writing this on Ubuntu 10.04 does me, XP only for things with "Drivers".
I haven't really found a reason to be entirely happy about about any os, I've found most crash eventually. Ubuntu usually crashes for something Java based, but that's also true for XP. XP is a such a bloat but everything as such works out of the box, Ubuntu works but for instance this laptop, I have had to rebuild the kernel just to get the wireless working, and again to get a usb sat receiver working and a 3rd time for another usb serial device. That required a lot of googling and to me, this still isnt ready for the main stream.
Another point...if rebuilding is the only option, it doesn't matter how many times, the kernel is never as stable as the generic that came with the install, and often the graphics goes potty or core dump occurs. they really need to find a way of getting away from rebuilding kernels, the computer must boot to x regardless of the users attempts to break it.