I gave up on Ubuntu when I could no longer have faith that my environment would be recognisable from one release to the next. For me, and my mother, that's a very important part of "just works".
Some would say that is the meaning of being stagnant. If you want something that "just works" in that the environment is recognisable, use something like Redhat.
You caught Ubuntu (or Fedora or other distributions that moved to GNOME 3) were on GNOME 2 greater part of the last decade. A breaking UI change had to be done at some point, and it happened to be 2 years ago. Even on macs, there was a huge overhaul going from OS9 to OSX in 2001.
You can make a point saying that you don't like the new UI. That will be a much more sound argument than saying the environment is changing from one release to the next.
If you want something stable that doesn't change much from one release to the next, you could just not upgrade. Ubuntu LTS releases are supported for 5 years, and that support includes backporting hardware-enablement work.
Sticking to LTS releases was actually the worst way to do this as it meant catching 10.04 which was effectively a "one off" UI, resulting in two changes to the UI rather than one big overhaul.
My mother started off on 8.04 LTS. When upgrading to 10.04 LTS the window buttons changed sides and there was a new theme (this is enough to throw many users). When upgrading to 12.04 LTS there was a change from Gnome to Unity.
My mother now chooses to use a Mac because she was fed up with her computer "changing" each time I updated it. I doubt I could convince her to try any Linux distribution again - there are no perceivable benefits for her.
I feel like 10.04 was a real high point -- I was running it the desktop for a long while, and the netbook edition was great on smaller screens. The netbook shell was a one off, it only was 10.04, and I think it's nearly impossible to install now. Unity was a descendent of it, but (IMHO) going the wrong way.
You can always install a different windows manager and stay with a Gnome-like interface (Cinnamon). I don't see what is the big issue with that. There are tons of options on Linux, that's the whole point of the system, it gives you choice.
I use Window Maker. I've been using it pretty much exclusively since 8.x or so, and I used it before I used Ubuntu, going back to before Ubuntu even existed. It hasn't changed, and it doesn't look like it's ever going to. Your criticism sounds very strange to me.
Edited to add: Not that I think Window Maker is necessarily the solution. I'm just pointing out that the default Ubuntu repos contain a huge number of window managers and even a few desktop environments which haven't changed that much between releases.
Ubuntu has been spotty for me. Lots of breaking changes even within releases.
Using openSUSE 12.3 with 3.7.11+ kernel on a Thinkpad T530 (Intel graphics, 9 cell battery) I get 4-12 hours of battery life (depends on usage; coding and work on a dimmer brightness gets me 10-12 hours, watching movies and playing games with the brightness higher up gets me ~4-5 hours).
Newer kernels seem to have regressed as far as power consumption goes, I was trying the 3.10 kernel and getting 2-3 hours of battery life...
You need minimal effort to get these right. Powertop suggested configuration gets my X61t to 6h battery life, whereas windows gets slightly more (about 30min). Heat is not an issue, but fan control is. The correction is just installing thinkfan, for a much quieter laptop.
Really, at least with thinkpads, the just works excuse is just that: an excuse.
Looking forward to my X1 Carbon, already in the mail :-)
Unfortunately I bought into this "thinkpads just work with linux" hype and got a thinkpad - only to discover that the wifi frequently craps out because linux doesn't support well whatever intel wifi thing it comes with, and of late hibernate/suspend is broken too. It really doesn't seem like linux will ever change.
When discussing whether "linux just works" it is unfair to use a thinkpad as your reference platform. For as long as I can remember the thinkpad has had stellar linux support. The other x86 choices have only recently begun to catch up with the thinkpad and there is still some work to do.
I say this as a 17 year linux only user. I am not trying to disparage linux, I just want to point out that the thinkpad is an exceptional case.
I do not think it is a good idea to make a rule out of the exception. I still believe in the cause--I want linux to reach more users. In order to achieve the goal of wider user acceptance I think it is important to make sure prospective users have realistic (bordering on pessimistic) expectations when trying linux out for the first time.
When a reasonably prudent consumer hears "OSX runs great on my macbook" they do not come away thinking that OSX will run great on any laptop. They know or have heard that "PCs and Macs are different."
When a reasonably prudent consumer hears "linux just works, well at least it works on my thinkpad" they might get the impression that the same can be said for any other "PC laptop." For the vast majority of the computer using population thinkpads and dell/acer/etc laptops are essentially interchangeable. Unless people know of the long and torrid romance between kernel developers and the thinkpad they will be oblivious to differences between thinkpads and every other major laptop brand.
You have to buy hardware that runs the software you want to run. This has always been the case, and always will be the case; it's just in the nature of things. I can't say of my own knowledge whether a ThinkPad is the only laptop that runs Linux well, but if that is true, then obviously you have to buy a ThinkPad if you want to run Linux, just as you have to buy a Mac if you want to run OS X.
I tried to do ubuntu + thinkpad (also fedora + thinkpad), but after two weeks I still couldn't get external monitors to work, and neither could anyone in IT.
This is hard to believe. My non-technical wife can set up a second monitor on my ThinkPad running SUSE (she'll hook it up to our Plasma TV to watch XBMC). It's as easy as plugging it in... The first time you may need to change some settings under 'Displays', but maybe not.
If this was on nvidia back before nouveau, I can believe it. nvidia's drivers have never supported xrandr, so you need to do everything through their proprietary tools. My thinkpad hotplugs displays with no trouble at all these days, but I vaguely recall having trouble with nvidia's drivers about five years ago.
Fantastic; I'm glad to hear it. I've been using nouveau for the past couple of years because of this issue; sounds like it's time to try nvidia's drivers again.
I feel that is no longer a valid excuse. I use ubuntu on thinkpads, and it just works.
I see people around me with more issues with their OS X machines in fact. That might be just anecdotal, of course.