“apt-get doesn’t always work as prescribed. You often have to modify the /etc/apt/sources.list file, download pgp keys, etc. Then you have to run apt-get update. THEN you can proceed to install. And sometimes programs won’t install becuase a library you have is TOO NEW for the program you’re trying to install. WTF? This is easier than double clicking on setup.exe? I don’t think so.”

Most of this is not true at all. With ubuntu, and other “human”-oriented users, you don’t have to modify any system files to add repositories, you can do it using the rodent; pgp keys are not obligatory to add when you add repositories, but they are recommended for security sake; I’m a pretty moderate-advanced user of gnu/linux, and using Ubuntu and Debian, their own repositories are 95% more than enough for my many ecletic needs, so I wouldn’t think that a new user would need to start adding repositories; if you go the graphical route, you don’t need to update the apt’s repository information with the command line; And if a program doesn’t install, probably you just downloaded the .deb package from somewhere, and probably wasn’t specific for your distro. But like I said, for 99% of your needs, you won’t need to install random .deb packages from the web.
I agree that for random software, and simple installer which works for all linux distros would be preferable, and they exist: For example, flash from Adobe uses a pretty simple text-installer, others use other installers. I just think that when you need a stable system, with system-wide updates (for security bugfixes, etc.), it’s a lot easier and better getting your software from a repository you trust (usually it’s from your distribution), and whose software you know is watched for, and well tested to run together, than installing a gazillion programs, and have your system hog down.

In the end, free software is about you controlling your technology, and not technology controlling you. People should live without EULAS, forced activation schemes, and whatever new recipes of control Microsoft has planned for them with Vista.

But, in the technological world, the more knowledge you have the more power you have. Because that is not allways the case, many companies and communities have developed their distributions to share the goodies of free software to all .

If that means that, for now, a non-technical user must wait a little while before being able to install a random alpha or beta software off some webpage, (i.e. wait until its developers make a package for my distro (using a popular distro is recomended for newbie users), or they provide a binary, or the software is worthy enough (most are) to get into my distro’s repository) then so be it. Not only many of those distributions are community-lead, i.e. theoretically more humane than a huge billion-dollar hierarchical organization, the user can always learn, and compile (it’s not that big a thing, if the developers did the proper work) if none of the previous options are available.

Anyway, just use whatever you want.

And if I hear about how much easier installing programs on Linux is than Windows I’m gonna puke. apt-get doesn’t always work as prescribed. You often have to modify the /etc/apt/sources.list file, download pgp keys, etc. Then you have to run apt-get update. THEN you can proceed to install. And sometimes programs won’t install becuase a library you have is TOO NEW for the program you’re trying to install. WTF? This is easier than double clicking on setup.exe? I don’t think so.

I use both XP and Ubuntu, and both have their ups and downs. Ubuntu is good, but it still has a while to go.

Use one or the other, but do it before you do too much configuration on a new install.

http://getautomatix.com/wiki/index.php?title=Installation

It seems more standardized in Linux but it is still more complicated if you have been Windows all the time.

Just another example, installing mp3 support was easy but took a long time. The Ubuntu documentation helped a lot in finding out which packages I would need.

Once that is done you have to navigate the entries until you find something Boot Device Priority or something like that.

Take a look at the following website for some examples.
http://www.hiren.info/pages.php/bios-boot-cdrom

The NTFS support we have these days is totally based on reverse engineering, and guesswork. It is possible to get write support using Captive NTFS but it is still very sketchy. Blame Microsoft for this.

Here is how you install apps on Ubuntu – you browse the web and someone mentions application xyz. You do the following:

First you see if the application is available in existing repositories:

apt-cache search xyz

You can read more about the available version and etc with

apt-cache show xyz

You can see if the app will install properly without any issues by doing:

apt-get --dry-run install xyz

And finally when you are ready you install:

apt-get install xyz

Did I mention how easy it is to upgrade to a new version of the OS? Simply go into your sources file, and change every reference to your current version (eg. dapper) to a new version (edgy). Then just run:

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

Wouldn’t it be nice if Windows could do that.