@jwcph @cy @JessTheUnstill I thought I was doing a bit of a caricature with my "between beer and charcoal". Now with the argument being imaginary debates with stubborn clerks who'd prefer to fight you rather than sell you the thing you want (even though clerks aren't even involved in about 50% of computer retail to begin with because it's online), I recognize I wasn't.

@jwcph @cy @JessTheUnstill If *asking a shop assistant* is too hard to get out of what you call "tech woes", I'd say you don't really have any.

@jwcph @cy @JessTheUnstill It says "Shop laptops and desktops computers with Linux preloaded at Lenovo". I only know one person who ever ordered one but that's what she got. I suppose they still include a license for Windows because MS bulk contract conditions.

@jwcph @cy @JessTheUnstill As long as only the small, regional nerd outlets such as Dell and Lenovo offer preinstalled Linux, we can only hope for a better future where they offer Linux laptops on the shelves between the beer and the charcoal at your corner store. Then, maybe.

@cy @jwcph @JessTheUnstill If that's the remaining threshold: when Windows tells you it's time to buy a new computer because your old one won't be supported now, just buy one preinstalled with Linux. You'd have to solve the backup problem with Windows just the same so it must be possible.

@jwcph @JessTheUnstill Mine was very much not an edge case. I wanted and bought a school computer for my son. They let me create an AppleID for a person under 16yo just fine. Only when I tried to actually use it, I ended up with a completely useless error message and no way to use the app store or even install updates. Wanna try to get support for that from an electronics discounter?
I also have a scanner here that I got as a gift because it's just not supported any more on Windows 10. "GTFO, it won't work, ever" is one way of supporting the user to avoid opening a terminal of course (just kidding, you don't even need to do that on Linux, just plug it in).
In my experience, " just try Linux" is virtually always an offer for help if people like my mom should feel clicking "next" a bunch of times is too technical. I mean, everybody gets their Windows preinstalled as well so I provided that service, too.

@jwcph @JessTheUnstill My mother is past 80 and the most computer illiterate person ever. She's been using Ubuntu for over a decade and couldn't even tell you. There's a browser, there's a mail program. Everything else is well hidden. It just doesn't do unexpected things.

@jwcph @JessTheUnstill In a similar situation on Windows you'll have to deal with Regedit which has all the downsides of a terminal combined with those of a GUI application and then some. Or worse, like I just had a few months back when a webcam stopped working. The hardware is fine, but the user ended up buying a new one anyway because "‍️reinstall" was the only advice anyone could give and that was just too much hassle.
I've installed several Debian systems by just accepting the defaults and they keep working just fine. They don't ask you to solve captchas to log in, copy codes from your mobile, bombard you with confusing popups. You click "next" a couple of times, enter a name and password, and end up with a working system. The last Macbook I tried that on sent me into an endless loop of "We ran into a problem. Please try again later" (nice and non-technical, also absolutely useless), as it turned out after much googling, it was because the intended user was too young

@jwcph @JessTheUnstill TBF nobody needs to be scared of Linux any more. If your tech woes, like most normal people, are of the sort "Ads on desktop🤮" "I don't want to see this AI shit any more", "I don't want to be pressured to use this thing I don't want, or worse, have it silently turned on without consent" or "why the fuck do I have to give a company all this data just to log into my own computer?!", Linux is a legit answer. "Organize and lobby to solve those systemic problems" is fine and necessary work, but it won't do anything for these people today.