General comments. You do not have to use any of those environments (KDE,GNOME, etc) if you do not like them. Use FVWM2, like I do. It does not use 3D acceleration and will not be an immediate problem to running X (X11 that is). Use more and more command-line linux software. If you program serial ports, you sure do not mind doing it on the terminal. If you program simulation software like I do, command-line is just about all you need. Again, simple X servers with something like FVWM2/MWM will work fine when it comes to having a LOT of terminals (xterm) open. On complexity. You cannot avoid it. And I would argue that the Linux "micro-kernel" architecture design with modules is very good for keeping bad things out of your functional things. If you do not like a particular aspect of the system, do not compile it in your kernel. If you do not like a particular way the system is put together, switch distributions or piece one together. None of those things are easy... I feel that people want the convenience of Ubuntu-style (Microsoft-legacy thinking) "apt-get" installation and system management. With the greatness of being able to do what you want comes the responsibility of doing a lot of it yourself; it is a lot like politics in real life.