Can we please stop this?
When you don't like Linux on your desktop, don't use it.
It's that easy.
Windows isn't a great option for me because the development ecosystem around Ruby on Windows is still fairly immature. Linux would be a perfect solution, if I could get more than a hour of battery life out of my laptop, my touchpad worked even remotely as well as it does in Windows, and selecting the wrong update didn't completely trash my system.
Good luck.
Yeah, I said waste. Most people will counter by saying "but I learned linux!" No, you didn't, you learned to futz around with a bunch of conf files. I remember trying to make Pulseaudio work with my USB soundcard. Several hours of dicking about with asoundrc later and I a. still had a nonfunctional sound card b. still don't know how pulseaudio works
Not that it isn't an accomplishment. Just, while it may be a source of personal satisfaction, don't expect people with less time than you do to feel the same way!
It is like solving sudoku. There's a rush when you solve it, but it is not like you have made a genuine progress.
I feel you on pulseaudio though. Been there, done that, pacman -Rcs gnome gnome-extra. That took me minutes, not weeks. Because I had already learned to configure alsa, and knew it worked fine.
The overall point is people without time to learn probably shouldn't use complex systems? OK.
He can't go *BSD way, because drivers are scarcier, and that's a big no-no for him. And even more scarce on other less popular OSes, like Plan 9.
He can't go MS Windows way, because it's less usable for him (duh).
He can't go MacOS X because, uh, I dunno, personal preferences? Pricetag of the hardware+software?
He whines and rehashes old arguments because he feels trapped in Linux, got nowhere else to go :-)
Indeed, not a piece of News for Hackers.
Then there is another question - does it make the Linux desktop better if people (like the author and me) stop using it?
However, they can be flagged, if you feel they are inappropriate for HN.