However, the average person probably isn't comfortable (dare I say should be trusted?) with block-level utilities that can wipe the wrong drive at the drop of a typo. To propose that they should be comfortable with a terminal at all is, to put it kindly, delusional, and it's a great example of the post's mythical excellence.
This is the current meta I see:
- Linux only offers "excellence" to A.) EXTREMELY SIMPLE users who never stray from compatible use cases (which is a surprisingly unsafe assumption) and B.) EXTREMELY ADVANCED users who aren't sufficiently advanced for BSD and can overcome any Linux software compatibility issues or elide them by forcing themselves to use possibly suboptimal alternatives.
- Windows only offers "excellence" to AVERAGE users technical enough to debug in vague, indirect, salt-over-the-shoulder ways (like practicing neuromedicine), but not technical enough to feel comfortable with terminals or desire stuff like more comfortable programming workflow. (Also, bonus: it covers virtually all prospective user software and hardware.)
[0]: https://www.digitalcare.org/system-image-backup-windows-10/
Yep. Something like that, except I wouldn't say extreme neither for simple nor advanced, and I never felt it was any more suboptimal than Windows for the last 10 - 15 years:
Linux is for "grandparents" and enthusiasts. It might not be for AD domain admins, accountants with Windows only software, designers who need the lates Adobe products, people who are into competitive gaming (yet, I think).
This is said as a former enthusiast and not yet a grandparent. I am in the happy position where I can leave the system alone - and be able to fix it if it finds a way to break anyway.
The only reason I didn't jump at it was that I by a fluke didn't happen to have a USB stick or CD to write to handy to install it when I needed it, or I'd have done that.
Windows System Image wouldn't have helped - before applying the patch I had to dig through forums to find, nothing on Windows recognized the device at all.
Most recently trying to upgrade his laptop to an SSD and clone his existing drive turned into massive frustration as his drive didn't have a second drive slot and the USB->SATA adapter that came with the SanDisk SSD just caused error messages on Windows, while Ubuntu instantly recognized the drive with the same adapter.
Turned out you had to dig through forums to find some random link to a download patching something to get it to work on Windows, and most of the recommended solutions I saw was to forget Windows and clone with a Linux live CD (I was about to, just as I stumbled across the link).
That's pretty much what I've come to expect with Windows.
I remember when it used to be the reverse, and I used Linux despite assorted driver and software problems. Now that's what it feels like to try to help my son with his laptop, with the only redeeming feature being that not all the games he wants runs on Linux.
That's not to say I don't occasionally have issues with Linux too, but mostly because I run a very unconventional setup - my few small problems start once I start tearing out the parts of Ubuntu I don't want; such as replacing the desktop environment with bspwm.
And occasionally I run into driver issues - the individually led controllable backlights on my laptop keyboard doesn't have a Linux driver... But not with anything that matters to me. Don't get me started on last time I had to deal with printer drivers for Windows.
What used to be lengthy checks to see if all hardware worked has now been reduced to a quick search and "some random person on a forum says it mostly worked" means it's almost certainly going to be flawless if the post is a couple of months old, with sufficient certainty that I've bought my last 3 laptops on that basis without regretting it.