In essence I find that users can quickly get to LIKE Linux and its like-for-like replacement of Windows consumer-grade applications... for the most part. (Open Office bridges a LOT of those problems.)

One thing that I consistently find that makes Linux unpalatable to users is the installation process.

For instance, with RedHat-related consumer-grade products like Fedora or CentOS you need to install mp3 support manually. There are many other examples of this but lack of pre-installed mp3 support (I know, because of legal issues) is the first, immediate show-stopper.

There are numerous pages out there (such as this) that show users how to install various vestiges of Windows functionality that don't come pre-installed with Linux, but they involve opening up shells and typing in special commands. This is bad enough for regular end users even when all you need to do is cut and paste, but some of these upgrade tasks are more complex than that... and frighteningly so. (You don't even want to KNOW how hard it is to edit /etc/fstab - from an end user's perspective, that is.)

Is there a way to automate this post-install stuff so that it doesn't seem so daunting to common end-users?

There's no reason you couldn't create an app that would add various repo's and install relevant packages

wget <url_to_repo_file>
wget <url_to_gpg_package_signing_key>
rpm --import <path_to_gpg_package_signing_key>
yum -y install <package_list>

I wasn't aware that Fedora, RHEL and CentOS's target audience was the consumer.

Certainly RHEL's, and by proxy CentOS's target audience is the corporate environment, I expect servers count for the largest share of RHEL deployments. Fedora is sort of like a testing/staging platform for RHEL and I would say is targeted at the more curious user.

I agree with phil.d.g. Red Hat and Centos arer most certainly not consumer grade and were never intended to be. Fedora, to me, is aimed at the intermediate user. You want to be looking at distros like Linux Mint and PCLOS that claim to be aimed at 'consumers'.

I would not say so. Fedora is nicely polished product for consumer. It has usability on the same level as Ubuntu, but different approach to packaging because of different "roots" (RH instead of Debian).

Though I fully agree about RHEL and CentOS - they are targeted to server hence corporate market. Hence less usability.

CentOS has proven to be usable by business users (in the lab and in the wild, in my experience) and plenty of consumer-type Windows and Mac students who have sat down comfortably with it, though I use Fedora more because it's bleeding edge stuff.

Still, wouldn't Ubuntu have issues with stuff like installing mp3 support? Also, does Ubuntu have other limitations? I haven't used Ubuntu much but I have heard some... mean-spirited rumors.

kbp - that sounds like a good idea. Problem is... how do you automate the configuration of things like fstab and samba, which require actual tinkering?

I disagree about Fedora. Red Hat uses it far too often as a playground/testing environment for RHEL, and fairly regularly things break badly. Not to mention there is no long-term support for Fedora releases. It just isn't a direction you want to point your average consumer.

My wife has a Fedora test machine she tests all the time. It has its breakage issues but nothing like Windows 7... much less XP. At least it hasn't out-bugged Windows in our experiences. Any examples and insight on this might help a lot.

So which Redhat-based distro do you think is good for the consumer, or is Ubuntu a better choice?

Mandriva is a pretty good RPM based distro, IMO, that is good for consumers. Just goto the Easy Urpmi site and install non-free repositories, such as multimedia apps. It also have a great Control Center to help manage software/hardwarre, some say one of the best for Linux.

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First off, I don't think there is a Linux distro that can out do Windows when it comes to bugs. The issue that really soured me on Fedora was when the kernel was moving to the current wireless stack. If I remember correctly, Fedora patched their kernel with the new stack long before it was ready and it caused all sorts of headaches. I've also always been put-off by this part of their mission statement:

I'll almost always take stability over cutting edge. In fact that is the main reason I use Slackware.

For consumers I think the Ubuntu based stuff seems to be more on track. I've been particularly impressed with Mint since it really tries to tackle some of the multimedia issues you pointed out.

There are plenty of distros that have media codecs built-in or installable from the menu: probably any non-USA distro except Ubuntu, in fact! Yes, you do have to install the OS, where Windows users buy their computer with the OS already on it, but that's hardly a major problem. And how many average users will need to edit fstab?

I'm no friend of making things difficult for the sake of a spurious simplicity or control; I'd never use Slackware, Gentoo, or Arch. (OMG - here come the fanboys...) But I don't want Linux made too easy if that means removing its flexibility. On artificial language forums I often hear of Windows users struggling to create a keyboard driver, or just to enter IPA characters, and feel very relieved I'm not in their situation. Leonardo da Vinci once said that most men serve no purpose but to turn food into shit. I want them to stay with Windows.

I think Ubuntu's installer asks if you want mp3 and other proprietary software installed, and if you choose yes it gets you to accept the necessary eulas.

RPM based distros to look at would be Mandriva and possibly OpenSUSE. Non RPM based distros would be Ubuntu, Linux Mint or PCLinuxOS. These are not recommendations as I haven't used some of them, simply suggestions as to what to research further based on the opinions of others.

PCLOS is RPM based. It does use apt/Synaptic (Currently...) but the underlying packages are rpms.

Oops, my mistake.

I used PCLOS for a while as I wanted exposure to an easy RPM based distro. In the end, I found it too familiar as it does use apt. So, I've yet to really get any experience with RPMs.