> Gnome Shell and Unity make life hard for people who just want to use Facebook
How? I installed Ubuntu on an old laptop for my wife and she finds it as easy as ever to do email and Facebook because essentially the only app she ever runs is Chrome and it's locked in the Launcher. She doesn't even know that Unity exists so it's certainly not making life hard for her.
Isn't this the perfect use case for Windows 8, though? Your wife would have no trouble finding the Internet Explorer (or even Chrome) tile prominently featured on the Metro UI launch screen.
How? I installed Ubuntu on an old laptop for my wife and she finds it as easy as ever to do email and Facebook because essentially the only app she ever runs is Chrome and it's locked in the Launcher. She doesn't even know that Unity exists so it's certainly not making life hard for her.