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I love to read these breathless reports of a “user-friendly Linux”....

We’ve been reading them since, what, the last 10 years?

Here’s the problem: Good GUI design is *hard*. It takes a lot of thought about how people use computers. Most of the people who are involved in Linux development don’t have the time to think hard for a long time.

The way Apple got a clean UI was that they had a UI guy known as “The Tog” (aka Bruce Tognazzini) who would ride herd on app developers. In the very early days of Mac development, if you put out an app on the Mac that had a goofy UI, you might get a call from The Tog, offering to help you smooth it out. It worked, because after awhile, the critical mass of apps that did things “the correct way” became established, which pretty much gave new app developers a big body of examples of how to handle various things.

Linux has no such UI visionary - so you have a bunch of people all riding off in different directions, with X11 and a toolkit in hand. X11 for UI is already bad enough, but without a single look-n-feel for the UI... it will take half of forever to arrive at a truly “user friendly Linux.”

I attended LinuxCon last year, and everyone was touting Linux on the Desktop.....mmmhhhhhh......yeah, right. While i am a huge fan of the -ix systems/OS’s, they aren’t quite ready from Grandma or Grandpa. Don’t really think they will be unless folks can’t afford a commercial OS (wouldn’t be surprised, but then they probably won’t be able to afford electricity either).

The IX’s are better relegated to the back office, where they are reliable, steady, fast and CHEAP. But, maybe one of these days.

Ubuntu has done a good job with their kernel and UI, but i wouldn’t make my father use it just yet.

The reason the mac GUI is god is that they stole it from Xerox. The star interface was cleaner than any I have seen since (circa 1985). The only problem with the star system was it ran on a 8 bit system and the OS was way to much for the hardware. I told the xerox engineers they needed a 32 bit system and they just looked at me like I was from mars.

You miss the point, NVDave. Windows and Apple provide a single GUI experience. Linux provides several. KDE, Gnome, etc. You can pick and choose what you want. Sure setting it up might be hard for most people, but if you feel Linux lacks a great desktop experience then create one! Sky is the limit.

On a side note, Ubuntu sucks. It’s Linux for Windows users.

This is an OLD argument. KDE sorta proves the point is incorrect. Android, et al - absolutely buries the argument.

Can we something else now.

Seriously, any even slightly experienced user can pick up a Mac, or Linux box, or Windows 7 box and get work done. They are all THAT SIMILAR.