> For example: with a randomly selected machine from New Egg: install OS, configure a user, change the screen resolution, connect to the internet, install two non-developer productivity applications (musical score-writing, and audio production, in my case), configure MIDI, download some mp3s and start playing them, use a flash webpage, use a page with a java applet, download some image files, make some simple modifications (crop/resize/etc) and share them via email. Transfer them to a USB stick. Set up a printer and print a travel itenerary. Download + Install a free indie videogame from the web.

Linux is still rubbish compared to Windows for music composition and production (speaking as a former music producer) and has only just started to be taken seriously for gaming, so your examples are moot.

> Maybe I'd have no problems mounting a USB drive but maybe setting up MIDI would be a pain.

Setting up MIDI properly in Windows was a pain back then too. And depending on the complexity of your MIDI gear, it's still a pain now - even with devices moving over to USB. So that too is moot.

> Maybe there would be no driver issues but after trying to change the screen resolution I'd break the X configs and be unable start the X server on a reboot.

That would be down to you doing something really dumb there as changing the screen resolutions shouldn't break your X config. In fact even when I used to hack about in Slackware, screen resolutions wouldn't affect Xorg.conf (which is a good thing too given how nasty Xorg.conf was to configure)

> Maybe the screen resolution configuration would work but there was no package for an app I wanted and I had to compile from source and manually track down every single dependency after reading the README. All it takes is one or two issues for someone like me to just go back to Windows and actually get stuff done.

Never had that problem in SuSE nor Mandrake / Mandriva. You absolutely sure you were running stuff through a package manager, as even back then SuSE and Mandrake would support installing stuff via RPM.

Honestly, the more you post, the more I'm convinced the problem was with your choice of distro and you're blindly accusing all desktop distros of making the same mistakes as whatever you were running; which clearly wasn't the case. The very reason I warmed to Mandrake was because it was massively simple to set up an easy to use point-and-click interface.

I wont lie and say Linux was the perfect desktop back then; most desktop apps looked ugly and were buggy. There wasn't much good documentation about and the desktop environments were still looking like something from the 90s. But the only time I ran into problems with the OS was when I got a bit carried away with blindly changing settings I knew I shouldn't be (however no OS -not even Windows- will protect users from breaking thing themselves). Thankfully it never took more than half an hour to figure out how to reverse the setting I'd made (and that was around the time I decided that I'd be better off with Slackware since I liked to tinker)

What changed around the time of Ubuntu was the overall quality of desktop Linux applications; KDE3 had been around for a little bit by then and was looking polished. GNOME had finally started to compete with KDE in terms of user experience. GTK and Qt were finally being taken seriously - what that in itself did loads for improving the look of desktop apps. But add to that the fact that developers were focusing more effort in fixing buggy applications and tidying up their interface. What changed around the time of Ubuntu wasn't Ubuntu, it was the rest of the Linux ecosystem. Canonical was just in the place at the right time (and with deep enough pockets) to promote themselves as the next generation of Linux desktop - when in actual fact it was no more usable (in terms of the quality of the work that Canonical invested verses other distro maintainers) than SuSE nor Mandrake.

> I knew a guy who favored slackware. He had a tricked out Pontiac Grand Prix that he'd customized in his own garage and he treated his Linux machine the same way, configuring his own desktop themes various personalized features. Stuff that I just don't care about (and neither do most users).

If you properly read what I posted, you'd see that I wasn't advocating Slackware for most users. In fact I specifically stated that running Slackware made me different from most users and I made that point because you implied that all developers and sysadmins preferred Ubuntu - which is complete and utter BS (as exampled by me).

My point regarding distros as capable as Ubuntu was regarding Mandrake and SuSE, not Slackware. And the stuff you described could as easily be done in Mandrake (and later, Mandraver) as it could in Ubuntu.

Many people forget about Mandrake, but it really was a competent desktop long before Ubuntu burst onto the scene; and I should know, Mandrake was one of the first Linux distros I ran - and I managed just fine with zero UNIX/POSIX experience and the lack of end-user orientated communities to walk noobs through.

In fact if there's anything Ubuntu should be credited for, it's the support Canonical offered in conjunction with Ubuntu. Their forums and wiki's are a fantastic resource if you're stuck. There's few Linux distros / UNIX-like OS's out there which are better documented. But that doesn't mean that Ubuntu was the first desktop distro that ticked all the "user friendly" boxes (and in my honest opinion, no distro ticks all the boxes you've listed - not even in 2013)