Isn't that the core of any issue with Linux, the annoyances? It's solid all around but these little annoyances, that you call nitpicking, is is the major hindrance of Linux.

So, IMO I think their valid.

Not really.

The issues he mentions would never be encountered (and therefore considered as problems) by normal users, and for those that would actually be technically minded enough to encounter them in the first place, they are trivial to work around.

Aside from the Samba issues (which most people won't see), things like (paraphrasing) "sometimes after I finish applying updates, I'll see new updates that have just been published" and complaining about the default background image when viewed on a high-res monitor are just totally absurd.

The things that actually are *minor* problems, affecting a small percentage of actual consumers, can (and will) be fixed by the frequent updates he seems to dislike so much.

Wow, a brand new release of a distro gets frequent updates - who knew? Oh, that's right, *everyone* who's used open source software like Linux that does such a good job of responding to issues and patching them quickly.

I literally had to check the date on that post to make sure it wasn't just a late April 1st gag.

I guess those comments on hid blog are wrong too.

I didn't read all the comments. The first couple appear to be from morons, and I don't see any additional issues pointed out by anyone else, mostly just fans of Matt agreeing with him about the severity of these nitpicks.

BTW, I'm not saying they're "wrong" in their opinions of how severe the issues they're talking about are, just that I disagree with that assessment of severity.

The main thing that's "wrong" in my opinion, is recommending that people (esp. new users) stick with Gutsy instead. Here's why:

1. If they're going to nitpick to that degree, I'm sure you could find just as many minor issues with every prior release of Ubuntu (or any other OS for that matter).

2. Hardy (8.04) is a long term support release; Gutsy (7.10) is not, so in a few months when the issues he mentions that actually have any significance are fixed in 8.04, the only difference for the "noobs" between the two releases will be that the ones running Hardy will be able to keep running it for five years without needing to upgrade, whereas the Gutsy ones will be left hanging or needing to upgrade.