Everything else about complying with the wacko age verification law is up to distro builders.
Please correct me if I am wrong, this is what I read here.
Sure, if you're all in on MS365 (like all schools here in the Netherlands), Windows may be somewhat more handy with its native apps and all your stuff there with a single log-in.
For the vast majority of people MS365 is a requirement, but really the issue is that even minor fixes require the command line on Linux and that makes it unusable.
No it isn't actually, not for the majority, my wife (former Sales Person and Manager) uses Google office tools and used LibreOffice Write and Calc for years successfully.
I myself am quite different. I have thoroughly had it with my current iPhone and am eyeballing /e/OS, before that I really started to find Android boring, before that Windows mobile (the nice one with the cards). I switch Gnome, KDE, some other DE (now getting ready to try Niri) every year or 2. I don't get the struggle, for me a new env is like a present (even though I normally hate presents). So much niceness to explore, so much to optimize. I love it. But I'm also one of those guys that reads the oven manual and tries all functions in week 1.
I'm not weird, all you people are weird.
This should be considered child abuse.
You just needs something that opens a browser or a simple app. Nothing is more minimal and clear at the same time than Gnome, imho. Click Icon - Open App - Have clock at top. What more does one need?
You can install Fedora Linux, Linux Mint or Manjaro, and it's more user friendly than Windows 11 and macOS.
For the vast majority of people an operating system is whatever comes with the computer the kid at Best Buy told them they should buy or their IT department gave them. Asking anyone to switch is basically impossible.
Look at popular unix based OS's - Android, MacOS, iOS..
Whats the first thing they do? Take the command line out back and shoot it. Whereas for linux users, their is this l33t h4cker festishization of only using a keyboard to do everything. All these distros have an extremely robust CLI under the hood, and an afterthought quasi GUI on the surface. Just good enough for grandma to check her email and watch youtube.
I hope Linux never succumbs to the lowest common denominator and people who actually enjoy tinkering will always have somewhere to go and something to learn. If that's being stuck, I hope it stays stuck.
Also I hate linux repos with a passion, because they are optimized for CLI usuage, and (like the whole OS) the GUI parts are a total unoptimized afterthought. Never mind that they are a dumping ground for whatever code anyone shits out, with virtually zero management or curation. With a CLI you don't see this, with a GUI it's a total mess.
I'm fine with app stores, but they need to be actively managed and curated. If not, I far far prefer just downloading .exe's from the source.
downloading an exe is "whatever code anyone shits out" cause that's exactly what built binaries are
A lot of the programs you use on Windows are actually the exact same ones on Linux be it VLC or Chrome. If you want to download binaries directly "from the source" and run those.... well that was always allowed. But remember the entire stack delivering the entire internet to you at any time is open source code that "anyone shits out".
distros are catering to server installs most of the time. if you want a gui you install that entire stack but for most classic distros like debian the GUI is not the main thing. if you want a GUI from start to finish go with Fedora or the new KDE distro.
My wife has used Linux for many years successfully and has never used the CLI once.
Which is 90% of the use of a computer. And Steam is taking care of the other 10%.
Linux is the most obvious, but there are numerous flavors of BSD as well.
> and yet... still unusable by the mass majority of people.
That info is 20+ years out of date. Distros like Suse and Ubuntu made Linux "click, click, click, it's installed" more than two decades ago. i've watched complete non-techies switch to Mint Linux long-term, the only intervention from me (their resident techie) being showing them how to boot up the USB stick installer.
Any OS that requires even once going to the command line is unusable for 99% of the population (and for me I just shouldn't ever have to).