Hi,

not sure, if anybody who can make decisions is still reading this, but
I have installed Ubuntu 12.10 for a total beginner (this is what
Ubuntu claims to be most adapted for):

a) Never ever a total beginner is able to install and setup Ubuntu on
his own - will always need help (I already wrote that a while ago)!
This does not apply only for the installation and basic configuration,
but also for online accounts (register new accounts - reuse existing
ones - most people don't even remember or write down their passwords,
decision what application to use for what task (depending on the
person and tasks there can be major differences). Not all of this can
be made simpler by the operating system.

b) I just felt lucky to install the newest 12.10 (instead of the 12.04
that has been previously there on the same machine) and unfortunately
- although already a good while ago the release - I rushed into a few
annoying bugs like
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/1069504
or https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/848164
(quite similar bug descriptions). That ever worked since 10.04 as far
as I remember - and now it does not - where this feature was never so
important for me as it is now because the very beginner user (even
beginner in mouse handling) now needs 2 more clicks onto ... ... an
icon that cannot be made bigger (person also does not see very, very
good).

c) Apart from the fact that I did not have the impression that with
the switch to upstart the startup process really got faster (on a
two-processor-machine) it also seems to introduce problems. On my
machine sometimes compiz does not come up fine, but who cares, I can
restart it manually if it does not because I did the login too fast.
But in this case I set the autologin for the beginner user and now I
experience different problems that might occur as skype not started
which happened once or - even worse - network manager is disabling
wireless network after autologin. So now I must also train the user to
make sure the right checkmarks are activated.

d) For the beginner user the buttons for closing the window are too
small. While that was no problem on Gnome2 in Ubuntu 9.04 up to 10.04
with the introduction of Gnome 3 and unity those buttons simply don't
grow when I increase the font size in Universal access - and I cannot
do this in the same way (by specifying the dpi) I could under Gnome 2
- Now I have only 3 choices (as in Windows 8-P). But at least on
Windows the Window-Buttons grow together with the fonts.

e) For recharging the mobile internet stick I had to register at the
provider homepage with the stick's number and it sent me an SMS
message. Guess what: I could not find any crappy application that was
able to read the messages from the huawei USB stick (that fortunately
worked out-of-the-box to get the internet connection). Finally I put
the USIM card into one of my older phones and read the mesage with the
initial password there. - Is this meant to be user friendly?

f) I experience several options for the display not working as
disabling of dimming of the screen. Somehow changing the settings and
disabling the ambient light sensor in the bios now brought an
acceptable solution - that worked on 10.04 on the same machine for
sure!

And so on and so forth! - I am really loosing the will of frickling
around - neither with Windows nor with Linux - it is so sad, that such
things do not work fine but on the other hand focus is put elsewhere
(Amazon lenses and Ubuntu-Phones for example) while the laptop or PC
is still (for a long, long time, I would bet) a very important tool. I
am really loosing all kind of joy that way...