making linux usable

"Um, yeah. Put it this way. When you're giving something away free, and people still don't want it, and in fact would rather spend money on something else, you've got a problem." ~FSJ

Perhaps there is some validity to what FSJ says about linux and open source (free source) software. Ok, I love open source software, let that be #1. I think that it's amazing that there are tons of people working on a single project together. One huge benefit is that mistakes are more quickly fixed, like Eric Raymond says, "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". Although I love open source and everything, I'm not sure the large consumer market is really ready for it yet. I mean a lot of popular software isn't compatible with it and the EXTREMELY customizable operating system can be very daunting. There are so many setting that a person who is used to the "one size fits all" default setting of windows or the mac OS that people will think that linux is harder to use because they need to do more to set it up.

So what should linux distributors do? I guess the way to keep the customability (yeah I think I'm making that word up) and make it easy to use would be a series of wizards that will walk users through the initial set up. It's tough because then what does the user do if they need to go back and change things? Going into the system files can be a scary experience if you mess something up. I'll think more about this... Good talk, good talk.