Quoting Rick Engebretson <eng at pinenet.com>:

> Pardon me for being dumb, but a major hurdle to learning Linux is the 
> directory. The file  abbreviations are made for the text console and 
> keyboard, but with a nice GUI a descriptive name system would really 
> help. 

Err..., what? What file abbreviations? And what's a descriptive name system for 
a GUI?
> 
> Also, the directory tree seems less than hierarcical. 

In what way? Seems completely hierarchical to me.
> 
> I'm using old SuSE 6.4. I've played with old and new Gnome, and old and 
> new KDE. The stylistic "Nautilus" and "Konqueror" are dubious file 
> manager improvements.

I haven't really used them, but this isn't the first criticism I've heard.
> 
> MS Windows (since 3.0) does have a very clean directory and system 
> configuration structure. I realize this is an apples and oranges 
> comparison. But even simple configuration of Linux isn't simple.

I would suggest that the apparent simplicity of Windows configuration is due to 
your familiarity with it. Compare the amount of time you've been working with 
Windows and Linux. You may find, as you learn Linux, that it is actually 
simpler to configure than Windows (many do). Also, Linux has a more granular 
and complete configuration scheme (ie >3 .ini files), which makes it seem more 
complicated but does give much better control. And, IMHO, the registry is a 
complete configuration disaster.

Keep working with Linux, see if your opinions change. And either way, of 
course, keep voicing them.