The ultimate in packaging would, of course, be to convince a manufacturer to ship a consumer PC with Linux already and applications already installed. The applications that the consumer sees when she starts her system must use the same interface. All the menus, buttons, scrollbars, etc. must look the same from one application to another and function identically. I can't imagine a manufacturer being willing to ship a pre-installed Linux if this doesn't happen. My strong recommendation is that it not use a window manager that visually resembles one used by some other operating system.
Nothing is worse for beginners than a system that works almost like the one they're used to.
Consumer Linux must hide the shell . And before you send me hate mail, I'm saying hide the shell, not eliminate it. All the power of Linux and the shell will still be in the system when the user is ready for it. The documentation that goes with Consumer Linux has to be oriented towards setting up the system, learning the windowing system, and learning the pre-packaged applications. The documentation does not ignore the shell or other powerful features of Linux that aren't visible on the surface of Consumer Linux.