Re: The curse of overchoice
"Ever bought a car? Are you sure you got the right one?"
But all cars have a steering wheel, 4 wheels, the same handbrake, gear system and pedals in the same place (except no clutch on an automatic), the same essential dashboard info, window, light and wiper controls generally in the same place. None of the bells and whistles - parking sensors, entertainment systems, trim - are relevant to anyone putting in the key or pressing the button to start driving. Anyone can understand engine size and MPG ratings. Then it just comes down to what looks nice and feels good in a test drive. No-one exept petrol-heads need to know or care about torque points or optimum RPMs, or to open the bonnet except to top up the windscreen washer.
Similarly, for a Windows home user, you switch your new computer on, type your name and location, it does all the rest for you in under an hour inc. some compulsory re-starts for any updates since the time it was built and the time you switched it on. Then that's it forever, except some occasional automated updates.
As far as I can tell, Linux is none of that, or if it is that simple then it's drowned in tech-speak that will continue to stop the vast majority of people from even looking. Kernel. Forking. GNU. Shell. Even a lot of the product names - the main exception being Mint - look "techy". A few from the article: openSUSE, UbuntuDDE, Ubuntu Kylin, Xfce. What Linux needs is a Gates-type figure who can turn all of this into both plain and marketable language.
Random quote from the article: "The AmigaOS desktop, Workbench, already has a FOSS relative called Ambient, from MorphOS, as does the all-FOSS AROS in the form of Wanderer." I rest my case.