"""An "ordinary user" is incapable of installing an operating system. They don't even know what an operating system is."""

No, that's a "strawman user", or some grandma.

There are tons of ordinary users that can install Windows. And almost all Mac users can install OS X (there's not much to it).

They are no programmers, they are no superusers, they are no admins. They just know how to insert a DVD, answer a few questions and press next.

There's no reason to not be able to do the same with Linux, or for a linux distro to assume "that if the user is installing the OS himself, he isn't ordinary".

Doubly so for Ubuntu, who wants to be the people's friendly distro and change all that "Linux is for geeks" mentality.

> No, that's a "strawman user", or some grandma.

I'm willing to bet you never worked in technical support. The average person is lucky if they manage to turn on a computer.

I have worked technical support. I have done it in person, and I worked the phones at Microsoft before they shipped all these jobs to India.

I think most users are quite capable of installing an OS. Most users never call tech support. Otherwise MS woudl be broke.

And I'm willing to bet the kind of users that tend to call technical support are not the kind of users that install their OSs.

That doesn't mean that users that can install Windows and OS X are in the minority. It's just selection bias.