Ubuntu 9.10 - Karmic Koala

The Good:

• This is the first release in which Pulseaudio has been usable enough to remain installed. Configuration is relatively easy and reliable, with only very occasional problems.
• Default desktop effects are reliable, and don't cause loss of functionality which previously included such things as: Loss of expected Metacity behaviour and lagginess when watching videos.
  

The Bad:

• Not exactly the fastest installer in the world.
• Installing the boot loader to the root partition has been, and still doesn't work as expected.
• Replacing Pidgin with the feature-lacking Empathy as the default instant messenger was not a good move. Empathy lacks support for file-transfers and voice and video for common protocols, nor does it work behind proxies, which are common for institutional users.
  

Overall, not as good as Jaunty. 7/10.