I picked up an Ubuntu CD at OSCON and have now installed it on my macbook pro. I have no qualms saying this version (8.04) is easily the best Linux experience I've ever had...
I had to connect to ethernet to get first batch of updates which also let me get ndiswrapper and appropriate driver for my wifi card.
once I had that, wifi connected and it was a single apt-get command to get the proper bluetooth module so my mouse would work. then I started downloading and playing with the new compiz stuff. I have to say, compiz effects blow away Mac OS X effects, though they're not quite as pragmatically integrated into everyday uses.
I fired up pidgin and got connected to our company jabber and my google talk account. similar simplicity and ease with Evolution for company email (though I also started trying Zembra Desktop since OSCON).
our setup at sf.net is kinda unique in that we have our own sandbox sites that we can access and edit via webdav, so I did a simple apt-get for davfs2, made the necessary mods to /etc/fstab and I was able to vim edit some code. but I decided to go looking for linux php editors. I tried bluefish and jedit and liked jedit much more - its performance with the webdav-mounted dir was much better.
I also exported my del.icio.us bookmarks and imported them over into Ubuntu firefox. and I installed GnomeDo because I'm a quicksilver junkie.
total time was probably 2 hours or so - much better than any of my other previous jaunts into Linux. large credit to the high-quality ubuntu wiki.
so I'm thinking to try out a full day of ubuntu tomorrow. my only concern is webex, though there is a native Linux client.
