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But if I had made an awesome distro, or windows manager, or whatever;

It's been done - http://awesome.naquadah.org/

Ah, but this is okay for some of us as the awesomeness of Chrome and the awesomeness of Linux can be be brought into harmonic awesomeness with the Awesome Window Manager.

Apple is the company that set themselves up so that if they don't do something new and original, they will be shot into the ground. This usually includes breaking backward compatibility randomly and making new custom interfaces. Microsoft is the company that set themselves up so that if they do something new and original, they will be shot into the ground. This usually includes not breaking backward compatibility at all costs and keeping things familiar.

I think a lot of the jokes that appear on slashdot reflect what people see and not necessarily how they feel about the ribbon. You go into an office as an IT person who has updated the machines the night before to the new version of office and and see a bunch of helpless noobs unable to quit their program.

I agree with you about Gnome and KDE. You could always try awesome...

If Windows would actually join the 1980s and have decent support for virtual desktops that would alleviate a lot of that, but even in KDE or Gnome it's often the case that I have stuff open on all of the desktops and would still have to move things. (On the tiling WM I'm using now, awesome, I've got 32 virtual desktops on each monitor, about 1/3 of which are usually used, so there getting to an open desktop would be pretty easy.)

The Windows NT 3.1 Resource Kit included a program called TopDesk which still works fine with everything up through XP. It does the same sort of multiple desktop system that your link shows.

I run with and 11x3 layout, so that's 33 total desktops. Windows can be set to follow you to the current desktop, or stay where they were as you switch. You can also have "ghosts", which allow you to force a particular program to always start up on a particular desktop.

Erm. Isn't the only reason why Windows users need autorun is because their media doesn't appear on their desktop when inserted? It's always hidden somewhere weird like My Computer or something...

For me, that's not the primary benefit. The primary benefit is that I get a window that appears on top of everything that's open. Even if it did put an icon on the desktop, I'd still have to minimize a bunch of crap to get to it.

If Windows would actually join the 1980s and have decent support for virtual desktops that would alleviate a lot of that, but even in KDE or Gnome it's often the case that I have stuff open on all of the desktops and would still have to move things. (On the tiling WM I'm using now, awesome, I've got 32 virtual desktops on each monitor, about 1/3 of which are usually used, so there getting to an open desktop would be pretty easy.)

Further, there are times when you don't want to just open the window to explore the contents; if it's a CD, you might want to autorun the installer on the CD. With Vista's autoplay, that's one click. With it appearing on the desktop, that's two double-clicks. If you plug in a camera, you might have it ask to start your camera program and start downloading images. Again one click with autoplay. With a manual start, that's probably a few clicks away as you start the program yourself and then follow its instructions.

It's not a huge win, but it is a small convenience. And at this point, the difference between different systems are usually just small conveniences for the most part anyway. Linux wins some, Windows wins some, OS X wins some.

One place to manage applications, one place to manage updates, and one place to manage packages.

What's the difference between an application and a package? Hell, I'm a geek posting this from RHEL running a tiling window manager (totally the way to go BTW) and have a few gigs of applications on this computer I've installed with the 'configure && make && make install' sequence, and even I am not really sure what the answer is. I mean, I know what I would say if someone asked me and it's I think a good answer, but if I go by those definitions I'm not sure what the GUI to manage applications would be.

Furthermore, why should the update manager be separate? After all, presumably it's managing updates to packages in the end, so why should that be separate from the package manager?

The system you have described might be similar to the awesome window manager - but beware, the configuration is tough.

We, the doers of awesome, must come up with real world solutions to real world problems

You, the doers of awesome, have chosen an imperative programming language. That's why I prefer xmonad to solve a real world problem.

Awesome