this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2025
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I don’t know how to feel about this. Because the intelligent guy is totally me, but I also recognise that Linux is in no shape for a non tech literate person just to jump into.
You could install Mint on your mother's computer and don't tell her, and she'd probably still think she was using Windows until it came time to install new software. Linux For Normies has come a long way, especially recently. It could be ready for mass adoption very soon, if not already.
I agree. My mom has been running Mint for 9 years with no problems. My tech illiterate friend who has an nvidia gpu on the other hand needs a lot of handholding. He would never be able to make a transition on his own.
Yup. Linux + Nvidia is the problem here. I convinced my friend to move to Linux, explaining that all his favorite Steam games work on my Linux machine with no issues, just download and click play, tested it myself. Turns out, I don't have an nvidia gpu, he does, and a lot of the games straight up don't work, and the ones that do need at least one config change, if not more.
I have yet to have any issues on Steam myself when gaming with my Radeon card.
Maybe I'm somehow lucky but in the year plus that I've had mint on my gaming machine with an RTX 3050 I've had no issues. Maybe cause I rarely play demanding games? But modded Cyberpunk has been fine as well
I feel like Linux works for hardcore users and extremely casual users, but it doesn't work that great for medium savvy users.
Like sure if I'm barely using the computer for anything other than a web browser then it'll work fine.
And if I'm willing to do a whole lot of research I can also make it work for power user setups (at an even better outcome than Windows).
But if I'm just a gamer who's smart enough to do some modding and run a couple of game servers and maybe some other utilities, but I'm not incredibly tech savvy otherwise? Not a great fit.
Im the medium user with 6 hard drives, a ton of peripherals, audio equipment, 4 other desktops. I choose linux to make life even harder because otherwise im a lazy pos.
I do like Mint, but now I'm thinking Bazzite might be better for a beginner or average user because all those configurations and default apps/packages meant to make gaming easier also trickles down to having things "just work" for a casual average PC user. 🤔
I'm writing this on Bazzite right now, it's awesome, works great, and it's true that the preinstalled apps and scripts are really useful for someone coming over from Windows... but not just for them! I've been a Linux user for maybe a couple of decades now and I find them very useful.
I was gonna say this too.
Bazzite is functional, has helpful utilities pre built in, and is pretty idiot proof for the average user, as compared to many other linux distros.
99% of it 'just works'.
Use Bazaar, install flatpak, other useful stuff is pre-installed, use them, if you wanna do something fancier, documentation exists and is pretty good.
Beyond that, for the truly tech illiterate, you just need to make the icons and DE look the same as what they're used to, and then grandma will probably be able to figure it out... I think you can fairly easily do this with a good number of linux distros, and there are some that are just designed around this concept.
Nah, my wife runs NixOS. She has zero technical background or computer skill. I asked her what she needed installed and filled in the config file, did the rebuild switch. Shes been on it for 5 years now, zero issues, it all just works. She didn't like KDE because its too much like Windows with menus and options that confused her, so I put GnomeDE on it. She's happy, and if it dies sinces it is a 15year old laptop, I can replicate her system with the config.
While I agree with the sentiment that some Linux distros are used friendly, what you're describing isn't a good example of that. Not everyone has a technical spouse who can be their sysadmin.
The ideal is that a non technical person maybe stumbles a little trying to install it. Then, they can use it with the same amount (or less) of struggle they might have with windows.
It sounds more like you run NixOS for your wife
I don't touch it. Just initial setup. And its had the same apps for 5 years. Nothing ever needs doing, everything just works.
But if you want a tweaking system for non savvy user I'd say install ZorinOS. Super user friendly and appstore, etc.
Times have really changed, especially in the past five years. Even completely tech-agnostic people use GNU/Linux in my family. Reason is "Because it just works." no more Windows installing things that you hate. No more advertisements in the start menu or file manager. No more screenshots every five seconds. No more Windows slowing down the computer gradually. A relative's computer was unusable because of Windows, because it has slowed down the computer so much that the start menu took 10 seconds to open. All she did was her net banking, text editing and some very light photo editing. Ever since switching to GNU/Linux, her computer works again normally. And all of the tech questions about weird things like programmes randomly not starting have disappeared.
Also, nowadays you really never have to touch the command line. You can use an App-Store-like experience to install your programmes, just like you would on a phone. It also handles all updates automatically. This alone makes it such a better, "normie" operating system than Windows. Hit "update all", and it updates all of your packages for the system, the kernel itself, drivers, the apps themselves, literally everything. Because try explaining grandma, she needs to update the system, then the drivers, then every single application separately. Now you can tell Grandma instead: "Press this button and wait for 20 minutes."
The difference is night and day. Old computers work normally again. You don't need such overkill configurations like most Windows computers have to just run your text editing on net banking. By now it is objectively better.
If you're new, just use one of the many pre-configured options. No need to tinker with your system if you don't want to. Just install one of the literally hundreds "just works" distros that package everything for you.
Lastly, I'm going to say it is no exaggeration if I say installing GNU/Linux has solved literally every single issue people in my family had with computers. Because now it just works. No bloat, no nonsense. Just a computer.
Edit: typo.
Yes, I totally agree in that specific use case it is really great. As written in a different comment, my mom has been running Linux Mint for 9 years with absolutely no problem, because she doesn't use it for other things than email and browsing. She never had to touch the terminal and everything just works.
On the other hand I have a friend who was sick of Windows and I convinced him to start using linux and of course nvidia didn't work out of the box. Then there are some compatibility issues with x11 and certain nvidia gpus and with wayland for other gpus - I didn't know this before installing. So after installing and leaving I basically left him with a laggy mess. So we had to figure out how to fix that. He also have very few ram and during the install we only setup 1gb og swap - which was what the setup recommended. Then after I went home we had to figure out how to increase his swap size. Again this was my bad.
But what I am trying to say is that as a normal person going blind into linux, they would experience the same hurdles and not knowing where to start looking for solutions. So I really don't think it is ready for mainstream use - unless we as friends and relatives are willing to act as tech support for whoever wants to transision.
The lesson I personally learned is: for normies, don't configure. They don't need it, and they don't want it. They want something that just works. And if you stick with the "just works" distros and don't try to configure them, you'll be golden and they'll be happy.
Yeah, we installed Kubuntu and it still needs configuring.
How so?
Because off all the reasons I just wrote in the previous comment.
I find the "it just works" line ironic.
Because that's usually what Windows has going for it. Meanwhile any Linux distro I've tried so far has me search for how to install a specific thing and try 5 different results, because of course the command to copy&paste on the first few doesn't work. Doesn't help that most sites and people tell you to install software this way instead of using some software centre / app store where you just click on an install button.
That's not my experience at all ,there's nothing about windows that "just works". If feels like two or three different systems badly stapled together.
I don't know about you, but unless you're downloading a programm made for Windows 95, you can install anything without any trouble on Windows. Meanwhile Linux needs you to run a bunch of commands every time and half the time the commands from the download page don't work because they're for some specific distro only and you gotta look up different ones.
The tech illiterate are not typically the ones complaining about Microsoft; they mostly have zero clue about what's going on. Stop choosing perfection as the threshold for usability.
Linux is great for two kinds of people:
Ones who only use web browser, and maybe listen to music/watch movies on their computer (so probably majority of people);
Ones who have time and energy to tinker with their computer, because doing anything that's beyond the before-mentioned tasks will eventually make user do CLI stuff, to fix shit.
My hot take: If you have to use a command line EVER to do ANYTHING - it's not ready for non-technical users.
I know this is an annoying take, but Mac OS is considered the most user friendly OS because of its limited hardware choices and fewer command line interactions.
Then I guess Linux is as ready as Windows for the non-technical folks... the only difference is that with Windows is not like you get a CLI to do something, you just don't get that something period.
They why do I need to use the CLI to fix my mother's Mac at least 3 times a year?
But nowadays you don't need to do that anymore. Every distro has its own app store. You can install the applications you like with one click and update them all, together with the entire system and drivers, with one click as well. It doesn't get much simpler than that.
I am very happy working in Linux as my daily driver, while my husband is bugging me to switch his desktop and laptop over since he is frustrated at how awful the UI in Windows 11 is. But I know he has a low tolerance for frustration and while he has decent technical skills, he tends to accumulate the absolutely most peculiar technical problems I've ever seen. I mean, I'm rather savvy with Windows and he comes up with problems that take me a long time to figure out - issues that would be difficult to cause even if you were intentionally trying to break Windows.
So I don't really know what to do here. He likes my Garuda setup because I've shown him how customizable KDE Plasma is, but the amount of weird shit dealing with the AUR that I have run into, stuff that I can solve fairly easily but a layperson would likely not be able to handle, makes me want to put Mint on his system even if he'll find it less suitable.
As someone like your husband, I use garuda too and definitely recommend he use something else (probably something like kubuntu), but my main recommendation is that if he's not willing to switch it himself (ideally as a dual boot) he's not ready to switch. I don't bother my computer expert wife with my bizarre problems, just like I didn't on windows.
Personally I'm never switching back to windows. Though seriously, your husband should probably have something either simple or immutable and be prepared to do his own tech support.
He really tries not to bother me, but the screaming gets my attention and when he's about to physically destroy the computer I feel I have to step in and fix it. That being said, he is not comfortable installing it himself so I want something that provokes the minimal amount of hand-holding. Honestly, the biggest issue with me not putting Garuda on his system is that he needs Davinci Resolve for his work and it doesn't install directly off the AUR, you have to download the application separately from Black Magic Design's site and edit the build file. He is not going to understand how to do that.
Oh yeah if he's at the screaming and attacking the computer level thats wildly different, I'd interpreted it as moderate frustration at a problem that's not going away
Disagree
Ubuntu was already easy to use more than 10 years ago. If you worry about privacy and don't seek alternatives, you're an idiot.
Ubuntu was, and still is, to a new user, just as easy to set up as it is to break. Every Debian based distro that tries to "fix" the outdated packages "problem" suffers from that.