I say just the basics since I never intend for anyone to access my system from another machine and I won't be accessing it remotely either because I have a CD-RW and a tape drive to take up fulfill the eventualities that of needing something from my system when I'm away from it.

Now that leaves what I personally want to do with it. But just what are those things?
I think the list should be the following:

* games
* music cd's
* mp3's
* movies
* streaming multimedia
* internet browsing
* ftp
* email
* regular & 3d graphics
* backing up my data on CD, DVD, or tape.

Now if distributions could just provide that for "normal users" and never have a package depndency message for those people installing software that don't have an Internet connection, then Linux might be the number one household operating system in the future. There's no need for Network services like those of a business nature, etc.

One thing Microsoft Windows and Apple applications have over the open source community are installers that have nearly everything required to make the application work. The installer scans the system from the package and either installs the packages that are missing or the support files are upgraded and all of this transpires without having an Internet connection. For those that say "but ISO's come from the Internet!", I have news for them. You can get Linux in stores. I bought RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake Linux and Debian from a CompUSA.

What else does Linux need? The documentation. Microsoft and Apple have extensive onboard help files that cover just about everything complete with pictures. The Linux community must deal with the people who run The Linux Documentation Project who at a whims notice remove doc's and give no ETA for their updated return to the project. Then the "open source world" is held hostage kind of with no where to turn except the countless sites around the globe that eventually find out that docs are needed for the MIA docs. My personal Linux install experience suffers from the "frustration quotient" that we've all come to recognize because it's "open source". I bring this up because "old" Linux distro's used to come with TLDP HOWTO's on the install CD's.

Of course for this to happen an actual "source forge" site must be in place that houses the ISO's, all documents for support with no links to any other sites for HOWTO's and tutorials, all the drivers and updates on that site with no links to any other sites and then of course a forum section to handle the unexpected that is not covered by the documents that are better than the competition operating systems. I've seen the current so-called resource consolidation sites and every one of them always falls short because people in the Linux community need to break free from "the other operating system and application storehouse ways" and make the jump to the right way. Yes, yes, licensing is what many people say. The single most thing making a mess with the term "open source".

I'd have to say though that LQ.org is the one site that is the closest to the vision of the "one stop shop". Now if the places that house the libraries, etc. had iso's that you could download and install like the distro then Linux would be a much friendlier customer experience. Something like this scenario:

Of course some will bring up the old addage "in a perfect world... blah, blah, blah". But I of course am just thinking of the "open source world" and how it can be better than anything ever was. Cooperation is always the problem though. Maybe if Linux Torvalds made an announcement that a single site should be made, then the "open source world" would indeed be this "better place that can fulfill all our dreams".

So what would my complete answer to my thread question be?

Why can't the "open source community" get it together like Apple MacOS, Microsoft Windows, Novell NetWare, and IBM OS/2 have?

But then it's not all about me or "them that are they", so.... What do you really want in a personal version of Linux?

I use slackware for everything u listed. Is it user friendly. It is for me but probably not based on your definition of user friendly. I like it just the way it is though.

I don't think linux is going to take over the "desktop world". I don't think that is the goal. People writting the code don't have that in mind, except maybe kde and a few other projects but mostly it's not the number 1 important consideration. Remeber most of the contributing coders are hobiest they are doing it for fun, for pride, etc. They are not driven by a market. They and I want a certain amount of non-user friendlyness becuase it provides a much more powerfull system and apps. Gui tools will only get you so far. Writing code guessing what the user wants will not work either. However, I do believe linux will take over the server market for this very fact. Microsft is definetly worried about the future of the server market, but not so much the desktop market.