Linux and the average user... (Score 1, Interesting)

As a person who is trying to get into Linux, I'm glad someone brought this issue up.

Coming fresh from a Windows environment to Linux, one of the first things you notice is the plethora of ridiculous and sometimes mystifing program and command names. I realize that to a programmer, code junkie, or any other overly technically inclined individual, the inside joke with the prefixes of G and K everywhere is chuckle-worthy. To everyone else, it seems like either a silly joke or deliberate obfuscation. To a new user, you feel like you're too stupid to get what the point of naming something 'Gaim', 'Xine' or 'LiVES' is. The worst offender (and shining case point) is GIMP.

This is not to say that this problem is universal with Linux software. There are plenty of examples of well-named, easy to remember, and relevant names in the Linux library. OpenOffice, MP3c, and Muse are all well named programs that have some relationship to the work they perform.

My point in all this is to say that if Linux is ever going to become mainstream (and by mainstream, I mean my mother and little sister use it): it's simply got to grow out of the Alpha Geek culture it was created in. I firmly believe the biggest problems with Linux right now is the lack of a truly slick GUI and the God-awful naming conventions. These two issues conspire to make Linux look like an out of control Ham Radio project to the average user. Regardless of the disdain that some people on /. have for average users, they are the people Linux will have to cater to if it will ever be anything more than a robust server platform and a hacker playground. It's a exercise in futility to attempt and point out the disassociative names used in Windows programs because more than a few of them already have become so popular that they have become synonyms of the functions they perform. Linux doesn't have that luxury. The attitude that these kinds of issues are only problems to people who haven't 'learned' Linux will keep Linux on the back burner.

Too bad I've got such horrible Karma, I doubt anyone will ever see this.