@Varthall:
Your reply is too long for me to quote in full, so I'll just make do 'blindly', I hope you don't mind.
As for the window manager thing: it's a bit complex as there is a distinction between window managers and toolkits. Window managers deal with the behaviour of the entire window, while toolkits deal with the contents of the window. The two are separate entities. While there is a certain standard a window manager has to conform to, this does not apply to the toolkits. Programs developed for one toolkit are not source-code compatible with another toolkit, but should run with any window manager. Most likely, you get the best look-and-feel if you use the toolkit's preferred manager, though. So, there's two issues: window-related actions are standardised, but things like buttons, menus, gadgets and input boxes are not. And yes, that is a big shame---for consistency it should be a toolkit or several which are so close to one another the normal user doesn't see the difference.
As for the floppies: well, this is Linux (or Unix, for that matter, as all Unices do it like this). You get used to it :-). In any case, I find your verification step rather cumbersome---why do you do that? I trust my floppy drives to write out things correctly.
Finally, regarding the crashing of Linux: what you describe is not an actual crash of Linux, where the kernel blurts out a 'kernel panic' and dumps the CPU state onto your screen. Yes, you can accidentally cause an error in a configuration file causing severe problems during the boot sequence. Rather like making a typo very early on in s:startup-sequence. (You can always recover the system with a rescue disk, a reinstallation of the OS is never necessary.) Once the system is up and running, it is solid as a rock, however. Something which can not be said for Amigas, I'm afraid, although I hear that OS4.0 is decidedly better at trapping and catching program errors without bringing down the entire system.
