I have used various versions of Linux in the past and I've been using Ubuntu for a couple of weeks since I wanted to do some Mono programming with it and port some of my software over to Linux. This means that I need to install Mono onto Ubuntu. From my impressions as a new user of Ubuntu and it's image as one of the friendlier Linux distros out there, I have to say that Windows still has Linux beat for user friendliness. I found out that there is no official user support for the installation of Mono onto Ubuntu so I'm now trying to download a torrent of a distro where somebody has done all the dirty work of figuring out how get the Mono framework running on it.

Another big problem is the requirement to use the terminal to do a lot of the program installations and any advanced settings that are required to get some programs up and running. It's not as simple as Windows where it is often a double-click on an icon that opens a wizard to guide you through installation in a graphical way. Also, I think that there are too many Linux distros out there and this harms it because now a user has to figure out if a Linux program will actually run on his system or if he has to compile it from the source code!

I think Linux could take a step forward by doing anyway with the terminal and simplifying the installation of some programs. I don't think any user short of a programmer should have to touch the terminal.

Ever had any compatibility issues with using an alternative shell in place of Explorer.exe?