I saw plenty of efforts that aim to create a Linux distribution for non-enthusiasts, for people who just want to use their computers, and not care about the details - A Desktop for All on the GNOME blog, most recently. While I commend the effort, my own experience is that these efforts are futile, and start off from a fundamentally wrong premise: that people are willing (let alone wanting) to manage their own operating systems.
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My family is using Linux because that’s the system I can maintain for them. Apart from my Dad, they never installed Linux, and never will. They don’t install software, they don’t upgrade, they don’t change settings either. All of that is something I do for them. And to do so effectively, I need a distribution I am familiar with, one that is also flexible enough to fine-tune for every member of the family, because they prefer fundamentally different things!
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The common pattern between all these three is that neither of them maintains their own systems. I do. As such, how beginner friendly the distribution is, is meaningless. The users of the system don’t care, they’ll never see those parts. They’ll have a preconfigured system maintained by someone else, and that’s exactly what they want. To make this work, I’m using distributions I am familiar with. For my parents, that’s Debian, because I was a Debian person when their systems were installed. For my Wife, it is NixOS, because I’m a NixOS person now. For the Twins, it will likely be NixOS too.
I know tons of people even 30 years ago that could not check the oil on their car and would call triple A or their insurance company for a flat tire. Heck I had a friend we practically had to beg to bring his car in for an oil change and that is just a number and calendar date to keep track of and most places put a little sticker to give you that information.
And a lot of people would call that incapable.
This is a form of learned, or rather forced to internalize, helplessness. People don’t even want to understand things, even though they absolutely could and ought.
I actually feel one problem with the modern age, in america in particular, is this idea of everyone doing everyone for themselves. doctor, accountant, lawyer, mechanic, it guy, plumber, electrician. Initially gas stations pumped the gas, checked your fluids and tires, and would top you off as part of the service. no one did that stuff. if your tv broke you called in the tv repairman and you got your milk from a milkman. people were expected to know their jobs and not necessarily everyone elses.
There seems to be a big gap between what people think others “ought” to understand. Like the expectation that changing tires is something someone needs to be able to do. Or one should be filing their own taxes. I can do both, but I’m never going to do either, because it’s more practical to let someone with way more expertise and knowledge do it for me.
When it comes to taxes, for example, doing it would take a considerable time for me, to double check and verify everything, and it would be a frustrating experience. By hiring an accountant to do that for me, I save a lot of time and frustration, and can turn that time into work, which ends up netting me more money than my accountant’s pay. So why exactly should I be doing my own taxes?
And changing tires: since we got our car some 8 years ago, we only ever had to change tires unexpectedly once. We called help, they were there in 10 minutes, meanwhile we nursed our one year olds back to sleep. A lot more convenient - and a lot faster! - than if we had to change tires ourselves.
To bring this back on topic: I believe that it is perfectly fine to be an end-user who can use their system, their programs, but delegate the administrative tasks to someone else. Installing, upgrading, and in general, maintaining an operating system is not a skill that everyone ought to know. It certainly helps if they do, but it should not be a required skill.