I would add ease of installation except I see a common flaw in the installation process: Default install is to wipe the hard drive clean. Some one unfamiliar with partitioning might accidentally wipe out their Windows or OSX OS. This is not unique to Ubuntu but I have only tried a few distros so far. A default installation that would recommend saving your existing "other OS" partition and shrinking it to allow about 20% more room on it than is currently used would be useful to make this less "dangerous" to someone new to this. Or, perhaps a better way of steering a person through manual partitioning, with recommendations, etc., to allow an easier installation for a newbie.

Other than the USB problem, which is slated to be fixed in the next release, I have no real problems with this OS and didn't find the installation all that confusing, but I am familiar with partitioning.

I would like to see QTparted as the partition manager as it "understands" how to resize NTFS partitions. The included Gparted does not. Other than that, Gparted worked well for me. I used a Knoppix disk that has QTparted on it to make room on another drive (it had to shrink a NTFS partition to do so).

Also, I would like to see a faster problem resolution when something like the USB_Suspend bug prevents users from being able to use their scanners and some other USB devices. The developers felt it was not a big enough issue to fix it in a kernel update and told the community that it would have to wait for the next release, even though the bug was known to be a problem when Feisty was released. Other distros worked quicker than this to address the problem.

Like many I'm no longer a Ubuntu fan. There the Microsoft of the Linux world at this point which is why many of us went to Mint. But in either case I think their installer is foolproof for newbs as it gives you paragraphs of descriptions of what will happen. If you have Win installed the default action is to dual boot. If you had nothing it wouldn't be an issue to begin with. As far as the partitioning scheme sure they could have went with a better program.....but the Ubuntu, they go with what THEY like, not what the people want, or should have. I like to stick with distros that at least acknowledge their community. Having a big corporation with deep pockets can be good sometimes, but always ends the same way I'm sure if Linux every truly went mainstream it would probably be them though.

I don't think it's as ambiguous/confusing as you suggest:

http://assets.ubuntu.com/sites/ubunt...-install-4.jpg

That first choice of using the entire drive is the very best method of never, ever having another problem with your Win JerryLewis Pro install.

If you have never installed Windows you are probably unaware that it is nearly impossible for anyone not VERY familiar with the installer to give it any instruction as to where or how to install it. I do think I have heard that W7 will actually install and work if you don't install it first if you know what you are doing.

Debian, which I use, has been around for more than 20 years now, with a gui DE. Windows was a bit later than that coming out with 3.5 or what ever it was.

There is no reason, what so ever, for any OS installer to default to pandering to users wanting to use some mickey mouse OS. Gnu/Linux distros usually do offer that option. Because they are put out by nice people that think YOU should actually have the choice of what you have on YOUR box.

I don't corrupt my box by installing these alternative OS's because they are childish, giving me no power over what I actually can do on MY box because they appear to assume I am retarded.

You are welcome to have that sort of thing on YOUR box. That is up to you.

This doesn't mean that when I install on MY box that I should have anything other than the option of installing on the entire disk as the default choice.

I, by the way, started using computers with MSDos from a CLI booted from a floppy. Moved "up" to Win 3.5 (I am pretty sure it wasn't 3.4). Windows, which started with 95 has never been as reliable as MSDos was. Easier to use for sure. Better is very questionable. My wife and I don't allow that kind of crap in our house. You, for instance, would be very welcome here, if you have a Windows phone, or portable device with Windows installed on it, running or not, they will need to stay outside. We don't allow even second hand security risks inside.