Balancing Linux security with usability

Building an operating system is a difficult balance, and a Linux distribution is no different. You need to consider the out-of-the-box functionality that most people are going to want, and accessibility for a wide swath of administrators’ skillsets. If you make your distro very secure, but a newbie sysadmin can’t figure out how to work with it…well, they’re going to find an easier distribution to go learn on, and now you’ve lost that admin to another distribution.