I don't understand this reasoning. No one forces you to compile from source or even use the terminal. Likewise no one needs to touch the Windows registry or firewall settings if they don't want to.
There's a distro for almost everything and there's certainly one for the unassuming family PC - Ubuntu. It passes the "Mom test" for me and keeps my technology hesitant mother very happy. Email, web browsing, online banking, photo sharing, printing/scanning just works. If anything it's easier than "that Windows thing" (as she describes it). The Dash in Unity and the Launcher 'just work' and have made computing a much more pleasant experience for her. With the exception of very occasional hardware support issues (I change printers maybe every 2 years) it's more than convinced me Ubuntu is a very viable family OS.
There's a distro for almost everything and there's certainly one for the unassuming family PC - Ubuntu. It passes the "Mom test" for me and keeps my technology hesitant mother very happy. Email, web browsing, online banking, photo sharing, printing/scanning just works. If anything it's easier than "that Windows thing" (as she describes it).
Even if that were true (which I dispute, even in recent weeks GRUB broke after an upgrade on my Linux machine, resulting in an unbootable machine). What is the incentive for the average user? They already have a computer that came with Windows for 'free'. Tablets are many times simpler than either Ubuntu or Windows.
"Even if that were true (which I dispute, even in recent weeks GRUB broke after an upgrade on my Linux machine, resulting in an unbootable machine)."
I'm glad it's not just me.
Last year, I installed Ubuntu Linux via WUBI. After an update, some GRUB/kernel incompatibility left Ubuntu Linux unbootable. (At least, after far too much research, my best estimate was that it was a GRUB/kernel incompatibility.)
I was laughed at for using WUBI at all, and in shame, decided to install Ubuntu Linux in a dual boot configuration. Which worked... for a while.
At some point, Ubuntu Linux offered to upgrade itself to a newer version. It failed part way through with some obscure error message, and left Ubuntu Linux... you guessed it... unbootable.
Once again, I was laughed at. "Everyone knows you shouldn't try to upgrade Ubuntu Linux; do a fresh install instead." sigh
Also, Ubuntu Linux got fat (for lack of a better word). In the past, I could count on Ubuntu Linux to extend the life of old hardware, but frankly, modern versions do not appear to perform any better than Windows 7.
All of these problems, and Ubuntu Linux is supposed to be the easy distribution? For now, I've given up, and I'm back on Windows 7, which hasn't caused me any trouble.
This is one of the reasons I stick to LTS releases (Long Term Support). The releases between LTS are sort of "unstable" in comparison (for a lack of a better way of putting it).
Personally, I have had no issues upgrading from one LTS to another LTS system.
I agree, however, that there should be more work done on the upgrade system. It is a sort 50/50 in a lot of peoples eyes.
With that said: Ubuntu is not the only distro out there that is easy to use. There are other distro's out there that are built on Ubuntu - Linux Mint, Xubuntu, Kubuntu etc. etc. etc. - that may be more suitable for some people. With Ubuntu 12.04, things are really starting to look up. It is becoming a rather nice, usable system, regardless of the controversy of Unity. Yes, there are issues with 12.04 right now. For instance OpenGL performance under Unity is bad. With Steam coming on board, I will bet it will be fixed in due time.
Anyway, yes issues are still around. Though, really, it isn't as bad as your luck, I guess? I don't mean that in any condescending way, of course. I just think perhaps you might want to take another gander at it some time.
Anyway, Ubuntu has become the norm in my parents household. Yes, a new laptop or computer will come with Windows pre-installed, but what happens when you need to reinstall windows? This happens more than one may think. You have to worry about installing those darn drivers off the DVD that laptop came with (sometimes, it won't even come with a Windows DVD).
For my Mother this is not going to go over too well. In fact this happened and she spent an afternoon trying to install her new system. Enter Ubuntu -> Stuck in the USB key, filled in user info, clicked on what timezone to use and everything else was smooth as butter. No driver install disks. Everything just worked.
Sure, mileage may vary among the newest and greatest hardware. I'll grant that. However, those same new systems come with driver CD's coupled with a lot of useless software that just so happens to be checked for install by default.
What happens when you need to reinstall Windows? You use the restore disc that they give you with all the drivers installed. It comes with them more often than one may think.
More seriously though, I don't know a huge bunch about drivers on Linux. What makes Ubuntu better than Windows and the array of drivers it comes with?
Ubuntu has most of the drivers included in the kernel, while windows installs new drivers as needed. For normal computer use, this is an icon in the taskbar saying 'installing device drivers', but when you are on a fresh install, you need to install them yourself.
I recently reinstalled my Dell Inspiron 1420 (after having deleted the recovery partition). They did provide a drivers cd, but I had to click through them 1 at a time.
Obviously, this isn't Microsofts fault, as they do not have the rights to most of the drivers, but in Linux, the norm is to GPL drivers, and put them in mainline kernel, where they will be enabled on all general purpose distributions.
There's a distro for almost everything and there's certainly one for the unassuming family PC - Ubuntu. It passes the "Mom test" for me and keeps my technology hesitant mother very happy. Email, web browsing, online banking, photo sharing, printing/scanning just works. If anything it's easier than "that Windows thing" (as she describes it). The Dash in Unity and the Launcher 'just work' and have made computing a much more pleasant experience for her. With the exception of very occasional hardware support issues (I change printers maybe every 2 years) it's more than convinced me Ubuntu is a very viable family OS.