I agree. I think it's a bit hypocritical of UN*X people to criticize Microsoft for dumping everything in the System folder. They do the same thing with the "bin" folder. If you're suddenly stuck having to edit your congig files by hand (and that will happen), digging through the "etc" can be a real pain, especially from a vanilla console that doesn't use color (unless you know how to turn it on). Everything is case sensitive, too. It took me a while to figure out why "xconfigurator" didn't work, but "XConfigurator" did. God, I hate that.
This should most likely read "I don't understand anything about the linux file structure so therefore I will say it is wrong and broken."
Sure it looks very scary to new users but does have structure to it! For instances, as a general rule
/usr - stuff used by no-admin users.
/etc - system configuration and some system files
/lib - suprisingly you find library files here ( amoung other things )
/bin - commands belonging to the system and accessable to all users
/sbin - commands only accessable to root and the system
/boot - the kernel, ram files and other things needed for booting
Of coarse these break down again into, for example
/usr/bin - user accessable non-system related commands
/usr/lib - librarys needed by the above and other user stuff
/usr/src - source code for various programs.
Compare that with chucking everything into, say a System Folder, and windows looks very average indeed.
I know standard I/O and pipes are useful for programming, but this is the 21st century. Why are we still bumming around with Telnet-compatible B&W shells? I miss the old text user-interfaces (TUIs) used in MS-DOS. Navigating interfaces without a mouse ROCKS.
Yes. Text consoles are there and a very important for remote administration. I can tell that you have never tried to remotly admin a Windows machine over, say, a 64K link. Compare it to administering a unix machine over that same link using telnet or more likely ssh. Sending text is much faster than sending images of what is on the screen. Not useful to home users maybe but essential to Server Admins, where linux is used heavily.
The command line provides other powerful advantages that can not be replicated using a mouse. For lack of a better example, consider having to go through 2389723 Directories and delete a file with aname containing certain string in the file name or of a specify size. This can be done with one command which may only need to be executed once and complete with in a few minutes. Do that with your DOS and mouse :-) This is but one reason for still using them.
Also, there's so much stuff that just goes in the "etc" folder.
*sarcasm*Yes having configuration files located in one easy to find directory is a pain. I think I would prefer to mix it in with the spooler, some exe files, bmp wallpapers in a windows directory. Or perhaps we should make it all one file and call it a registry. Then it ( 1 file ) can become corrupt and require you to install and entire system from scratch!*/sarcasm
If you're suddenly stuck having to edit your congig files by hand (and that will happen), digging through the "etc" can be a real pain, especially from a vanilla console that doesn't use color (unless you know how to turn it on).
All the linux distributions I have used have had a colour termnial windows, not that you need it to read text. In gnome, a more popular desktop, you can change the colour scheme in the Edit menu. It isn't as hard as you make out.
But if for what ever reason you can't read text unless it is in bright fantastic colours, I suggest WindowsXP for its some what vomit inducing colour scheme.