Word documents will be saved to the cloud automatically on Windows going forward

The next reason, following hundreds of others, to start using Linux for the Desktop. If my non technical SO can do it, you can do it as well.

Hopefully, but most likely a lot a people will shrug or won't notice. Others will start using Libre Office and discover that it's more than enough for their very basic tasks.

Yep, I'm constantly astonished by adults that insist that Linux is too hard to use on the desktop. My entire family has been using it for years. I raise my kids on it. Works great.

Yes I moved away from Windows to MacOS but couldnt get used to the UI and they have now sprinkled bad AI tools throughout. I use KUbuntu now which feels a bit like Windows 10 and really is all I need. But what I really want on my Thinkpad with KUbuntu is the perfect open/close screen management like the Macbook has and changing from second monitor to no second monitor often causes issues and doesnt just work argh.. Maybe one of these linux first laptops will fill the void.

What reasons did your non technical SO have for switching?

My family has also been using it for years, but I'm the one who always had to install, update, fix problems, etc.

I think the biggest obstacle to widespread adoption of Linux is not using Linux itself, it's installing it on a computer. 99% of people don't know how to format a USB device, or how to enter the BIOS.

I am using Linux personally for the last 5 years or so. When she bought a new laptop I told her that she wouldn't need windows for her use case and the (free) Linux would be more than adequate. She is mostly using it for education (university), browsing internet. Just casual stuff.

She then proceeded to install and test the programs she needed and everything worked basically out of the box, so now she continued to use it because it doesn't matter to her what she uses, as long as she can use it.

(She is using Fedora on a Framework laptop)

Ubuntu's Wubi was a great attempt at a "try Linux" solution, but - Canonical being Canonical - killed it.

To be honest, I think most non-technical people that are not close to someone technical probably don't even know about Linux and/or just don't care about it.

If it isn't a problem it's not worth fixing. A lot of people don't even know where they are saving their stuff to, so if it's in the cloud or on their device doesn't really matter to them.

I made this point elsewhere in this discussion, but it really does matter to them, even though they don't know it.

Third-party doctrine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine

The least technical people will be fine because they only use their 4 programs where a Chromebook would probably be enough.

Between those and the people that can navigate everything on Linux, there'll be mildly technical people. Those may explore things that are out of the ordinary but will be unable or unwilling to fix issues that could arise from that

Problems with sleep/suspend modes is a relatively common in Linux. There's some good information with tricks and workarounds on

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop and https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Power_management/Suspend_an... w

> A lot of people don't even know where they are saving their stuff to, so if it's in the cloud or on their device doesn't really matter to them

Until their computer dies, and then they get upset at Microsoft for not having some automatic backup process like they have on the other platforms their friends use.

It's a shorthand for 'it's hard to get everything 100% working after a fresh install and it's hard to have it not break when it updates'. If you manage to get from the out-of-the-box 90% working condition and don't touch too many things afterwards, it works great indeed; hence the recommendations of starting out with legacy hardware so you're closer to 100% than 90% initially.

What distribution would you recommend for non technical people?

I am thinking Fedora's atomic desktop for family. Any other suggestions?

Regular Fedora will probably be easier. Most docs are for the regular version. It's not worth the effort figuring out what went wrong with atomic

I'm not in the US but the third party doctrine looks obscene to me, is this saying I'd have no expectation of privacy for my full name/DOB/address/ID because I legally had to give it to a bank to open an account, which is an essential thing to do in the modern world to get paid into nevermind spend money? I absolutely have an expectation of privacy for all of those details, doubly so if I am mandated to provide them to a third party

> Problems with sleep/suspend modes is a relatively common in Linux.

It is if you slap Linux on your Windows computer and expect it to work. Dell etc have teams whose entire job is ensuring Windows works well on their hardware. These are systems integration teams.

If you try to put Linux on a Windows box, you've signed up to do all the system integration work yourself, without any help or support (eg documentation) from anyone.

The best Linux experience will happen on hardware that was designed to run Linux, with a system integration team to make the hardware/firmware and Os work together, with a support line you can call or write.

I've heard good things about Pop!OS working well out of the box on Windows hardware.

Yep. It’s 2025 now and Linux on desktop has evolved far from the much maligned days. Gnome should be more than enough for casual purposes.

I just need to get a dozen kernel engineers in a room with a laptop and a dude who does nothing but open and close the lid every 2s. Test passes when the laptop still is responsive by lunchtime.

I just want people to buy from Linux vendors who put in the work rather than yolo'ing it and then complaining about how bad Linux is.

That’s fair. So you’re pretty confident most these very annoying Linux hardware issues go away with Linux first hardware? Suggest a couple brands for me to look into please to replace the thinkpad?

System76 is my go to

Yeah, I probably didn't formulate that well enough. What I meant was that they don't care about it. Sure it matters.

Thanks for the link, didn't know about that, sounds awful..

They just use it as an excuse because change takes effort and might show that there previously believes where wrong.