This is nothing new for Ubuntu, which has always considered itself to have obligations to its end users. This is why it's so successful, and this is certainly why I love it so much. As I mentioned in my last blog posting, Ubuntu is one of the few community versions of Linux where the end-user is king, and not subordinate to a group of enthusiastic developers. For users of Windows or OS X it might sound insane that somebody other than the user of the OS might be considered most important in the scheme of things. But that's just how it is with Linux.

I'm also aware that the Mini 9 was Ubuntu's first ride-out on a netbook, so things were probably going to be a bit shaky (and, yeah, I know about , and how it's evolved Dell's Ubuntu rendition quite significantly).

However, I expected my experience of Ubuntu on the Mini 9 to be better -- to be tighter, more integrated, more professional. I've managed to hack my system into shape, of course. To me, that's actually a fun thing to do. But to the ubiquitous newbie who's heard great things about Ubuntu and wants to give it a shot, that's asking a lot (and, trust me, there are a lot of Ubuntu newbies -- my own free Ubuntu guide has been downloaded over 500,000 times, and I recently learned that gets around 700 new memberships every day). If I'm to buy another netbook in future, and should it be running Linux, it would be great if all these little irritations were taken care of so that, after booting for the first time, all I have to do is set my favorite wallpaper and just start working. After all, I wouldn't expect anything less from a Windows or Mac OS X computer. Why should a commercially-purchased computer running Linux be an exception?

Keir Thomas is the award-winning author of several books on Ubuntu, including .