I've used Ubuntu to recover Windows passwords for others. It works. Like I stated previously it works well enough for FR to use it. It is a little more important than Jobs quitting(again) imo.
It makes a nice rescue disk and maybe a good server, but for a personal desktop it still stinks. I used Linux as a desktop for a couple of years, but eventually had to go to Windows XP for compatibility and ease of use. Every year I go back and try a few distros. This year I got all sorts of application crashes, locked up the kernel playing a Youtube video, all sorts of trouble using all the buttons on a Logitech mouse, and worst of all, a keylogger in a Fedora spin distro stole my ID and password and tried to break into one of my email accounts.
The Linux community is its own worst enemy.