I'm really confused here, you talk about problems with Ubuntu and being a representative of the average Joe, but something tells me the situation is quite the o

I'm really confused here, you talk about problems with Ubuntu and being a representative of the average Joe, but something tells me the situation is quite the opposite. I entered the Linux world with no knowledge of it at all and had no relevant education. My computer expertise was building them myself and Windows general use. Ubuntu 10.04 at the time was my first experience, and while it was unfamiliar to me the (old) gnome desktop gave me an easy time of it, imo. I wasn't trying to do anything heroic, I wanted a desktop that did the stuff I wanted, and it did. I should think that more represents the average Joe. That said nowadays I hate Ubuntu, I feel it brings little of what it is supposed to bring on the software side. When you have a problem, the OS is so cluttered there are multiple solutions that may or may not work for any given issue, that sets the entry bar far, far higher than for instance getting into a desktop environment from the ground up in Arch. As an advanced user your mistake was going Ubuntu, not going Linux. It isn't the easier distro, it is only the one where you have to do the least from BIOS check to a desktop environment. That is not a hard thing for others to catch up on.