I couldn't get past the stupidity. Since when do free people let their government make any rules about how they communicate? And, in a government that explicitly gives the power to the people and not the government. Not to mention, this is a part of the government that doesn't have the power to make rules like this. If you don't like the corporation, don't buy from them. "It's the only game in town". Whine some more, or do something about it.

I have not read any other comments. Nor will I. Isn't this what happens with every console? Game makers cater to the "console du jour" market for a few years because it is a bigger market. Then it gets stale. So then they turn toward the PC market. Which then reinvents itself (and almost completely impossible to keep up with during this phase). And the PC graphic revolution always sparks the next console idea. Although, Nintendo almost screwed this cycle up with the release of the Wii. People didn't care about the poor graphics on the Wii, they were having fun. They got retirement homes to host Wii bowling tournaments!

First, you can make any distro look any way you want. Next, PCLinuxOS IS a good distro but it is based on Mandriva, not Debian. Mandriva was originally based on Red Hat. Second, it's been my experience that "regular" Windows users don't know what an operating system is and don't even know the difference when you spring on them a different OS. The only real concern you should have is security fixes. So then you have to go with an OS that will tell them something needs to be updated, and then guides them through the update. Ubuntu does have an automatic update feature now, but that seems like it could cause problems. This all being said, I just did a minimal install of Ubuntu and then installed LXDE and a few other useful "normal user" apps on a box for family members who don't really know how to run a computer. They aren't having any problems and haven't said anything about the difference between that and Windows XP.