Darn, pardon me. I should have said the Windows 10 interface. Yeah, Mate is copying Windows 7/Vista task bar stuff, with perhaps less of that system's unneeded flash.
Linux is usable for daily tasks, but only barely, and it gets further behind state of the art software every year. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone who isn’t fluent with critical debugging skills (bash, knowlege of logs and how to search them, the ability to manipulate system tasks, x11 and graphcis driver configurations, etc etc).
Until the FOSS community decides to unify behind a single experience and actually invest in the experience, it’s always going to be a shitty clone of the user interfaces people actually want to use.
I use linux every day but the idea it is usable for the average person without paying someone to support them through issues is an utter pipe dream.
People always say this whenever Linux is under discussion. No one actually wants this. If you want "one-size fits all" use MacOS or Windows and see how that fits you.
People who trumpet a unified Linux experience expect the river to somehow flow backwards.
looks at user counts for each OS
reads parent comment again
Would you say the same for Chromebooks? Chromebooks are Linux. If not that proves that it's at least possible for a user-friendly experience to exist on Linux. And I would further suggest that running Ubuntu on well-supported hardware closely approximates the Chromebook experience for most users. I personally know several ordinary users who find Ubuntu as easy as Windows to use, if not easier.
I think your statement that Linux gets "further behind state of the art" as time goes on is probably the oddest claim you make here. It runs counter to everything I've heard from anyone running Linux for a long period of time. Most reasonable hardware configurations just work right out of the box. Remember that the average user never installs an operating system. Either the OS comes with the computer or someone competent is doing the installation for them; in any case the end user isn't expected to fix any problems that arise. Whenever I've installed Windows I've encountered driver problems that had to be fixed to get a working experience, but that's not something I count against Windows when talking about the end-user experience.
