Linux

Contrary to what is often claimed Linux may in fact be better for people with realtively simple needs. I basically use Linux to run a browser and Steam and don't run into many problems on a day to day basis.

College for computers where I got exposed to Linux, used to all about windows but it changed so much over the years, I just can't do windows anymore.

I've been running Mint for years, I had a box on 17 until it went end of life. My plex media server or samba server that thing giving me issues, I believe some version of Lubuntu or something that went end of life, I managed to upgrade the OS in place without wiping it but the operating system has done change ways it handles static IP addresses, the box has 3 nic ports and I haven't put much effort into figuring it out.

Well, why should the average end-user use Linux, actually? If your answer is privacy, taking control back or something in that general line, you're essentially advocating for a technological solution on the individual level as a solution to what essentially are and always have been political and ideological problems. Expecting that to work out is wishful thinking at best. I have growing suspicions, though, that it's more like a different ideological layer, and in that regard quite akin to making the climate catastrophe about choices of individual consumers (of which they often have very few, actually).

There is some software that it will plain just not run. I moved over to fedora from Windows and was loving it for about 6 months, but I needed CAD software for work that I could just not get to work, no matter what tinkering I did.

I have used Linux for around 10 years. My daily driver has changed a couple times but I always go back to Mint. I think its better than Ubuntu personally. Its what I always recommend and I've been a sys admin for 5 years and dealt with production environments across all the core distros.

All that said it really depends on what programs you are using. Some have alternatives sure but sometimes that's not enough. Sometimes you will have a program that just pins you to Windows until you don't need it anymore.

You should list out what things you use that you need. Take some recommendations on their alternatives or how to set them up in Linux and see if it sounds like it'd work for you.

I hope that snaps, flatpaks, AppImages, etc., will make a big difference in terms of adoption and ease of use. As @Millie@lemm.ee said, if complications arise while trying to install or use software, then you're basically screwed unless you have a really good tutorial or deep knowledge. I've been using various Linux distros as daily drivers for the past ~10 years, and in that time, I still haven't figured out why there's such a big emphasis on compiling software. Your average Windows user has probably never even heard of compilation let alone been required to compile software in order to use it. For better or worse, the emphasis in Windows is on shipping binaries that the user can simply double-click to run. And if we want to reduce frustration for new Linux users, we can't expect them to know how to compile software. Snaps, flatpaks, and AppImages definitely move us in the right direction even if there's a lot of internal debate about which of those is best.

It's also nice to see big flagship projects like Gnome finally really taking off in terms of quality. Of course, the Gnome desktop environment won't appeal to everyone aesthetically, and it's generally much more resource-intensive than Cinnamon, KDE, XFCE, LXQt, etc.; but distros like Ubuntu, Fedora, Pop!_OS, etc., look really great and work really well out of the box for most people. Same with Linux Mint. And I personally don't care for KDE, but it's another DE that's pretty solid.

It's not that Linux is hard, it's that people are used to other stuff and have very little interest in learning something new for no good reason.

Unless you really convince someone that there is a good reason to put in the work, how little it may be, to get used to something new, they won't do it and complain.

Maybe give an immutable OS, like Fedora Silverblue or Kinoite a try?

The idea is that it's very hard to break the system, because apps are containerized, so they don't 'touch' the system, and updates take effect only on reboots.

If update is broken, it won't apply. And you can always rollback to previous state, if you don't like something.

You don't need to install stuff from the terminal, and you can install them from a GUI 'store'.

When I was still a Linux noob I used to want to do all of the cool customizations and would often end up rendering the operating system unusable. Eventually I just switched to KDE whoch has a lot of customization built in. Some distros make it harder to shoot yourself in the foot, but I think being able to customize and run the latest software out of the box makes a huge difference.

Is a different paradigm. The way you do almost anything is different from windows, from updating drivers to downloading programs. It's frustrating in the same way driving in the wrong side of the road can be frustrating, or going a whole day using only your non dominant hand.

I've tried to convince a couple people over the last few years to convert, and their issues always baffle me, until my brother tried for a week and I finally understood. It's just unlearned everything they've been doing for years, to do things a different way.

You don't choose Linux. Linux choose you. That being said

It's not that hard actually but you need a lot of free time and motivation to keep learning. When I was a student I was deep on Archlinux + DWM / AwesomeWM + lots of console applications now that I am a functional working men I just stick to a stable distro (Currently Debian Testing) I think the secret is have good hardware compatibility and if you want to try some weird configuration just use a VM first or just use a immutable distro.

I DON'T ALWAYS ASTROTURF

Most of the time the frustrating thing is it's users. If you look for help about something that is obviously badly designed somehow... You get gatekeeping or "you're using it wrong" responses.

Because clicking a button, finding out it works sometimes but not for you, then the top 3 google links might have a solution to parts of your problem, and you'll have to type in commands to run stuff you probably ran less than 20 times in your entire lifetime, kinda sucks. Even if you try to learn what actually went on, you'd need to do mental gymnastics.

Having multiple buttons to click and have what you want done almost all the time is much easier in comparison.

Source: was once a beginner, although it does get easier.

Well lets look at what i did to switch to linux. It was about 2 years ago and I was still using windows 8 since I didn't all the spyware in my operating system. I went with linux mint first since it was stated to be super new user friendly. I was so new to linux that I had to ask what neofetch was and how to use it. It was easy to use but I mostly just use web browser, steam, and libre office, which I had been useing libre office for years before that. Linux mint made a very frictionless new user experience. But I still needed that motive to move onto to something now. For me that breaking point was windows just having so must spyware in the os. Rather then using windows 10 or 11 I held onto window to windows 8 and then moved onto linux mint.

I've been daily driving Pop on my laptop and my biggest frustrations currently are lack of working drivers for the fingerprint reader and speakers, and the Proton VPN client is crap compared to Windows.