[kfcm]

There's just one problem with your post: you're thinking like a technologist, and not like an end-user.

End-users don't want to have to learn an entirely new UI (read, a different way of doing things; or, "Where's my Start button? Everything I know how to do is under that.") every couple of years. Not because they're (all) dumb, stupid, or lazy.

It's because end-users view a computer as a tool to do what they need/want to do--quickly and efficiently. Anything that distracts from that (like having to re-learn where everything is, and how to do the task they've done the same way for several years) is a negative and annoyance.

Unfortunately, the technology community has forgotten that.

[bryanlarsen]

Which is one reason why the 6 month model that the Linux community has adopted is so great. Every 6 months Unity or Gnome3 or KDE4 incorporate some improvements, but the differences are not major and are easy to learn or ignore. But over time these differences accumulate and become significant real improvements. We get to have our cake and eat it too.

And hopefully these environments have learned their lessons now and haven't incurred the large technical and design debt that necessitate large breaking changes. KDE is up to 4.8 now but nobody is talking about a massive rewrite for KDE5 -- it's just another incremental update. OS X appears to be moving towards this sort of model too, with fairly regular yearly updates. Windows is the only one bucking this trend with its major upcoming breaking change in "Metro". And they're getting pummelled for it.

[javert]

There's just one problem with your post: you're thinking like a technologist, and not like an end-user.

Well, a lot of people who use and hack on Linux distros aren't targeting the "end-user," they're targeting the technologist. So that mindset is not necessarily a problem.

[PakG1]

If we're going in that direction, then everyone's participating in a different conversation. The original conversation was not whether or not this is a non-problem because end-users have issues. The original conversation was why hasn't Linux been adopted by end-users at the same rate as other OS's, if it's superior in so many ways.

[ktizo]

Is funny, cos in the games industry the concept is that the average end users are completely willing to learn a completely new UI for each and every game, as long as it is fun.

[DanBC]

That's true, but it's something I hate about games. Having to learn a different button layout for every game is really frustrating.

[ktizo]

You can't have a consistent button layout across all games though, as there is far too wide a variety of different functions to be mapped to.

Also, by having the attitude that the user is willing to invest time learning how to use the game, there is far more experimentation in interface styles being done.