Wow, that article he was responding to is horrible. There's not really much point in arguing with people who only take name-brand operating systems and softwar

Wow, that article he was responding to is horrible. There's not really much point in arguing with people who only take name-brand operating systems and software seriously. They'll always mask their elitism by feigning concern for so-called "ordinary users" or complain about the absence of some specific proprietary software package that they only had access to before by submitting to vendor lock-in. I don't think there's one magical OS that's for everyone. Or one specific UI implementation or paradigm that is perfect for everyone. Yes, there have been strides in making Linux DEs that are approachable for people familiar with Windows but Linux (and Unix-like OSes as a whole, but particularly Linux) has value beyond being an alternative to any another OS. When I first started using computers there was no "easy mode".. a large proportion of my early time spent using a computer was spent learning about how that computer worked by exploration. There's still no "easy mode", if you haven't learned how to learn about how systems work.. you won't be able to troubleshoot any problems that may arise nor do anything you haven't already been taught how to do. "Easy enough for everyone to use." is a slogan about sales volume. I think there are definitely Linux configurations that have those aspirations and are no further away from nor any closer to achieving them than Windows or OSX is. The value of Linux isn't to be a clone or replacement for another OS. The value of Linux is that it is extremely learnable for people who are interested in computing and people who want to make their own choices about their software environment. The common complaints people make about "I had to use a CLI." or "I didn't want to learn anything." or "There were problems." are pretty irrelevant. In days past you always had to use a CLI, you always had to learn things, and there were always problems. The cursor in the shell is a question. It's the system asking you what you want it to do. It's not trying to entice you with shiny icons. Every time I read that question, I have to think about it, and sometimes when I'm not working on anything in particular an open terminal window can provide hours of entertainment and education. Not everyone thinks the same way. (I, for example, cannot keep my computer orderly with a graphical file manager. I just can't. I can reason about a written inventory of what I have but I can't find anything in my closet.) Not everyone is going to do the same things. I don't know why people would damn a system with a completely different paradigm instead of just saying "It's not for me." I also don't know why anyone would fire up the most educational operating system that exists (my opinion, but I think it's a big part of the reason that Linux is popular where it's popular.. because at a certain level it is very easy to use (where use overlaps with learning heavily; such as solving hard problems)) if they didn't want to learn anything.