There's still the thing with having to tinker with the terminal / Konsole / whatever you call that. Command prompt scripts, not very end user friendly, but if you'd like to write a script then that's good for you
Exactly.
If those apps were available for Linux or you did not need them, do you think you would switch?
I could see switching in that case. However, I'd still like to see some tasks made easier before making a switch. Having to go searching the Internet on how to do something via Terminal is just not my idea of using time productively.
I found Ubuntu to be very user-friendly from the first time I booted the Live cd.
You make it sound so easy, but what did you do with it then? Here's what I say to someone who has never used, let's say, Ubuntu and who might be wondering what to expect. The installation can go very smoothly and Ubuntu will be ready to get online with Firefox, it has an email client (Evolution) already installed, has a media player, a music player, a PDF viewer, an Office suite (OpenOffice), a photo editor (GIMP), etc. In other words, it's ready to do many of the things Windows users can do with the software found on a new Windows system. In that sense, it's user friendly.
But, as soon as that new user want to install Flash Player or download some software they'd like to use, or install a hardware device that requires obtaining and installing a driver, they are likely experience some frustration and bewilderment. They may also discover they simply can't find a driver for a printer or some other device.
When I initially installed Ubuntu 9.04, the computer was using onboard video. I installed a spare AGP video card (NVIDIA FX 5200), thinking of this as a minor video upgrade. But, I found that I would have to use Terminal and use
sudo commands to accomplish this. First road block was an error message saying I needed be at the root level in order to proceed. I search for how to do that and then obstacle #2 appears. More research and I find how to resolve that. Try the procedure again, getting by obstacle #1 (the root requirement) and obstacle #2 only to encounter obstacle #3. More research and a solution found. Start the procedure again, clearing obstacles #1, #2, and #3, but another obstacle appears. At that point, I gave up on installing the driver and using that video card. Oh, and I posted on a Ubuntu forum to ask for assistance but didn't get much help; they basically said the FX 5200 is a "legacy" card and is not supported. Hmm, I can easily still get Windows drivers for it.
Also, Ubuntu 9.04 had no driver for my fairly new Brother printer, so I could not use it with Ubuntu. With Ubuntu 9.10, I can install my printer.
So, these are some of the problems new Linux users can encounter.