Ubuntu is taking the right road to develop the most user-friendly Linux distribution possible. The Jaunty Jackalope is a very good release packing a lot of improvements, featuring shorter boot times, Gnome 2.26, comprehensive disk burning etc..
You do not need to install Ubuntu on your hard disk to give it a try, you can run it from the CD as a live distribution or install it like any other program in your Windows operating system with the help of the WUBI installer.
Gnome 2.26 itself packs a lot of features. Aside from the hundreds of bugfixes, the headlines are the very-well integrated Brasero CD and DVD burning which makes recording optical media as easy as a couple of clicks. The file manager makes it very easy to share your files and folders over WebDAV, HTTP and Bluetooth. Evolution is also improved and now has better support for Microsoft Exchange environments. MAPI support (the protocol which Outlook uses to connect to Microsoft Exchange) is implemented and now Evolution can better connect to Exchange servers. In addition, the Outlook pst files (personal folders) can be imported into Evolution without the need for a third party application. Previously this could be done by importing pst data to Thunderbird and then from Thunderbird to Evolution. Gnome's native Media Player now supports UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) and DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) protocols. That means, Gnome Media Player can now connect easily to other devices at your home which support UPnP or DLNA.
For the users who use with more than one display, such as the ones who install Ubuntu to their notebooks and take it to the meetings and presentations, the external displays are now easy to configure. You just select the second monitor's size, resolution and refresh rate (if they are not automatically recognized, which is a very rare case) and click on the second display to switch to that one. The support for fingerprint readers is also improved. You can go to System → Preferences → About me and record your fingerprint.
Gnome's Instant Messaging platform, Empathy, offers an enriched video and VOIP features. The underlying framework is Telepathy and it is improved so as to support file transfers, chat room invite, sound themes and notifications.
You will immediately notice the faster start-up time with the Ubuntu Jaunty. The Computer Janitor is one of the features that the users will like most, since it allows you to clean your computer without going through the apt-get autoclean process.
There are some minor issues which are hibernation problems, X server crashes with Wacom tablets etc. but these do not shadow the power of Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope in any way. Ubuntu developers have really come a long way to make the distribution user friendly, easy and a complete replacement for the other operating systems. So far it is excellent and I believe the future release will be one more step to perfection.