&gt; It seems more of an attitude rather than technical issue.<p>Indeed. All the above concerned what looks like official communication from the project only, not what they choose to spend their time on. But it&#x27;s important to give a fair picture of yoru project to the outside world, if not for other reasons than simply to avoid hordes of thankless users demanding support.<p>It&#x27;s a bit unfortunate when articles like the Ars one paints this as a desktop operating system for end users. It&#x27;s clearly not what they&#x27;re aiming for, and it only reinforces the commonly held view that Linux is somehow for nerds only.<p>Ubuntu seems to still be the desktop operating system to recommend for non-technical users, but between Unity and the shopping lenses we desperately need a plan B.<p>&gt; Does it have to be Debian?<p>No, but Debian does bring so much of the solid foundation &quot;for free&quot; that I feel it is probably the easiest way to get there. Debian has had a mostly working upgrade path for some 20 years now, which is simply outstanding.<p>What&#x27;s missing is mainly a well polished default GUI, including the ability to discover and install new software. Debian is simply too flexible for a non-technical user. It must probably also take care not to break the most non-free software.