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Oh well ...

I have been saying that if there's one distro that is NOT ready for the desktop, it's Ubuntu. Not only is it notorious for breaking on updates (something you pointed out, and a valid criticism - what good is an OS if it turns your computer into a brick on a regular basis), but it's in general a crappy distro. It's always had a higher than average number of problems, and this is due in part to trying to be different for the sake of "branding". It's one of the reasons why changes in Ubuntu aren't accepted upstream - with the consequence that there's more "break points" in Ubuntu that have to be patched for every release than in other distros. Trying to blame it on "end users are n00bs so that's why they have more problems" kind of misses the point if your distro is supposed to be so user-friendly.

But why not try to install a copy of opensuse on a new machine? It should go pretty much seamlessly, and so should updates to the next release. I've been doing the "update release via the internet" thing for the last several releases, and even though one of them was interrupted (my fault - didn't plug in the adapter on my laptop), it still went fine. Sure, on oddball machines from a decade ago, there will be problems, but a recent generic box from a big-box store should be okay.

You'll be asked for a root name and password, click a few other things to accept the defaults, select any additional packages you want, and one reboot later, everything should be up and running.

Will there ever be a year of the linux desktop? I don't think so. I think that Microsoft will just start to bleed market share once the MS-Office stranglehold is broken. We're seeing that now with web-based office suites. Microsoft may be saying "To the cloud - we're all in!" but the reality is that is scares the heck out of them. Just as both smartphone and laptop sales both now outnumber desktop pc sales, I expect tablet sales to do the same thing, and most of those tablets are going to be running linux, same as is going to happen by next year with smartphones.

At that point, it's only natural for laptops to "join the fun" - the alternative being dropping out of the race ... leaving the desktop as the "dead man walking" by the end of the decade. Microsoft won't close it's doors, unlike Ubuntu, but they'll no longer be the dominant player either. The operating system will become irrelevant (and that's the way it should be, if you're an end user :-)

Really, if they are going to be any good, they will most likely ALREADY know what Linux is and how it works.

If they don't, really, don't bother them with it. It'll just confuse them.

Really, if they are going to be any good, they will most likely ALREADY know what Linux is and how it works.

That's exactly the approach that makes most people who try Linux give up after a very short time. I personally tried it twice and found any problems I encountered making things work had no simple step by step instructions on how to fix.

Simple two-step fix:

1. Don't believe the hype around CrapUontu
2. Install a distro that has a history or commitment to and contributions to linux, such as opensuse or fedora.

Keep in mind that Mark Shuttleworth's goals are not the same as the community at large. He wants to see a return on his $20 million. It's why he hired Windows apologist Matt Asay instead of someone deeply involved in the linux community.

People try Ubuntu because of the hype, then tar all linux distros with the same brush.

I might add, which Shuttleworth didn't spell out, that if you need help to do anything with Linux, you're more likely to find online help on how to do it on Ubuntu than openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, or any other Linux. Ubuntu's popularity combined with that attitude of helping everyday users get the most from Linux has made it the go-to Linux for users who want and need a helping hand.

Ubuntu users haveStats say that more problems than all the other main distros combined, so I'm not buying it.

I would really like feedback from mobile users. (non-iPhone, obviously :-)

If you don't want to have to go through the web page, here's a direct link to the first puzzle, in 5x5 mode. It's my first Newfie; I took the picture the day I had to put him down (cancer had pretty much eaten him up and he was having seizures).

The Wii is a comparatively low-res device (720x480 in widescreen mode) but it works fine (just point at a tile and press the A button to select, point at another one, press A again, the tiles swap. Move the pointer to a screen edge to see the time left, a pop-up window with the completed level, title, score, etc. The Wii scales it properly even with the 13x13 grid (1040x585). For reference, the other grid pixel sizes are 7x7 = 560x315, 9x9 = 720x405, and 11x11 = 880x495. It would be interesting to see which smartphone platforms scale the image properly and which have problems.

If you don't want to have to go through the web page, here's a direct link to the first puzzle, in 5x5 mode. It's my first Newfie; I took the picture the day I had to put him down (cancer had pretty much eaten him up and he was having seizures).

The Wii is a comparatively low-res device (720x480 in widescreen mode) but it works fine (just point at a tile and press the A button to select, point at another one, press A again, the tiles swap. Move the pointer to a screen edge to see the time left, a pop-up window with the completed level, title, score, etc. The Wii scales it properly even with the 13x13 grid (1040x585). For reference, the other grid pixel sizes are 7x7 = 560x315, 9x9 = 720x405, and 11x11 = 880x495. It would be interesting to see which smartphone platforms scale the image properly and which have problems.

How many people do you know (besides yourself) that uses Ubuntu Linux on their computer?

None - including myself. linux doesn't necessarily mean Ubuntu, which is a good thing, because Ubuntu ranks #1 in terms of user dissatisfaction.

They're probably the source of all those people who said "I tried linux, and switched back to Windows."

Stick with one of the other distros - they all have (much) lower dissatisfaction ratings. Heck, even Windows comes off better when you take into account market share.

Data points without context are not information - they're noise.

Flash isn't "slow and attrocious" on an iPad or iPhone - it's non-existent. So anything is better :-)

Flash is fast even on my Wii, and a Wii is majorly under-specced - 256meg of ram on a sub-gigahertz display. And yet it has no problem with flash downscaling a 1366x756 HD game to 720 (the Wii's native display size). Give it a try - http://alphagfx.com/ pick 17x17 (heck, it even loaded, downscaled and played one of the 1600x900 20-tile games).

If the Wii can do it (and let's face it, Wiis weren't made to run flash), maybe you should switch from crapuntu to another distro.

It works if you just want to write a game without worrying about platform differences. After years of hassles with different browsers and operating systems, I had forgotten how much LESS stupidity it was just coding it up in flash.

Funny how even the cheapest netbooks can do it, and laptops at the $400 price point are now doing 1600x900 native.

Want to develop a cross-platform game? Forget HTML5 - flash is the way to go - it works NOW on PCs, laptops, even game consoles (go to http://alphagfx.com/ and try one of the 9x9, 12x12, or 17x17 games on a Wii - the 9x9 are native resolution, but the others downscale just fine).

The only other option even close is Java - and Java sucks for game development (and how many people want to run your java app anyway?) So you have a choice - develop once for everyone except Apple iStuff, and do it a second time for His Jobsiness, or spend the same amount of time developing twice as much for +90% of the market. The math is simple - Flash beats Apple.