Please give it a try! (linux64 conda builds are available on the tacaswell anaconda.org channel)

https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/releases/tag/v1.5.0rc1

This release contains many new features.  The highlights include:

  - the object oriented API will now automatically re-draw the figure when working in the command line
  - automatic unpacking of labeled data into most plotting functions
  - arbitrary style cycling
  - four new perceptually linear color maps
  - mouse-over for pixel values with `imshow`
  - many new rcparams
 
In addition there are significant improvements to `nbagg` and a complete overhaul of the c++ bindings to AGG.

Please see the drafts of the [full whats new](http://matplotlib.org/devdocs/users/whats_new.html#new-in-matplotlib-1-5) and [api changes](http://matplotlib.org/devdocs/api/api_changes.html#changes-in-1-5-0)