I wouldn't agree with that at all. For the average non-technical user Ubuntu shouldn't require much if any terminal work. Ubuntu is about as point and click as it gets I'd say, and troubleshooting and educating end users is what I do at work all day so I think I have a pretty good idea about what the average user is doing out there.

Ubuntu has the added benefit of all linux distributions in that the terminal is both straightforward (as cli goes) AND powerful/full-featured if it suits you to use it. I use the terminal when it's faster and easier, but for the most part I could use the gui exclusively. One of the main reasons I run Ubuntu on my laptop for work as opposed to windows or some other linux distribution is the fact that the gui has everything windows ever had, plus some nifty, powerful, and above all FAST ways to manipulate things like connected wired networks....point and click that didn't even require terminal work to set up.

I don't like to get off topic in a thread, but that statement, if read by an impressionable newbie, could put them off linux for good, which I think is wrong to them and the linux community as a whole.

which brings up a good point - is it possible to 'lock' that upgrade <icon> to prevent the upgrade being done?.

or maybe lock Synaptic to a version ?.

Yes. Select:
update manager
settings
updates
set "RELEASE UPGRADE-show new distribution releases" to never.

Or if you are that concerned about customers monkey fingering the install (always a valid concern) set them as unprivileged users and don't give them access to any sudoers passwords. Update manager and synaptic (same thing, two different names/uses) both require authentication. If you're worried about security updates there is even an option to do those without any notice to you, which would be reasonably safe.


My 3 year old uses Ubuntu every day unsupervised (Gcompris is awesome) and simply by creating an unprivileged account for him, I've not had to do ANY MAINTENANCE on this computer except to delete a few empty folders he creates when he gets the cursor out of the lines.

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