Nikki Locke asked: > I'll restate my original complaint - > Why is it so difficult to set up X?
To weed out the unworthy? To force new users to learn what's going on? No, it's more like to save you from yourself. The fact is, like it or not, to install a Linux distribution is to take a big step toward learning all that technical stuff you have left to Tech Support in the past. Linux is not Windows. It is a variety of UNIX, a mature operating system developed by programmers for programmers. It sets much higher requirements for its users' technical abilities and attention to detail. Quite frankly, it is a dangerous operating system for the careless to use, as it will happily destroy itself at your command. Programmers love it because you can make things happen with relatively fewer keystrokes and it has so many tools you can connect in myriad ways to quickly throw together ad hoc problem solutions. These would be sufficient reasons to use it even if Windoze was as reliable and inexpensive an environment. Now in the case of X, the developers do not want you to literally destroy your monitor with your misconfiguration of their code, but they do want you to be able to tweak its performance to its limits. They have no way of knowing just how knowledgable you are. So they have been ultra-conservative with defaults and encourage you to read, read, read before you configure, and try to get you to learn the technical specs of your equipment. There's a lot of good, well-written information available to assist you in all this, but you've got to put in the skullsweat to make it happen. To make Linux too easy to use is a lot like handing a two-year old a loaded pistol.
