I have been running Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) for several days now, and I am mostly happy with it. I am finding a lot of things to be faster under this OS, including anything written in Java or C# (such as my Linux replacement for WLW, BloGTK). I thought for certain that I would be running Wine (WINdows Emulation environment) after a few days, but so far I have not needed it. Almost any software I need I can usually open Synaptic and grab fairly easily. My X-Window issue has been resolved, it was apparently a problem with the window manager running on the system I was connecting with (as well as me not knowing about “gnome-session”). I am finding it much more useful to connect to individual applications than to an entire desktop. I also think that X is a little sluggish. I will be giving VNC a try fairly soon.
I am really enjoying Linux for a variety of reasons, one of the biggest is Microsoft’s attempts at taking my shell away from me. Some power users like being able to interact directly with an operating system, and not be restricted to UI tools.
Less than a week on Ubuntu, so I can’t say this is a permenant change of OS (since Windows XP is just a reboot away), but it is a very nice change of pace which is allowing me to think about operating system design as well as the overall end user experience a little differently.