> but this is sounding eerily familiar to the "huge steps" desktop linux distros have been making for decades.

Well, good. Destkop Linux has come a huge way. I was playing around with Linux as a kid, and it wasn't mature enough for my needs. Fast forward to 2020 and I've had my parents on Linux without issues, I've currently got my nieces on Linux with zero issues, even though they're using those computers for all of their remote learning during the pandemic, and even though I haven't been able to visit them in person to fix any issues. I run Linux on 100% of my personal computers and it works great.

I don't think Linux is for everyone, but we're at the point where it's crazy to say that Linux isn't functionally competitive with Mac/Windows for some people, particularly professionals or nontechnical people on managed computers.

I used to play with Linux for ideological reasons, now I use Linux because I want to get work done in a stable environment. I used to avoid recommending Linux to anyone who wasn't technical, now if I can set the computer up for them I only recommend Linux because I know that Linux won't break behind my back.

Whether that's because Linux has gotten way better or because Windows/Mac has gotten way worse and is way less stable than it used to be -- you can be the judge of that. A Linux smartphone that worked 80-90% as well as the Linux desktop would be usable as a daily driver for me. That's at the point where I would feel comfortable getting rid of my Android phone.

Which distros are your parents and nieces running? Every time I try to find the ‘user friendliest’ Linux, there’s just too much outdated and/or bad info out there.

Both on Ubuntu, but Mint, etc... would probably be fine as well.

I personally wouldn't run Ubuntu for myself, I think it falls into some of the same traps as desktops like Windows where I don't really have complete insight into what packages are running. I run Arch & Manjaro on my own computers. But I'm not the target demographic for distros like Ubuntu.

The big things when I'm setting up a computer for someone else are:

- the distro should be popular enough that software/advice is available for it.

- it should run some kind of user friendly desktop environment (Gnome, etc...)

- it should be stable enough that it's not going to randomly break for them (so I put people on Ubuntu LTS releases, none of these people need the latest and greatest versions of every software package). I do not want their computer to break when I'm not around.

Aside from that, I don't think the distro matters too much, and I think there are a lot of distros that fulfill the above criteria. The big strength of Linux for less technical people is that you need one technical person to set it up once, and then you don't really need to touch it afterwards.

Anecdotal, but over the past few years I've debugged more random Windows issues for people than Linux issues (where random in this case means "I woke up today and my computer didn't work"). I've been hearing multiple issues from people where their Windows laptops just have graphics drivers that stop working one day, or where the HDMI port suddenly doesn't output anything. If I'm handling support for someone else, I basically never want to get a call like that, and I never want to try and debug it remotely.

So Linux means that those calls mostly just go away. I only need to worry about their hardware once. I think my nieces have had maybe one driver issue since I installed their computers -- and they're actively installing proprietary software like Zoom for their schoolwork. My parents never install anything, so a Linux install for them is basically just set it and forget it.

Not the parent but anyway: my completely tech-illiterare parents have been using Antergos (which is based on Arch, and with Cinnamon) now for several years without any issues. They use only browser and email most of the time, but it's nice to have a always up to date system even though it does not matter to them.

I consider user friendliness mostly just a buzzword in linux world these days. Almost everything works out of the box and if not you still need specific knowledge and/or help (and willingness to google error messages) to solve the issue no matter what distro you choose. If you have some special hardware or needs then some distros are better and easier to use but that's another story.

Antergos is what I recommend these days to beginners since it's easy and simultaneously offers most (all) of the benefits of Arch. Modern rolling release distros in general are nothing to be scared of.

I've set up Lubuntu (performance reasons) for an old laptop for a completely non-tech person and Ubuntu on a newer laptop for a rather non-tech person. Both have no problems.

Most of the work is done in the browser/libre office and the rest doesn't matter (wifi works out of the box and has a GUI, you don't really need anything else).

Not PP, but my parents have been using Kubuntu LTS exclusively since 2009 and I'm thinking about moving them to Debian stable + KDE within the next three years.

They aren't wandering much, though, so as long as the OS doesn't get in their way, they are happy.

Not OP, but for my relatives I am using Debian stable with KDE or XFCE, depending on the computer specs. It's been rock-solid for years without my involvement.

not parent commenter but as someone who also has casual user family members on Linux - Ubuntu on a ThinkPad x220 is what I've set them up with.

Mint or Manjaro

> 90% of it doesn't work

Sure, but 50% of what a smartphone does are anti-features anyhow. Maybe having to drop to CLI a few times a day is better than being spied on, for some people.

A smartphone by its nature is a surveillance device no matter what operating system is on it. As long as the cellular radio is on and you are connecting to towers, your location is being tracked.

That's why Pinephone and Librem 5 have the killswitches.

You mean airplane mode? I think most phones can selectively turn off the cellular, wifi, and bluetooth radios.

No, I mean hardware killswitches.

https://puri.sm/posts/lockdown-mode-on-the-librem-5-beyond-h...

https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone#Killswitch_confi...

All phones have hardware killswitches. It's called a dead battery.

How can you tell if the battery is dead in a phone that you don’t control? Take a heat gun to it to melt the glue, disassemble, and test the battery with a multimeter?

Or even just writing shell scripts. Writing a whole android application for what would be a 10 line python script is a pain that I don't even want to think about.

I wouldn't call what smartphones do "spying". But if you're already at a place where you consider these devices adversaries, then sure, cutting off your nose to spite your face is the right move.

The whole point of this device is that more people will have access to a real working system and they can improve the software ecosystem. This is how these devices can move from "toys" into real alternatives to Google and Apple products.