I feel like I'm a bit culpable there. At one networking company I was Product Manager for network operating systems, Novell and Microsoft's LAN Manager. And then when I was a freelance tech writer, I wrote several manuals for Novell. Somewhere along the way I may have added to your confusion.

Novell's products have always been hard to use, and they seemed designed for techies rather than people who just needed to get the job done. I didn't realize how old the company and products are, until I discovered that Novell was originally named TurboDOS, and I used TurboDOS ages ago. Early 80s I think, no later. It was hard to make TurboDOS work, and Novell's been true to its heritage ever since.

One thing I'll say for Microsoft is that they at least attempt to make the products easy to use (stipulated the results are spotty). Linux and other hardcore geek products like Novell force you to edit text-based configuration files full of unintelligible gibberish you have to translate from a manual, while Windows at least gives you dialog boxes, as messy and jumbled as they tend to be. Life's too short to waste it overcoming the gratuitous complications of overly geeky products; I'd rather spend my geekiness creating new things than overcoming the shortcomings in other people's work.