Yet the majority of people in the world were comfortable able to switch to Android and iOS tablets when the opportunity became available.

So what? Most people have lower expectations of what they can do on a tablet compared to a desktop/laptop. Few people expect to do any serious level of word processing or image manipulation on a tablet, so the limitations of currently available software doesn't really bother many people.

And frankly, though I've had less time "dabbling", than you, I took to Linux like a fish to water. It's much easier and way more consistent to use, and I can't remember a time I was unable to do something with the Linux OS/Applications stack that I would have been able to do with Microsoft's efforts.

Much easier? Hell no. Some parts are easier, but some parts are a godawful mess due to people not caring about the corner cases.

I suspect your problem (and that of many other FUD posters here) with Linux is that you don't want to like it, and look for any corner case you can to validate your dislike. In the mean time, you're giving Microsoft a free pass on all the risks, irritations and incompatibilities they bring to the table.

Here's the issue I have - you've picked a side, black or white, and don't like the fact there's a shitload of grey in the middle. I'm not posting FUD since I experience this on a daily basis and it shits me that people like you dismiss me so easily. I don't give Microsoft a free pass on anything - they've proven themselves capable enough that most people still use and support their OS far more than Linux distros. That tells me a lot.

To be honest, people don't like losing things when they don't have to. If you can't get the same software (or software with equivalent functionality) in Linux, you aren't gonna move. Linux's benefits (whatever they are) don't outweigh the tangible loss of feature-rich applications. Even I can't do it and I've been dabbling in Linux for over 15 years.

Ah yes, it's just that easy isn't it?

You have to (a) be a programmer and be sufficiently skilled in understanding the LO architecture, and (b) create said feature and hope it's accepted and brought into the mainline. With that kind of work it's much easier to just use MS Office and get on with your life. Which is what most people do.

The guy was just complaining about a particular feature that he finds critical enough to prevent moving from MS Office to LO. Apparently simply expressing this issue brings out the idiots.

Generally the benefits come with improved ease of use and "helper" features, features that you don't think about but appreciate once they appear. For example, in PowerPoint I discovered that thin alignment lines appear when moving around shapes and images, which help when you want make two images perfectly parallel but spaced apart on the slice. Impress (last time I checked) doesn't have this feature, but it's something you miss if you make presentations a lot. You don't NEED it, but it's one of many, many tiny little enhancements that tend to add up towards make it easier and faster to create stuff the way you want, and that effort and time saved is worth money for a LOT of people, for good reason.

Most open source creation software suffers the "death by a thousand cuts" issue. There's no motivation to add these little helper features to curtail the time/effort required to do something because it's seen as pointless fluff. But a lot of people will pay good money to buy software in which said helper features make life easier. Most people's lives are stressful enough - software shouldn't be making it worse.

I'm rather surprised people are so polarized over Tarantino. I can't really say he's ever made a bad film (and he's certainly made many good ones), but people do like to joke about him.

Sounds more like you're conflicting being principled with being stubborn/inflexible. Sometimes compromise has to be made in order for anything to happen. Two principled individuals who disagree with each other are not as helpful as those who try to work within the boundaries of what they consider reasonable.

In the end it's just software, there to do a job.

Sure. But when your principles are so restrictive as to prevent you from using the majority of useful modern technology and software, it's worth considering whether such principles are really sensible and whether your priorities are suitable for what you're trying to accomplish.

Some people have completely unrealistic principles. They can't be helped, not unless they realize that the world requires compromise if you want to get things done sometimes. It's just how life is.

Exactly. Use the right tool for the job. It's disappointing that Linux sucks in the music production scheme of things, but that's just the way things are and hoping and imaging a different state of affairs isn't going to change reality. Knowing this and accepting it is a very important method of avoiding becoming an insufferable Linux fanboy.

People like you are really, really unpleasant to be around. Just seeing the negative in anything and everything.