For those of you who can read French, I recommend taking a look at Olivier Ezratty’s blog and specifically at this post (Mise à jour de printemps) and at this post (A la découverte d’Ubuntu).
Olivier used to be a very senior executive with Microsoft France, a very important subsidiary for Microsoft as a whole. He is now an adviser for a number of start-ups so can give us an unbiased look at Ubuntu. His conclusions are very interesting and balanced. Don’t bother with the comments: some are interesting, most are just the usual French Microsoft-bashing that is so tiresome.