Modern Linux: happy with its evolution? Let’s vote!

I’ve worked with Linux every day for years now, at least 9, I reckon. I started while I was still at school. At university, I got into systems programming, wrote my own OS (who hasn’t, right?), studied Linux and OpenBSD, wrote kernel modules and hung out with developers on forums. Then, in my 4th year, the big money started coming in, and since then Linux has mostly crossed my path while I’ve been administering my own servers. There were quite a few of those. Time passed, but I rarely ventured beyond the console, so my last real memories of desktop Linux date back to around 2003. And today… I installed Ubuntu on the laptop. My first reaction was shock 🙂 At the GUI level, Linux is no longer what I remember from my younger days. Sure, it’s nice that my underpowered little laptop now flies compared with Vista Business, but that’s not the point 🙂 I was hoping for a trip back to my youth: compiling X, installing the latest KDE. Instead, the installer didn’t even ask what I wanted to install… Sorry, but this feels like Windows 🙁 Red Hat 4 installed in text mode and was completely interactive: you had to specify everything. In one version of Mandrake, you could even edit the LILO config during installation by hand, and now… Evolution? Or degeneration?
I’m really pleased that Linux has become so friendly to ordinary users, but it’s not how I remember it. Am I old? Super-old? 🙂 All right… let’s vote.