User friendly is pretty vague but if we’re talking about the average user who uses the computer to browse the web, play some games on Steam with friends and do some document editing that is all covered. Linux Mint would be an excellent option. The installation is arguably easier than Windows (because you won’t get all those pesky telemetry and data gathering questions), visually it looks and functions similarly to Windows, most standard software is handled by a package manager so no using terminal to install things and the distro prefers stability and ease of access over fancy bells and whistles.

If there are any user issues they’re most likely because of third party developer not properly supporting Linux and there’s nothing Linux can do. One example is anti-cheat for games. You can’t play Riot games on Linux simply because their anti-cheat won’t allow you to play their games on Linux and there’s nothing Linux devs can do about it.

I don’t know when was the last time you used Linux but I’d say the user experience has definitely improved in the last 10 years. It’s gotten to a point where I’m actually willing to recommend Linux to users whose needs I’m familiar with and know they not going to have some weird needs that need the use of a terminal.

I also doubt the dev friendliness. GUIs are a godsend for software development.

well, how did you chose your instance?

That “at times” is doing a lot of lifting.

Lemmy feels like wet underwear but its like warm wet so if you just kinda go with it and forget that it feels weird then you’re not actually uncomfortable.

But can it run call of duty and only require user to have two brain cells?

with the retail price though only one kid seems like a bargain tbf

Can confirm, moved to NixOS.

M-shaped laser sight stays trained on its forehead

With MacOS support for x86 probably ending really soon I don’t expect Hackintosh’ being long for this world.

That user’s name? Jesus Christ.

I hate it, but as a person with a lot of technical requirements on my software and system, there are use cases that I simply cannot use linux for. I’m developing a mod for Satisfactory right now, and a conversation I saw in the community was about how nobody has ever gotten the dev environment running in linux. That and other use cases make it virtually impossible for me to switch.

And dual booting is a non-starter. I’m not going to reboot my entire system just to check my email because I don’t trust windows with my login details. That’s absurd. I need access to those things all the time and I’m not going to keep a second high-maintenance system on hand out of a sense of principle.

Virtualising is also a non-starter because I need every little bit of performance I can get out of my machine, and again, operating a second high maintenance system which the original system now sits atop an extra stack which itself requires maintenance… yeah, no, I have things that need to be done. If one day I can afford to have a second gaming machine set up to tinker with then maybe, but that’s asking a lot.

There are parts of it I like more and more.

The fact that it mostly just works. That very little important has changed since Windows 95 when it comes to the core user experience.

When they tried changing things (Vista, Windows 8 “Metro”) users revolted, and the following versions were more conservative and popular (Windows 7, Win 10).

Who knows, maybe internally they’ve decided on a bimodal release cycle:

1. Break stuff, make changes.
2. Return to nostalgia (but refine and keep the priority targets).

Maybe it’s like a relationship with an abusive partner. They hurt you (privacy violations, desktop advertisements, etc., ) but then they make up, and make it hard to live without them.

You are the living embodiment of Lemmy.

Sorry, switched off after “just”

For everyone? I agree, that’s silly. It’s definitely suitable for more than the tiny fraction of people who use it though

Im 99% sure i can give some distors to my family, and they wont notice a difference.

Not to flex but I use ubuntu by the way 🤓