How are we defining "average user?" I don't think the "average user" will ever install an OS to begin with. They buy a computer like it's a cell phone or a DVD player. "I bought a box that does this" seems to be the general sentiment.

I think that it would be great if most computers wouldn't come with an OS preinstalled for 3 reasons:

The user will gain some understanding of computers. But installers have evolved so much that IMHO any n00b can install Windows and most Linux distros pretty easily.

The user can choose the OS he/she wants. If so much computers didn't come with Windows preinstalled, maybe Linux would be much, much more popular! You might say that you can just install Linux over Windows, but that means you paid for Windows and are not gonna use it, and also most users just use what's on there and don't give anything else (like Linux) a chance. After all, they paid for Windows (and had no choice).

No bloatware, because the hardware vendor has no control over your OS!

I agree with balsam 100% !
The video driver installation in today's Linux seems to be major chore, unless you're a Linux code guru. I've switched to Linux about 10 years ago. Somehow I managed to keep the GUI running but I didn't really have any need for using any fancy graphical interfaces. I was super happy in 2008 when Mandriva included nVidia drivers in their download edition and the programs like Googleearth (with the GLX ) ran smoothly 'out of the box'.
This year I took a swing at the 64-bit edition of Mandriva and.. I've spent countless hours trying to setup the video drivers.. grrrrrrrrr...
I have a GE Force-4 MX4000 Nvidia card and a 2.6.31.12-3mnb Linux kernel.
I've downloaded over 4GB of Linux and I put it on a DVD. I can install the system and the basic GUI works. Then I need to install the system updates. I can do that. It's almost another 1GB of data.. When I go to software installer and select the nVidia drivers for my card and my kernel everything goes nice . Then I reboot my computer and.. I lose the GUI. What am I doing wrong? why aren't nVidia drivers included in 4GB of data on the DVD?? Can someone help me with this setup because I'm ready to give up on Linux alltogether..
I'm not a Linux wiz. I like it's stability and security but it's useless without BASIC THING like a video card driver.. Why is nVidia making such a big fuss about their 'proprietary drivers' when they are all freely available for download?!?!???
sorry for ranting.. I need some advice. please, if you know how to resolve this problem - let me know. thanks

I actually found that setting up graphics in Arch was no problem, except for the fact that I have two monitors that made it a huge pain.

But if you have one monitor, simply run "pacman -S <your driver>" and start X with no xorg.conf, and it works!

If you are using Mandriva's repos to install the driver, make sure you install "dkms" as well. That way when your kernel is upgraded the kernel module for the new kernel gets installed as well. If you are using the installer from Nvidia.com then when the kernel changes you need to boot into that kernel and run the isntaller with the -K option to install the module for the new kernel. There is also a way to do it for a kernel other than the one running, but I don't know how to do it. I think you can run the installer with -help to see all the options.

HTH

I mostly agree with the thread starter. When you have a regular setup with a standard distro most of the times you have little problems and when you have a problem you can most of the time pretty easy get a answer because of your regular setup. But if your setup deviates from the standard things get messier. And if you want to life on the edge with a 'non standard' setup things can get a real challenge and unquestionable undoable for a noob.

UPDATE:
A good friend of mine has helped me with this issue.
An easy way around Nvidia's 'magic' is a command called 'nopat' added in the bootloader.
All I need to do is to add a word 'nopat' in the beginning of a bootloader line and it resolves the older video card incompatibility.

What some people are really asking for is for the tail to wag the dog.

Windows has 90% of the desktop market and (by their own claims) no more than 40% of the server market. In other words, most Linux installations are servers or business computers. I don't have problems with videocard drivers: I don't have a videocard