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Getting Past "Ready For the Desktop"
Jeremy LaCroix suggests in an editorial at Linux.com that the phrase "ready for the desktop" is ready for retirement. As anyone who's been using Linux for several years (or even a few) for everyday tasks knows, "ready for the desktop" is in the eye of the beholder.
It isn't required for any normal operation.
It is sometimes required for some operations, usually fixing things or setting a couple things up.
In general though, the command line is very rarely used on Ubuntu, which is a good thing; if you tell a normal Windows user they'd have to use the DOS prompt to accomplish something, their eyes would glaze over.
(In fairness, Apple are no better for hiding options in the command line and requiring the use of the defaults command to set them, but at least these aren't very very basic things...)
I write bullshit
Okay, this is one of the things that bugs me. OpenOffice and the GIMP do everything that the average user needs them to. I know of a lot of people that use the 'Microsoft Works' bundle that came with their computer and the so-called 'photo editor' that came with their digital camera or scanner. I'd say that most of the 'average users' I know use such products. OO.o and the GIMP are far better than the kind of low-budget software that usually comes with hardware.
I seem to remember one of the hints in the Microsoft Accessibility Guidelines was that the more ways to do a single operation, the more accessible it is. I don't use windows, so I can't check now, but I'm pretty sure I can think of 4 ways to move a file, 5 ways to change screen resolution and 4 ways to shut down the computer. I don't think this is a bad thing. Not to mention the systems that have only one way to perform a task, which is so cleverly hidden that it takes 10 minutes to figure it out... (happenned to me a lot on Mac OS, I'm probably not intuitive enough for it, and on Windows because it's just weird)
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
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and most of the descriptions might as well have been written in Wookie for as much as my mom would understand. Even search rarely returns a single, or even small number of results. Try "Add/Remove Applications" rather than Synaptic. That comes with pretty icons, meaningful names and descriptions, reasonable multi-package bundles, and even popularity ratings. It's a mistake to tell newbies to use Synaptic.
The state you are in while your HEAD is detached... - wait, what?
There are GUI tools for everything you say you were "required" to use the terminal for. Go to System | Administration | Synaptic | search for and install ubuntu-restricted-extras and ndisgtk, and you'd have been done. Setting up NDIS wrapper via ndisgtk takes all of 70 seconds. The media playback codecs will prompt to be installed as needed. Try playing a .mov or .ra file on a default Windows install and let me know how well it walks you through installing the supporting applications.
Oh yeah and my mom (who is a grandmother) has been running Ubuntu for a few years now.
I just noticed you're an AC and I just wasted my time posting, but since I already typed it I'm posting anyway.