I think we should take his advice. He says he doesn't want "leet" Linux users and we should go use something else, and many of us have been taking that advice all along.
Personally, I'm a Gentoo guy and have been for a while. Here are some great hacker distros that I love to use and contribute to:
Gentoo
Arch
Slackware
Debian
And for those who want a "user friendly" distro for their mom to try out:
Linux Mint
Yeah, I said it, I know it's not exactly popular but if you want to convert someone to a Linux user I think Mint is your best bet.
In the end, we still have a choice. Thanks Canonical/Ubuntu for bringing more users and development to the community, we'll just steer them towards something better when they're ready.
Linux Mint: it's an Ubuntu derivative, and I suspect that Ubuntu/Canonical will one day either be hostile or at least actively unhelpful to derivatives.
Everything there is an ubuntu derivative, except in the middle there's a debian rolling release edition.
I suppose the mainstream ubuntu derivative will be great for stereotypical "mom's", as long as Ubuntu's eye doesn't turn in that direction.
For more hacker types that want some creature comforts, are the debian versions a good choice? I would expect/hope that some of the multimedia "just works" benefits would be in there. http://www.linuxmint.com/release.php?id=14
Or would I be better off on debian/LXDE, and manage the few packages that I most care about on my own?
Personally, I'm a Gentoo guy and have been for a while. Here are some great hacker distros that I love to use and contribute to:
Gentoo
Arch
Slackware
Debian
And for those who want a "user friendly" distro for their mom to try out:
Linux Mint
Yeah, I said it, I know it's not exactly popular but if you want to convert someone to a Linux user I think Mint is your best bet.
In the end, we still have a choice. Thanks Canonical/Ubuntu for bringing more users and development to the community, we'll just steer them towards something better when they're ready.