[stinos]

our superior operating system is only superior to computer savvy users who are able to fix what they break and configure what they buy and who have the patience to figure-out things like why a configuration made in the KDE UI disappears at reboot. Hint–it might be because that particular configuration in your particular distro must be made in the distro’s configuration panel which overwrites anything done in KDE’s panel, even though it’s a KDE configuration. How many grandmothers will figure that out

now that is how you hit a nail straight on the head. In the last 15years or so I tried many times to turn to the desktop, but it's exactly issues like this (which are, under my impression at least, way more common on the desktop than on the cli) that make me stick with the command line linux and enjoy it in all it's glory. If I want a desktop I still use Windows. Or OsX if I must.

[davexunit]

There are many perfectly usable, free, desktop environments to choose from on GNU/Linux. I just can't take complaints like this seriously.

[stinos]

yes there are such environments. Never denied that. But as I said, I consider them only perfectly usable for computer savvy users who are able to fix what they break and configure what they buy and spend time on it. That last part kills it for me.

[vertex-four]

Honestly, as a current Debian Wheezy user... this isn't true any more. I haven't had to fix anything since I installed it. It's all Just Worked.

If it didn't just work, I'd've bought a Windows license, as I have previously done. This is, in fact, the first Linux install that I've continued using for over a couple of months.

The "it's not very usable" argument was correct in the old GNOME2/KDE3 world, but at least GNOME3 is exceptionally usable and the OS is extremely stable.

[stinos]

It's probably better than it used to be. But it just keeps on coming back to me. Like last month I downloaded a live CD of the latest Debian because I coulnd't find the one I normally use, and it didn't even want to start X. Not on an old pc with a recent graphics card, not on a new one with another recent graphics card. Not generalizing this to everything and maybe I just have bad luck but things like that are an unfortunately large part of my experience with desktop linux.

[davexunit]

I haven't used a live CD of Debian, but you should know that since Debian Squeeze, nonfree graphics drivers are not included. Perhaps that was an issue? If you want something that "just works", use a Debian derivative like Ubuntu. Debian is great and I use it on a few of my machines because I can install a minimal set of packages and build on top of it.

[mikevm]

> It's all Just Worked.

Try making the fonts pretty on non-Ubuntu distros. Good luck making it "just work".

[davexunit]

I have never noticed what people have been complaining about regarding fonts. Ubuntu uses some freetype patches that have not been accepted upstream, right? The fonts look just fine to me. It's a very minor gripe at best.

[davexunit]

And you would be wrong. GNOME 3, Cinnamon, Unity, etc. are all made for "regular people" to use and they work just fine when I have used them. I think you are perpetuating a popular myth that GNU/Linux desktop environments are only for so called "power users" and programmers.

[ctb_mg]

FWIW, they did give a valid use case and a valid issue in their initial post -- regarding configuration of distro vs. desktop environment. However, I don't know how valid that problem is in many Linux desktop environments today. There have been leaps and bounds in terms of usability and smoothing out the user experiences on Linux desktop environments lately.

[ckozlowski]

I agree.

It's also why Windows does work on the desktop. For all of its issues, it works the vast majority of the time. I never truly appreciated it as an OS until I tried using something else as a daily, desktop OS.

[ctb_mg]

Counterpoint -- this could be just that you are used to using a tool, and any other tool would initially be unfamiliar, unintuitive, and difficult.

People stick to what works for them until a compelling value proposition comes along. Indeed, the value proposition of FOSS to the average user isn't compelling (yet).