I think Ubuntu goes a long way towards providing the "out of the box" experience for non-technical people while still retaining the control and "under the hood" experience for the Linux zealots. Someone can sit down at a box with Ubuntu installed and get to a web browser or word processing without breaking into a sweat (which is more than you can usually say for Linux distros). There are certainly quirks that some experienced Linux people aren't fond of but the Ubuntu community forums have been very helfpul for me in working through those quirks...