this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
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The average Linux evangelist on Lemmy vastly overestimates the tech-saviness of the average person.
I know, the average person probably only knows 2, maybe 3 distros Max
And Mint
Yes, of course Mint
Then you find the average windows user doesn't even know what Windows is.
One of my fav xkcds, nice adaptation. (here for those uninitiated)
"What's a Linux?"
You're the relevant XKCD for that!
hey, i was just about to make Mint Tea. it's the time of day i think about installing mint, change my mind, and gossip about it
over a cup of peppermint tea. it's wonderful.
I work on the IT side of a non tech company. I don’t think vastly even comes close to covering how un-savvy the average person is
It is a miracle if the average users ever learns a new program with a GUI. And will curse the gods when even a single button is moved.
And if anyone thinks they would be fine running any command on anything ever, they are deluding themselves.
A black box with a single line of text? = they are being hacked and will pull the plug just to get rid of it.
And it's getting worse, not better.
Shit's better now. That's not to say that your average person could handle everything.
If I have a normal person linux on a usb on a computer set to boot from usb, they could totally install it.
If an update fucks over a driver or a package, they're completely fucked.
If they need to make their own boot usb, they're completely fucked.
If they need to configure their computer to boot from the usb if it's not setup that way ... completely fucked.
If they're good with generic drivers, generic browsers and probably steam, they'll be fine.
Grandma is probably fine with Linux now.
Of course, a decent number of gen-x grandmas might have actually fucked around with linux years ago :)
That's also a lot more work than I'm willing to put into using my computer when Win10 still works well enough.
It would be great if Mint or Zorin had an atomic version so a failed update can be switched back in seconds and it is essentially impossible for the user to break anything outside of the home folder.
I tried to upvote you twice but was not allowed. So here is my second upvote: You hit the problem spot on!
I think it's more like people still hold onto a view of the difficulty that hasn't been true for years now in the big ones (Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, etc). I agreed with this position 10 years ago, but not anymore. Users that aren't super technical are likely just browsing, watching video, and playing games. All that works out of the box now with nearly no set up in my experience. My 7 year old has been using it with less problems than he was getting in Windows 11 (seriously).
This mirrors my experience as a dumb person desperately trying to seem to cool to nerds. I'd alwys try Linux and something wouldn't work, I'd spend hours trying to fix it, then I'd just stop booting into it.
Been mono-booting Linux Mint with almost no problems for a year, the same time that Windows is the worst its ever been.
Did your 7 year old setup their own Linux environment?
Because anyone can run a fully configured computer. Doesn't matter if it is Linux or Windows.
And the problem with Linux is the setup. Too many incompatible or badly written drivers. The first step is already finding hardware that is supported.
Also, did you use the out-of-the-box experience for Windows? Or try to put in too many workarounds because you didn't like how Microsoft handles things? I bet your 7 year old would have zero issues with a regular Windows setup.
Yeah, but Windows is no easier to install... most people just don't experience it because it is the usual pre installed distro. I don't think it's really fair to count that against Linux... in terms of the installation process, I found them to be similar, which is to say a pain in the butt. I wouldn't recommend a non tech person try to install WIndows either.
Aside from that, no, it did not need any further set up aside from installing Steam via the repository. Arguably easier than in WIndows, certainly not harder.
It's funny you mention drivers as that's what made me switch it over. A Windows update inexplicably borked some video card drivers. I didn't need to install any drivers manually for the Linux setup, it all worked out of the box without any issues so far. Driver pains used to be a big issue years ago, but I think for 90% of PCs it's a non issue today.
No, it was a very vanilla Windows setup.
Oh, absolutely. They've never had to do family tech support, and it shows.
I dunno, I switched my 7 year olds laptop over specifically because Windows updates kept breaking things. Everything worked out of the box with Linux and hasn't broken yet. He doesn't care either way, he just wants to use his programs, and that's been easier since switching. I say this as someone who very painfully had to use Linux for a few years about 10 years ago... the experience is just very different today. I don't think a day to day user will notice any difference beyond better stability.
My experience is that once set up, the easy linux distros are way less likely to randomly stop working and need support. And by set up, I pretty much mean "install the OS and grab Steam".
Whenever you try to explain anything the conveesation is totally uninteresting
Note to self: they dont care. They dont care that they dont care
exactly the reason I swapped my parents pc to linux, its just stable and simple for them to use. they dont do much other than open the browser and go to youtube or just plug their phone in and copy over their photos to the pc