A not-super-technical user can learn to do these things.

Is the liberty a free OS provides worth the effort to that user? That's entirely up to them.

It's easy to disregard change as too difficult to approach, especially when coming from such a controling and abusive environment (Windows/OS X). In reality, GNU/Linux is so much easier to use than Windows; most people have simply learned the latter first.

> In reality, GNU/Linux is so much easier to use than Windows; most people have simply learned the latter first.

That just isn't true. But don't take it from me; here's esr: http://web.archive.org/web/20180109063613/www.catb.org/esr/w...

Just because one piece of software was unnecessarily difficult for someone does not mean the entire ecosystem is broken.

The problem we have is that a similar problem in Windows is instantly forgiven, because there is nothing you can do about it; whereas in Linux people expect a higher standard (which is often met) because that arbitrary limitation no longer exists.

Sure windows has gotten a lot better since XP, but it has a long way to go to catch up to circa 2006 Ubuntu.

The article says that the point isn't about CUPS in particular, but generally poor UX in Linux GUIs, and how Windows and Mac in this regard wipe the floor with Linux software in this respect, and I think it's completely right. There just isn't really a culture of providing a consistent UI experience or making the UI a first-class citizen in Linux-land.