I find the UX in Ubuntu much better than Windows and OSX ( haven't tried Ubuntu 11) mainly because of how fast and instantaneous everything is. Every time I try

I find the UX in Ubuntu much better than Windows and OSX ( haven't tried Ubuntu 11) mainly because of how fast and instantaneous everything is. Every time I try a Windows machine I am appalled at how unresponsive it is and how often programs freeze. OSX is better but I still find it has usability issues. I think if I'd become a regular user of OSX and learn the keyboard shortcuts I would be a satisfied customer. However, for a casual user like me (pretty much just for xcode), I find myself often annoyed at my mac. I curse at OSX, every time I use iTunes, every time I plug my iPod and the photo application locks up my mac for seconds even though I've never used this application, when windows pile up everywhere and there is no task bar to quickly switch between them, only slow multiple step processes with annoying animations. I'm also surprised at how many OSX features are a poor implementation of old unix ide features. For example, I'm used to have multiple desktops on Linux. I've been using this since the mid 90s. Gnome has it, kde has it, I've used it on CDE the Sun interface. OSX has Spaces but it is horrible mainly because there isn't a taskbar icon that allows you to switch 'space' with one click. Worst even, the Spaces doc icon is a tease that looks like a proper desktop switcher but doesn't work that way. In term of hardware support (and to a lesser degree software support), I admit Linux is behind. But this is a chicken and egg problem. If more people used Linux, hardware manufacturers would make sure their drivers worked with Linux. I have zero interest in doing manual configuration, so in the past ten years, buying a computer has consisted of bringing a Live Ubuntu disk to Bestbuy and poping it in to make sure everything on the computer works out of the box. By using this method I never have to fiddle with anything to get Ubuntu to work. It's very easy to do and my computers end up costing me half the price of macs by allowing me the choice of a smaller 1.5 hour battery (I'm almost always plugged in anyways) and lower quality display (so the contrast is not as good, big deal). My current laptop is a one year old (corei3, 4GB ram, 500GB HD) that cost me $600 (useless Windows licence included!) + $100 for a two year extended warranty and Linux makes it feel much faster than any other computer I use. Chrome on Ubuntu is a crazy fast web experience. I've been hesitant to suggest Ubuntu to non technical users mainly because I don't want to be responsible for providing technical support but I do believe Ubuntu is probably ready for it. Maybe I should suggest it more given that they call me for problems with their win7 or osx anyways and I often find myself thinking: this wouldn't happen on Ubuntu.