"I think the part that's surprised me the most about their work is that they manage to do most of it without bastardizing the system and making things less flexible," Gerhard Mack, a Montreal-based consultant and Slashdot blogger, told LinuxInsider. "Quite often when Linux distros have gone for ease of configuration, you lose the ability to edit config files by hand. With Ubuntu, they seem to make sure users can hand-edit if they want.

"I've been watching Linux distros leapfrog each other for the past decade, and it's been fascinating how far things have come in that time," Mack added. "Things have gone from needing a very advanced user to get an install to where most distros are on par with Windows -- and some are easier to install."

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