Ubuntu Karmic Koala is out for a bit. I've been running it for a week on my Aspire One netbook and so far have only good impressions.
The distribution upgrade went smoothly. I'm not surprised. Its Debian genes show reliability of upgrades. Yes, there were reports of upgrade problems on the interwebs, but so far as I understand they were related to binary blobs, i.e. closed source drivers and such, which is not surprising - it is hard to figure out whose responsibility it is to make them work properly - the infrastructure of a linux distro is very different from that of Windows or Mac OS X. It is unclear whose job it is to do trigger the updates if they were not handled by the default install in the first place - it is a very murky territory usability wise. But that is becoming a rather off-topic rant.
The upgraded netbook remix UI is a charm. I rather like its redesign, since it provides more screen space for icons and such when you use it and stays out of the way when you don't. For the netbook form factor it is the best thing I have tried so far. Compared to Moblin it is simpler and featureless, but that is normal - it is a destktop manager, rather than an integrated user interface,launcher,widget container...
Compositing and effects just work, if you are not too adventurous, but it is a lowly netbook after all.
Coming out of suspend or hibernation is fast. Really fast. Probably the biggest improvement since the last release.
Overall I'm quite happy with this Ubuntu release. My MacBook Pro doesn't get a lot of love, since I've mostly abandoned it for the face lifted Aspire One with the extra large booty. It is trustworthy, usually 6-7 hours of rough use on the replacement battery , looks are not bad, and the skin is just silky smooth wonderful.
