As someone who uses Linux daily, when will this stop being parroted. Your average person, your average BitTorrent user even, does not have the skill set required for the running of Linux to be anything near trivial...
I replaced our family old iMac's OS with popOS about 18 months ago and my wife hasn't noticed yet.
I'd rate her skill set as "has never and will never know that a keyboard can be used for copy/paste shortcuts"
So I actually think there's a tail on either end of the tech savvy curve where users are happy with linux...
Here you go: https://puri.sm/products/librem-14.
If only that recently discussed change to include just the closed source firmware blobs in the standard dist gets approved, things would be even better than they currently are.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Debian-C...
There are 3 distinct tiers of users:
1. The basic users which really only use the web browser and maybe occasionally need to edit a document.
2. The "normal" users who need to use the web, office tools, perhaps some random domain specific software or games.
3. The super users, such as yourself.
Linux works fine for users #1 and #3, it's user #2 that runs into major issues and they also happen to be the vast majority of users.
Considering some of the issues I help my friends and family with on their personal computers, I couldn't imagine any of them installing and configuring Linux on their own.
It frankly does more harm than good when people try to perpetuate the myth that a Linux installation is just as trivial as a modern Mac or Windows install as it causes people to approach Linux with unrealistic expectations.
This is the wrong way. Try hardware designed for Linux instead of a Windows-certified one. Ideally, with preinstalled Linux. Look, the Linux community can't develop drivers for all hardware in the world for free, especially when it has no documentation whatsoever.
> I lacked the ability to set up Linux in accordance with my desires without hours of googling and frustration
This is so fuzzy, I can easily say the same for Windows or MacOS. Depending on you needs, hours of googling might even be very reasonable.
I have a system76 machine that I've used for years without any difficulty until my kids school said she needed access to this weird OS called Microsoft Windows that I don't know much about so I got a second drive and resolved to try this Windows thing on a secondary drive.
Installing the physical drive was the easy part. Everything after that went south. First instead of just going to windows.com or something I got shunted to stores where they were selling entire computers. I didn't NEED a new computer just an OS. Then I found people selling things called cd keys. What are those? Who even buys an OS anymore?
Eventually I figured out you can download something called an ISO file (what is that?) from microsoft and pay for it later? It looks like I'll be paying hundreds of dollars for what comes standard with Linux isn't that crazy? Then I tried to "burn" the iso to a usb drive and THAT didn't work so I borrowed a portable usb optical disk and bought some writable disks at Walmart like it was 1999 and finally got it installed whereupon it took a giant shit on my computers ability to boot anything except Windows. At first I thought it destroyed all my data on Linux and I about had a heart attack but after hours of troubleshooting I realized I just had to restore the ability to choose my OS at boot time and all my data was still there and I calmed down a bit.
Then I booted up this "Windows". At first nothing worked including the internet so I had to do research on my phone. I discovered that unlike Linux windows doesn't actually come with the drivers needed for your machine you have to go to each manufacturers website and navigate their confusing site (and avoid malware sites offering drivers) and find each individual driver. If you ever need an update you will have to do this all over again unless the driver includes an auto update feature. For the stuff that does auto update if it ever causes a problem with your hardware it will probably be impossible to fix and you will just end up reinstalling windows all over again and hopefully realizing what tanked your install in the first place and people actually do this over and over again!
It had a mediocre but acceptable set of default applications. Not nearly as good as my computer came with but its ok. Then I went to install some software I'm used to and I discovered the windows app store unlike Linux has almost nothing of value and one is expected to do the same dance as above for applications just like drivers. While downloading from a seemingly legit site I acquired several weird pieces of adware and an actual computer virus. Something I had previously just read about on the internet. Good thing this insecure OS didn't have any of my actual data!
It's not surprising that few people use this "windows" thing. It's a total mess and not nearly ready for prime time. Maybe 2030 will be the year of the Windows Desktop.
All that being said this feels like a bit of a straw man seeing as your average user (which this entire sub-thread is discussing) does not even know their hardware can support multiple OSs at all, let alone simultaneously. They buy a computer and assume the OS it has at that time is all they can use, and if it somehow ends up in an un-bootable state that they need to bring it to GeekSquad...
Also to imply that the Linux app stores are at all better than the Windows one is a bit disingenuous. About 50% of the time that I have attempted to use them, I ended up with a broken and completely unusable installation of the program. There is some hilariously ambiguous error prompt that shows up and the real error is written out to some log file mentioning that the installation failed to do the system not using init.d or something about systemd. Oh and the log file is intended to be interacted with through terminal commands and is a pain to even find on disk.
The Windows store doesn't contain most of the software you want because they limited what license you could use, what technology you could use to build with, and want a huge cut leading to developers opting out.
Meanwhile major distros repos contain almost all the software you are liable to want with the rest easily added by configuring additional sources so you can use the same highly functional interface to manage all your software gui or cli. The experience you describe where half of installations resulted in broken software is highly suspect. Such tech has worked extremely well for decades. Problems outside of self inflicted wounds like manually screwing with the same set of files managed by your package managers or trying to install packages not built for your distro are rare. Your problems are virtually certainly the result of highly interesting choices which is like saying cars don't work because the last time you drove backwards on the interstate you kept crashing.
Logs are in /var/log like /var/log/apt not in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavoratory with a sign "beware the leopard" not sure why you would NEED a terminal for this task although its certainly handy. Instead you could read all the messages in your gui client and stop doing whatever its is you are trying to break your system.
Lastly init.d? Did you time travel from 2003? If so watch out for that Putin fellow he's a bad egg.
Sadly, due to the hardware compatiblity issues you described, and the fragmentation of the UI in modern windows distributions, this really is the best out-of-the-box microsoft experience these days.
I really hate indirectly supporting commie zealots by paying hardware developers, knowing that some of the purchase price goes to making sure their hardware works well with open source software.
Once, I tried to organize a sit in at the FSF to get them to refund us, but it didn't work out. The lamestream media wouldn't cover it.
Sadly, as you have found, there just aren't any principled capitalists producing products with an acceptable out of the box experience.
So, I have to recommend things like the raspberry pi to my less tech-savvy friends, as much as a I find it to be a moral and ethical compromise.
So, I think the time of the Windows desktop is already here.
Using Linux isn't particularly harder than using Windows.
This says more about Windows users than it does about Linux.
Numerous distro maintainers have already made things as easy as possible. Will you be satisfied when the installer has only one comically large button? How braindead does the setup process have to be? Have you actually used Linux in the last 15 years?
On the other hand I installed Linux Mint on all family hardware with no issues (complaints from family members).
You can install any Linux distro on a Librem laptop. Alternatively, there is System76.