Open source solutions

I have a couple questions that are vaguely related to programming. Lately I've been trying out open source software and really making an effort to appreciate the value that it brings to the table. The problem is this: It continues to fall short of my expectations one way or another.

And that's not like "durr hurr it shud b winders," this is simply basic things relating to a positive user experience. Something that is not difficult to do, but the programmer said, "Well, fuck the user."

My questions are the following:

1. Why is it so hard to put usability in mind? I really don't mind if OpenOffice doesn't have every single feature that MS Office does, for example, but it lacks ways to do what you want quickly when compared with the other product.

You could, perhaps, compile the source yourself with the accelerations you want, but that's a waste of time and extra maintenance costs, bottom line. Cheaper than playing Microsoft's game? Definitely. Does any user actually want to do this? None that are interested in getting things done.

I installed Fedora the other day, and the partition formatter actually gave me options that it refused to enact. If Linux is supposedly about power over your machine, it should either shut the fuck up and do it or not give you these options at all. I did not notice this on my first time through, however, because at that point, I only used the default options (which apparently caused my system to somehow fail to boot into a Windows setup CD, which is why I went spelunking into the options).

I found using it to be a crapshoot at best. Upon first boot into root, it kept flashing this annoying tool tip in the system tray once per second and prattled on about some segfault error that I couldn't have possibly caused because it was my first boot into root and I used pretty much default install settings.

I felt that I would be better served by booting into my user, so I tried that. It said that it found wireless connections and that I could connect if I clicked the tip. I thought, "Okay, let's try that and get on IRC." Turns out that it didn't connect at all. I had to manually set up a wireless connection, go figure. I thought that when it said it would connect, it would actually connect. Novel concept.

2. Am I just not using the right products (even though I feel that I'm testing fairly reputable open source solutions)? Is there some free grand directive that prevents open source solutions from being as useful and awesome as they could be?

The Linux kernel was initially launched in 1991, and here we are, 18 years later - with nothing to show for it? StarOffice was acquired by Sun in 1999. How does this happen? What am I missing? It's just small general stuff like that that is a total turnoff to using things like OpenOffice and Linux.

>>1
1) A minor point - generally, it doesn't matter what OS you use; compiling code on your machine will always run faster than a precompiled massively distributed binary. Most of the time.

Also, Linux is not Fedora. And Fedora is not Linux.

2) You could try Ubuntu, although most consider it pretty bloated. I, myself, have been using it since its inception and now even package for Ubuntu. So all that bloat? Yeah, it's a small price to pay when you have an extremely newbie friendly OS. And since you're a newbie, I would recommend it. After all, that bloat is for people like you.

Yes, and whats your point about the Linux kernel? There isn't another kernel on this planet that supports more hardware than the Linux one. 18 years later we've made a lot of progress. If you're looking to point fingers at someone, point it at the people who bring all of the essential things of a Linux distribution together, but don't blame the kernel itself.