to experience new software. In other words there nothing to be done with Ubuntu itself to reach his goals. The technology is fine.