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.
The best way to help a non-enthusiast Linux user is teach them basic system maintenance.
You should have basic maintenance knowledge like checking tyre pressure and the fluid levels in your car.
By doing it all for them, you are perpetuating the learned helplessness encouraged by Microsoft and Apple over the last few decades and doing them no favours at all.
Consider what they would do if you were unavailable to help them.
Nope. That leads to frustration on both sides. If they want to learn - sure! I will teach them.
But if they aren’t into computers at all, trying to teach them sysadmin skills is a recipe for disaster.
You should not need to be a sysadmin to use a computer.
Not a sysadmin, but a capable user.
People shouldn’t just accept technology as magic. They should understand at least the basic principles of the technology around them. Corporations want us to be dumb and incapable. Look at cars, you seriously can’t expect a normal person to fix anything on them. But that’s not because of inherent complexity, but because corporations want us to just buy new parts when they think it’s time.
Sapere aude was true in the 19th century and it’s true today as well.
A capable user is already a willing one. A whole lot of them aren’t, and that is fine.
There is a huge difference between being able to use something, and being able to fix them, and being willing to fix them.
Case in point, if my car breaks down, I take it to a professional to fix it. Not because it is magic I have no hope of learning, but because I am absolutely uninterested in it.
If my pants rip, I take it to a professional, because that’s far more practical than trying to fix it myself.
Same goes for computers: my Dad is a very capable user. He spent 3 decades in IT, authored succesful books on subjects that interested him. He would be capable of learning how to maintain his system, but he simply doesn’t want to. It isn’t interesting, nor fun for him. So I help him by doing it myself.
My wife is also a very capable user, she can do everything on her computer that she wants. She hates computers, though, and would sooner divorce me than learning how to run apt update. She is a very capable user because I built a system she’s ok with.
Similarly, she is an amazing cook, and I am not. I am a disaster in the kitchen even if I try. So I simply don’t. The best I can do is throwing frozen pizza in the oven, amd I am not interested in becomimg more capable than that. Why should she become more familiar with computers then?
What I am trying to say is that people have wildly varying interests. We should not expect everyone to be competent at everything they may ever encounter.
I think you don’t distinguish enough between professionals and capables.
All your points are either “sysadmin” or “complete buffoon” and nothing in between. That’s not how reality works.
You absolutely are expected to be able to check your oil and just a few years ago, you were expected to be able to change your tires. That doesn’t make you a car mechanic, but a capable user.
I’m absolutely not a car guy, but I know how to change a tire. Why? Because it’s necessary knowledge. I also know how to file my taxes, even though I’m not an accountant or tax consultant. Again, because it’s necessary.
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.
I think you don’t distinguish enough between professionals and capables.
Oh, but I do. The thing you’re not seeing is that there’s a difference between “can do something” and “willing to do something”.
I am absolutely capable of filing my own taxes, did so in the past, but will never do it again: I hired a professional instead. She can do it faster than me, I can be sure she does it accurately, and according to the latest laws and regulations (so I don’t have to keep myself up to date on those!). Not to mention that I save a ton of time, which I can translate into work, and I end up making more money in that time than the services of my accountant cost. Likewise, I also know how to change a tire. I also know that I never want to do that. If I have to, I will call a professional, because I can, and changing the tire myself is absolutely not necessary.
Similarly, both my parents are perfectly capable of maintaining their own systems (my Dad spent decades in IT, taught IT at a university, authored successful technical books on his area of expertise, etc; Mom programmed in DBase way back when), but they have no desire to do so. They have better things to do with their time.
It’s not a question of “can”, but a question of “want”. A whole lot of people could maintain their operating systems. They absolutely do not want to, though. And if someone doesn’t want to do something, the best way to help them is to make it possible for them to avoid doing the thing they don’t want to do. In our particular case, that means maintaining their OS for them, for that helps a ton more than trying to force them to learn or do something they could, but viscerally hate.
You do not need to maintain your own operating system in order to use it. Rather than trying to force people into maintaining theirs, we should make it easier for friends & family to maintain it for them. That would be a far bigger win for everyone involved.
Imho, the best way to help a beginner should have happened many years before they put their hands on any Linux distro. It should have happened when they were still a small child, at school. In the way they were taught how to… learn and how to get better… aka, by expecting difficulties and by expecting to fail, often.
Failing should be expected as a beginner learning anything new. Like, say, we all learned to walk as toddlers. It was not by being told we walked perfectly but by falling on our diapered butt. Failing at outing one foot in front of the other and falling, over and over again.
That sounds obvious but, to my old eyes at the very least, it also sounds almost like an heresy when compared to what I see kids being taught nowadays. That things should be frictionless and that nobody should fail at anything, ever. That’s such a poor choice that doesn’t prepare them much. Well, imho.
When I switched (from 35+ years being an Apple user) to Linux, it was frustrating.
Even when where things went smooth, it could still be frustrating and it often was. If only, because it required me to change 35 years old habits. And when it wasn’t going smooth, even when I was using the best docs and guides, at times it could be incredibly and utterly frustrating, when not completely maddening. Either nothing on my machine was ever exactly like described in the doc, or the app version was different and some setting had changed, or my issue was a somewhat different, or the solution simply did not work, or I missed a tiny detail or a word somewhere in the guide. Whatever. Frustration was a constant.
That’s what people should be taught to expect and to be fine with. And not just with Linux, btw ;)
