Debian testing install

[ded]

<rant mode on>

I'd like to state in advance, I'm not posting this to cause a flame
war...I'm just a bit miffed as to the direction my former distribution
of choice is headed. I always took a bit of pride that Debian was
traditionally a bit of a difficult install, you really did have to
know a bit about your computer and linux to get it all working and
we all could say with a bit of pride "I run Debian". Much the same
way one could say, "I run Slack".

Well this afternoon I had a bit of spare time, and I decided with a
new Debian release on the horizion I would download the testing
netinstall cd and have a look-see.

Frans, Joey and the rest of the installer team have done a good
job...everything was detected and set up correctly. But, when I got
to the desktop there was this irritating orangish looking icon
telling me that there were updates? WTF is that all about? I'm used
to opening a terminal, selecting my repository sources and firing up
aptitude and going merrily on my way. What's with the hand holding?
Has everything in linux got to become a click and drool interface?
Is it beyond new users to say I want a better system, but I know
going in it's going to be a bit more difficult...there's going to be
a learning cure and then spend a bit of time reading and learning?
It really does seem to me that a majority of the distributions (even
those like Debian, who aren't a for pay, commercial distro) are
pandering to Windows users. In essence it seems to be to have
become, "I'd like to use linux...but you've got to make it look like
windows, walk like windows and smell like windows." There's even a
new thread on the Fedora list where someone is suggesting
implementing YasT2 for Fedora <smacks forehead>. Been there, done
that with Debian. Spare me.

If linux gets to the point that it's used by a bunch of people who
can't format a hdd on their own or even figure out how to install a
tarball, mplayer, codecs, etc....maybe we should start working on
another project.

To launch an old argument, but hopefully amongst friends so that
it's just a discussion, does anyone else feel that linux is being
dumbed down to an unacceptable level?

<rant mode off>

Sorry, had to get it off my chest :)

Dan
-- 
When your IQ rises to 28, sell.
                -- Professor Irwin Corey to a heckler