See, I don't understand that. I've installed Ubuntu in hundred's of machines for people that knew nothing, or very close to nothing, at all about Linux. (that's just about all that I do nowadays) They are up and running in minutes. I've got machines out there that have been running since 2002 without ever needing to open a terminal or change a system file, or have any of the problems you hear so much about. What IS IT that is so different and confusing? You double click on an icon, and your application opens. I mean, Firefox's logo icon is a different color and design, but it still opens a browser which operates nearly exactly like IE. Ditto with Open Office. They update themselves with security updates and software and even new kernels. Printers are the only issues I've had to deal with. What? LOL
Put PCLinuxOS on an old desktop a couple months ago. The *only* times I’ve had my XP machine on since have been for either ITunes or Quicken. I am an ordinary, non-geek user.
Very much my own experience... providing it sets up well against the hardware in the first place, which is pretty usual anymore. I seldom find a box that WONT go pretty easily. SAMBA still sucks, and CUPS still sucks. but IF they set up, they are bulletproof.
Let’s suppose one of your users has a windows laptop and an iPad2. He wants to print on the printer connected to his Linux desktop. He has no chance of being able to do that without having you come over and edit his Samba and Cups inf files.
Now let’s suppose he has an IOgear wireless printer queue. It automatically shows up on his Mac and Windows machines. He (or you) might spend 20 hours trying to make it work with Linux.
Network printing is a necessity for the modern wireless home network. Linux is not ready for that, making it unusable for most home networks.