For Backup you could try crashplan. It's available for mac linux and windows.

For replacement of quicksilver you should give gnome-do a try. Really good.

I'll go back to my Mac-hating ways now

And it is equally true of all flavours of computer user that most stick to whatever the vendor (or distribution) define as /standard/ and even defend the software they happen to be made to use.

I for my part hate QuickSilver and love LaunchBar. Actually it was LaunchBar that started the whole typing-launcher-scan-your-harddisk-and-be-very-intelligent-about-it thingy. LaunchBar has been around since NeXTSTEP. Also QuickSilver is expandable before you make statements otherwise please check your facts. It has tons of plugins, but that doesn't make it more powerful than LaunchBar. For everything I do on LaunchBar I need at least two more keystrokes on QuickSilver… Yes and LaunchBar is not free and costs money. Oh my god, some people do like to say thank you if a developer does something great for them.

The Mac OS doesn't indicate what's good and bad either, I'm also using a ton of GPLed software on it (Smultron, Cyberduck you name it). And your notion like nothing in life worth doing is easy is also complete bullshit. I think sex really is not that difficult. And why should I have to do things that the computer is perfectly capable of doing for me, after all it's supposed to be a tool to make me more productive, isn't it? So what's bad about thing working perfectly together well integrated etc. BTW getting that to function surely wasn't easy for the Apple developers, so there.

It search for applications and documents based on their name and description and, of course, opens web pages. You get a nice list of all matches (hidden by default, but it’s just one click to activate).

It doesn’t support search inside documents. But I rarely need that and when I do it’s not hard to open a specialised application from the launcher (with the words I’m searching for as parameters).

If it fits your needs, then it’s a very nice launcher. It’s easier to use than any other alternative suggested here.

I use GQView as my image viewer. It’s fast and stable and integrates really good with traditional UNIX command line tools. Which means you can whip up any (and I really mean any) functionality you need as a “plugin” inside the graphic viewer effortless. That is, if you take the small effort to learn basic command line skills. The UNIX command line(s) is neither the most intuitive nor most effective command lines I’ve used, but it’s not as hard as most people think and it’s both more effective and simpler to master than the OSX graphical interface for most tasks. The only command you have to remember is man (as in MANual). Don’t be afraid, commandlineofobia is easy to cure.

It's interesting, though, that the implicit assumption is that the Mac must be better, and only those who can't afford a Mac should consider Linux. In our house, my wife uses a Mac, and I use Linux. I've tried the Mac a few times over the years – and I find the Mac way of doing things drives me out of my gourd with frustration in just a minutes, and I can't wait to get back to Linux.

For instance, I often hear that Mac's are intuitive and easy to use, yet I find the opposite to frequently be the case. As an example, who in their right mind would come up with the idea that you burn data to a CD by dragging its icon to the TRASH CAN!!?? That has got to rank as one of the worst interface design ideas I've ever run across!

It's very true that if you work with Linux, especially if you semi-randomly install software from all over the 'Net, sooner or later something will break. There is a lot of unfinished and unstable Linux software out there, since there is nobody to ensure any sort of quality control. It's also true that there is a lot of outstanding software available for Linux, Amarok and Firefox being examples. And Ubuntu/ Kubuntu, in particular, is making huge strides in adding the surface spit-n-polish that is so often lacking in many other Linux distributions. Kubuntu 8.10 looks pretty sharp right out of the box, with the new KDE 4.1 desktop.

For the record, I think Mac's have some nice things about them: I like the visual appearance of the OSX GUI. Other than that, though, I'm much, much, much happier working on my Linux boxes, and the cost of the hardware is not the reason why – if you gave me a new Mac for free, I'd wipe OSX off it and install Kubuntu rather than deal with the continual frustration I feel when dealing with Apple's OS.

-Gnobuddy

I read in the beginning that you installed rEFIt, there's no need to do that. There is a simpler way:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro#Ubun...
Using rEFIt was kind of a drawback for me when I thought about installing Ubuntu in my Mac, I knew there should have been a better way, so I searched for a while and found the solution… (then posted it in the Ubuntu wiki), so for new users who don't want to put some weird sounding rEFIt in their mac, this is the solution.

I hope people will get encourages to at least try Ubuntu as a Live CD.

Cheers

I appreciate that you're first and foremost a Mac user, but it looked in some places like you were trying to force Ubuntu to become the Mac OS. For instance, I think the fonts on Mac OS X and Windows Vista look blurry.

Kdenlive does crash, and it is very limited (it needs commercial sponsoring, IMHO), but it shouldn't cause problems booting. It's not low-level enough for that. Did you perhaps add the "Proposed" repository, which is a testing ground, to your Ubuntu?

Lastly, those problems you had wouldn't have occurred if you bought Linux preinstalled on a new computer, which is how "moms and pops" experience their operating system.

Otherwise, good review. Stick with Ubuntu; once you understand it a bit more you'll enjoy it more!

as – sadly – too few people have pointed out, deskbar applet is the application launcher you're missing.

Did try out the others – but deskbar applet just works … normally I'm a KDE-user, but I did try out Gnome for a while, and deskbar applet was the only reason I was seriously considering switching to Gnome for good …

The developer said he'd make it desktop-independent, so it can be used under KDE, too; looking forward to that.