We should all be happy that there is an opensource operating system and it has not only survived but thrived in this competitive world, propitiatory software companies continue to use their muscle and power to block the growth of opensource operating systems. So, long live open source and long live Ubuntu. I have been using debian since around 1998, I have used knoppix for a little bit, but switched to Ubuntu when they made their initial release Warty. Ubuntu has evolved over the years, not just the desktop but also on servers, cloud, juju charms etc. And on online services like Ubuntuone file sharing and music. Supports multiple architectures, and has a great open source community participation. It takes a little unlearning to start liking Unity, in 11.04 I often switched to Classic Gnome, but since I installed 11.10 I realized what I have been missing all along. You can drive the entire desktop without touching your mouse! For a programmer like me that is a blessing. I can understand that Unity 3D can be a drag on some older laptops but Unity 2D probably will do the job. If you really have issues with broken packages and unsupported hardware please report a bug, reporting bug is so easy it is done automatically when a crash is detected or you can manually file it from command line using 'ubuntu-bug'.