I was hoping the article would express the opposite meaning of the ambiguous title.
You could look at the difficulty of generating a distribution that works perfectly before, during and after install, and see it as a usability problem as the article does.
For me, however, I see a major issue in the actual push for more 'usable' desktop environments (gnome 3, unity etc.)
I'm a Linux fanatic, and I've used it long enough to know it is an operating system for enthusiasts, tinkerers and professionals. Non-technical users can most certainly enjoy using it, however at some point they'll need to roll up their sleeves. Has anyone ever installed a Linux distribution (or any operating system) and not had a single problem? Guess what, there's no Linux Store on 5th ave. Drive your own car, and all that. Sure, there's webforums galore, but if we're talking non-technical users, we're talking about people who wouldn't be able to articulate the problem in the first place.
I think Debian's switch to XFCE was a great choice. The taskbar/menubar is a workhorse. When people boot into a zoomy more 'user-friendly' environment and are met with technical issues, they feel only the more cheated. It's time the more 'user-friendly' distro's woke up and realized who actually uses their software.
>"Has anyone ever installed a Linux distribution (or any operating system) and not had a single problem?"
I've installed Ubuntu several times without any problem. Windows on the other-hand took me 3 installation attempts to get working (It was something about the order I ran windows updates and when I installed the 1 program I needed windows for)
You could look at the difficulty of generating a distribution that works perfectly before, during and after install, and see it as a usability problem as the article does.
For me, however, I see a major issue in the actual push for more 'usable' desktop environments (gnome 3, unity etc.)
I'm a Linux fanatic, and I've used it long enough to know it is an operating system for enthusiasts, tinkerers and professionals. Non-technical users can most certainly enjoy using it, however at some point they'll need to roll up their sleeves. Has anyone ever installed a Linux distribution (or any operating system) and not had a single problem? Guess what, there's no Linux Store on 5th ave. Drive your own car, and all that. Sure, there's webforums galore, but if we're talking non-technical users, we're talking about people who wouldn't be able to articulate the problem in the first place.
I think Debian's switch to XFCE was a great choice. The taskbar/menubar is a workhorse. When people boot into a zoomy more 'user-friendly' environment and are met with technical issues, they feel only the more cheated. It's time the more 'user-friendly' distro's woke up and realized who actually uses their software.