Say a friend is looking for a new system, and said person is not particularly savvy with technology, what system would you point them toward?
Say a friend is looking for a new system, and said person is not particularly savvy with technology, what system would you point them toward?
Are we assuming this person has never used any other operating system before?
Because I do think a lot of the perception of Linux being more difficult is just because people who grew up on Windows or MacOS have gotten so used to those that the inertia of trying something new is what’s hard about it.
The person described may have some Windows or Mac experience at school or work, maybe they got an iPhone or Android but never considered getting their own computer.
I’d probably recommend a Mac for now. I can’t in good judgement recommend windows anymore.
Mac is solid and still respects your privacy to a certain degree.
Linux would be my second. Probably Zorin OS.
I’ve used Windows all my life (40 now) but the changes made in the last 10 or so years (since win 7 and forward have left me in a place where i feel Im super confused about even the freaking folder structure. Its partly on me becouse I havent kept up, but also, I havent asked for any of the shit they have done “recently”. I switched to Kubuntu about a year ago and nothing has been easier. Anyway, My recomendation would be a any linux distro, havent tried mint but from what people are saying it’s stable and easy so probably that one, but mostly because my feeling is that most Linux based OSs dont change stuff just for the sake of changing (someone will probably let med know the exceptions to this rule). But really, I think that the normal user dont want but to re-learn how to do something they allready knew how to do in an earlier version if there isnt a very good reason for it.
If you grew up with Windows, it’s intuitive and easy to you. That Doesn’t mean it’s intuitive for anyone else. Kids are super confused about Windows these days.
Anyway, I would still recommend Windows because everything is designed to work with it. Normies don’t troubleshoot. They just give up and move on. In this regard, you would want something that requires the least amount of troubleshooting. Every OS sucks in this regard, so I just don’t have a clear winner here. Windows might still be the least infuriating one though.
However, if they did troubleshoot, they would probably enjoy Linux. Those error messages actually tell you what’s wrong and how to fix it. Meanwhile in Windows, the errors are pretty much useless. You’ll end up reading a bunch of forum posts where nobody knows what’s causing the problem, let alone how to fix it. The best you’ll get is a list of 15 things to try. Just hope that at least one of them works. If you have a problem in Linux, you’ll usually find a forum post where someone tells you exactly what’s causing it and how to fix it.
Normies haven’t heard of privacy, and they also watch TV ads. Windows will be fine. They just won’t see any reason to switch to Linux.