Linux (as a distro, not the kernel) has certainly gone down the MS route of "we know better" with their users. GNOME versions have been laughable and things like Ubuntu's Unity might as well just come with one big red button that says "Press this if you don't know what you're doing" and zero functionality otherwise. I've actually avoided installing Ubuntu just for the same reasons. I *do* know what I'm doing and removing functionality or claiming that a "new way" is somehow better has to be backed up by a LOT of evidence and STILL might not be the best way of working for me.

The kernel, overall, gets this. I can still deploy just about any kernel I like on just about any relatively modern distro I like, and it's very much plug-and-play. I'm sure there are people with MCA/ISA devices that are upset about the removal of that API but, on anything vaguely modern, it "just works" and always has.

It's ironic (and a little backwards) that I now deploy Slackware with a 3.something kernel for my desktops, and Ubuntu LTS for my servers, purely because that maintains the control I want over the things I want. I don't want to faff with installing and resolving dependencies on a server and I don't want to spend HOURS turning off new GUI "paradigms" to get to a basic desktop where I can work.

GNOME always, to me, was second-place because of their so-called "perfection". Their interface was never as clean, as smart, as small, as quick or even as logical as other choices. But it's not just GNOME. Breaking people's systems and changing the way they work attracts derision for a reason - it COSTS to change the way you work. Even if the other way is 0.1% more productive (which it has NEVER been, mostly the opposite), the cost of retraining even yourself might never pay off and lead to mistakes and critical timing going out of the window ("Right, we have 100 desktops, secure them before next week" and, boy, are you in trouble if it takes ten times as long to find the options - if they even exist at all - to do that).

GNOME isn't alone. Even down to command-line utilities like the cdrecord package that decided that everyone should use only SCSI bus numbering to access their SATA DVD-RW caught flak. And rightly so.

It's a lesson that MS will soon learn. Don't annoy the user. Every freedom you take from the user, including the freedom to turn your junk off and configure it how they like, leads to dumber and dumber users (and thus attracts only those dumber users). This is why MS think they have to enforce turning off Autorun for me, 10 years after I did it for myself on every machine I've ever owned.

Linux doesn't want dumb users, particularly. Sure, if they can manage, they are welcome. But every dumbing down leads to more users doing dumb things and less people willing to help fix them or prevent them or work on the coding side of the project at all.

Dear Software-on-my-computer, You do not need to shield me from my computer when I'm running as a normal user. The underlying OS does that. You just need to work. And do what I tell you. And if I tell you to do something, do it (maybe with confirmation if I'm being incredibly dangerous). Not letting me turn off start screens, menus, notifications, sidebars, touch gestures, change hotkeys (can we use Windows-key yet to bring up the "start menu" in some desktop environments?), or even just telling me that you "know better" is a prime way to get me to move onto something else.

I don't care that you have to move software interfaces twenty times (that suggests you design badly, and also that you have no idea how to isolate changes at that level from what the user sees). My desktop is my desktop and I expect it to remain the same over periods of DECADES. It's as rude to change the way I work on my desktop as it is to come into my office and rearrange all my furniture and paperwork. And just as disruptive. Doing it once a year is NOT helping anyone.

RTFM attitude hasn't helped

I've used Linux since the days of Slackware and when I mention something related to a bad UI I'll usually get a defensive response along the lines of:

a) People should know how to do stuff through the shell

b) It's easy to get it working, just apply patch X and recompile the kernel

c) I use all those 1001 settings in the KDE control panel EVERY DAY and how dare you suggest some of them should be hidden

d) Yeah but Windows isn't perfect ergo criticism-about-Linux is somehow invalid

e) Go read the manual

etc.

Basically there is a core of people for whom no criticism of Linux will be brooked regardless of how valid it may be and it has hurt the platform. It's like talking to a motor mechanic about how a gearbox keeps sticking and being told well yeah obviously you have stripped the thing down and greased it yourself, making the assumption everyone is a motor mechanic and wants a car just to take it to bits and fix it.

The issue is compounded because a lot of the user interface decisions have traditionally been made by engineers with an engineer's mindset - utilitarian, lashed together, unforgiving UIs are commonplace in Linux. Very little effort goes into making the UI task-centric, forgiving, and simple. Simple doesn't even have to mean dumbed down - an administration console can be simple if stuff is arranged in a particular and anticipates the user's needs. Power users can always work around a simple UI. Novices or the disinclined can't work around a broken UI.

Fortunately some projects have tried a lot harder than others to add usability to Linux. Ubuntu and GNOME in particular have made huge strides to tame the UI. It's still a bit patchy but it's within spitting distance of commercial dists. Linux users should also remind themselves over and over again that OS X is built on top of BSD. If OS X can tame Unix then there is little excuse if Linux cannot.