To be honest I really don't like Linux. Its decent as a server but everything is non-obvious, convoluted and unpolished, and suggesting that it should be made more obvious, less convoluted and more polished will get you flamed to a crisp (and banned) faster than you can say GPL.

The bugs I have pointed out shouldn't exist, and should have been fixed long ago. It seems you need to have a bug actually cause a valid crash before it gets taken seriously. Anything that is just irritating is dealt with as an 'oh, well', and Linux is wall-to-wall packed with irritating little things, most of which can be fixed by changing a few buttons about, relabelling something and simply taking a step back and thinking 'Is this _really_ the best way of doing this? And how can I improve it?'

Generally everything is the way it is in Linux because its the way the first person that wrote the software made it, and nobody ever really thinks to change the front end, mainly because the focus on bugzilla (and thus the onus on crash bugs 'high priority' as opposed to usability bugs 'low priority') ends up with a stable, reliable, but horribly hard to use system. Its seen as a mark of honour to be able to use a system thats tricky and convoluted but in reality it excludes everyone who isn't technically savvy enough to use it, and the people who don't want to invest the time learning something that should (and can) be easy to use without tuition.

Eric S. Raymond (who is actually a Linux advocate) wrote a rant about CUPS, which I believe conveys my point exactly. How many people have glossed over the horrific usability bugs in the system and just taken it as 'thats the way it is'?

http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html

And then this rant, which bangs the point home, that usability isn't about making it easy for newbies and the computerphobes, but for everyone, irrespective of skill. I'd rather not spend 30 minutes coaxing a network to work when its possible to make a system that takes 30 seconds. Its a waste of my time that I'd rather spend doing something else.

http://daringfireball.net/2004/04/spray_on_usability

If you disagree with me then simply explain how Linux (and unixes in general) count for the lions share of server but only manages 0.3% of the desktop market? If it really was as good and easy as people say surely it would manage to get out of the bracket marked 'totally negligible'.

And I run a busy net cafe and would rather pay for Windows and all the associated crap (WGA, crashes, activation, spyware, viruses) than to deal with the time-sink that is Linux. And I see myself as in the 99.7%, so I am not in the minority here.