This time, however, the timing is particularly fortuitous.

As the PC-using world braces itself not just for the release of next week but also the end of life of Windows XP in 2014, the new offers a raft of widely anticipated new features and a fresh alternative to what Canonical calls "the pain of Windows 8."

I spoke on Wednesday with Steve George, Canonical's vice president of communications and products, about this latest desktop release and the OS landscape facing users today. Here's a rundown of what he told me.

In a nutshell, the desktop version of Ubuntu 12.10 focuses on two key areas, both driven by users' increasing tendency to spend their days in a mix of local and online apps, George said.