You obviously got off on the wrong foot. Unfortunately for you, you got some bad
advice or made some false assumptions about Linux.

You never HAVE to touch the commandline. The latest HP mini actually prevents
users from using it. I personally do not use it unless I want to, which is
seldom. It is my tool of last resort.

There are several GUI apps for installing applications, Synaptic, Kpackage, and
Adept. At least two come pre-installed, Adept is the little updater in the
toolbar and also the Add/Remove... in the menu. Synaptic is found in the System
| Administration menu. Windows comes with NO package manager and lets the
developer use the installer of his choice, making things sloppy in the extreme.
Most don't do a proper job of creating icons in the appropriate place and are
worse at cleaning up after themselves, leaving traces in your file system and in
the registry that slow your system down.

Ubuntu's repositories have between 24000 and 35,000 packages, depending on what
repos you have listed. These are all maintained and updated. They are 100%
virus, trojan and malware free. You can use them without any fear that you will
be compromising your computer security. You can install anything from source
code, but you should not have to. There are advantages to do it, but it is not
worth the trouble for most users. The repositories are one stop shopping, and
everything is free.

Ubuntu and any other Linux distro installs and adds a loader to your menu, in
the appropriate category, BTW. Not like Windows, where the list is always
getting longer and out of alphabetical order. Linux does not add an icon to your
desktop, nor to your quick launch menu, making an unsightly mess of things. You
can easily drag any icon from the start menu to your desktop or to your panel to
create a launcher if that is the way you choose to work.

Linux understands all languages, in fact, many more than Windows. It uses
accented characters, provided you installed the appropriate language pack. In
Ubuntu, when you choose your country it installs the appropriate pack, for the
US it is US English and US keyboard. I am Canadian so I get the metric system,
UK English, but the US keyboard. You can add whatever language packs you want at
the start or later on. In this respect it is not different from Windows.

I have never had to manually edit a network configuration, on either the
wireless or wired network. I have done literally hundreds of Linux installations
covering every major distro going back almost ten years, so that is saying
something.

Don't blame Linux for Sony's failings. Most Linux users wouldn't touch a Sony
with a ten foot pole. Most laptops use lots of proprietary equipment and
settings. They do not like to devulge their secrets and that lets people like
you down. Linux developers need to reverse engineer things to get them to work
at all. If Sony and others played fairly then Linux would be 100% compatible,
but they don't. They and M$ have a cushy relationship that works to their mutual
benefit. They get inside info from M$ to make their equipment work and M$ forces
new standards so that buyers are perpetually forced to buy new equipment.

You ar blaming the wrong people. It is not Linux's fault. It is a great OS that
works for most people. It is more secure. It is safer, It is faster. It offers
more choice. It is under constant development and it happens to be free, as in
liberty and as in no cost to the user.

It is not for everybody. If someone moves to a Mac they don't draw comparisons
to Windows. They realize that it is a different OS with its own
idiosyncracities. They don't complain when the have to buy a new printer or some
other equipment. They just do it. When Vista came out lots of things that worked
with XP, did not work with Vista. We did not here them cry about it not working.
They just bought a new laser printer or whatever.

Yet for some unknown reason people expect Ubuntu to be like Windows. It isn't
and if you can't get that out of your head, you won't be happy with Linux which
is why I said that it is necessary to forget about Windows and get on with doing
things the Linux way.

You are wrong when you say that Windows is the yardstick. XP is the yardstick by
which Windows is measured and even Vista can't measure up. The reason isn't
because a ten year old OS is good, it is because people are so used to it, even
with all of its shortcomings. The problem is with people. They don't like
change. The old and familiar is better because they cut it lots of slack. They
forgive it of its shortcomings because it seems disloyal to diss something that
you've grown up with.

Until users are ready to move on and are realistic about the problems of the old
OS, then Linux will never be good enough, no mater what developers are able to
achieve. I wrote ablog on this, if you care to read it. I actually go through
the installation process in each OS and you would be amazed at the number of
things that you do in Windows to install a programme.