Well, with the official launch of Intrepid Ibex (8.10) upcoming, I decided to do some pretty serious testing today to determine the use of Dual Booting, and I think I've determined that the new version of Ubuntu is ready to take over my entire 1.5TB of disk space among multiple drives. I have yet to find anything that won't run:
Games:
X-Plane: it runs beautifully, even faster on this build than previous versions of Ubuntu, and much faster than Windows Vista or XP
World of Warcraft: yes, I'm a dweeb sometimes, but WoW is something that has always been a bit of a pain to configure and run in Linux. Now, installing Wine (not really a Windows emulator) is easy as pie, and WoW runs with very little configuration, only one change to the default setup to use OpenGL instead of DirectX.
Joystick Support: Previously, it was a bit of a convoluted process to get multiple joysticks running simultaneously. Now, as many joysticks as you want to plug in seem to work fine (I have my CH Products Yoke, my CH Pro Pedals, a Saitex Cyborg Joystick, my X-Box Controller and my PS2 controller working, and all work fine).
Applications
Microsoft Office 2007: Yes, I know that openoffice.org beats the heck out of Microsoft Office in almost every way, but in all reality, Microsoft Office is the standard, and it actually works flawlessly in Wine. This is the first time I've seen Microsoft Office install without any crazy Wine registry hacks or anything. It was quite simply a matter of installing it exactly the same way you would in Windows.
openoffice.org: Obviously, for those people who don't want to use Microsoft Office, openoffice.org is a real, viable, free solution, with the entire suite of products available matching Microsoft Office, and the latest version will even open docx and pptx files!
Flash support: Previously, in Firefox, it was a giant pain in the butt to install flash. Unlike in other browsers and operating systems, one could not automatically install a flash plugin by following the onscreen prompts, as the user was always given a message saying that the necessary plugin was not available. Not anymore, now, just like in Windows and Macintosh (presumably) browsers, simply going to a site with Flash content will prompt you to install Flash, and when permission is granted, it automatically installs without complication.
Media Support: This is something that was fixed many, many builds ago. When opening MP3s, WMVs, etc. one only needs to open the file, and he is prompted to install the necessary codec without any additional necessary input from the user.
Now, the one big thing that has always plagued Ubuntu installs previously was wifi support. I'm not a computer noob by any stretch of the imagination, but setting up wifi on my router was a giant pain in every other build of Ubuntu, and every other flavor of Linux as well. Not anymore! Wifi worked out of the box on my Laptop, for the first time since Edgy Eft (6.10).
This bodes very well for Ubuntu's future, IMHO. Dell is still selling the N-Series laptop, I figure it will only be time before more OEM manufacturers follow suit! The important thing is that Ubuntu is no longer an alternative to Windows. It now stands on its own on its own merits. As more people try it, I think more people will finally make the jump.
The only thing that is left before Ubuntu is ready for primetime to everyone is a data migration system, where the user can keep their favorites, emails, and documents from a previous Windows or Macintosh installation, via some sort of wizard. Sure its possible, but for the complete novice this is the deal breaker still.
Since I'm bored, and I have nothing better to do, I'm willing to test drive any software someone wants, and I'll give a blow by blow on how it works!
