Do you think it's better to offer no suggestion at all? To not even tell people about their options?
Especially my mom, dad, sister and almost everyone else I know use one application on their computer and that is Chrome. My father still works and so does my sister and yet they do not work with or need anything else. Linux works fine for that. Almost everyone I know would not know the difference between an Ubuntu laptop or a windows one as long as the Chrome button ('the internet') is there.
Ofcourse this differs if people need native applications (maybe) but I would say that most people would not notice Linux at all. Not because Linux is great (I use it exclusively but I do not care about ux/ui), but because most people do not do so much 'natively' with a computer anymore and hence can switch fluently from Mac to win to lin to ios to Android (and frequently do during the day between some combinations of these) as long as they can find 'the internet' button.
The vast majority of PC users don't give a fuck if they "Own Their Hardware" or any other philosophical questions about their computer. They buy a tool and use it. Generally speaking, those tools work just fine for them until ultimately the drive fails or they drop it into a creek while hiking.
It's the nerds on HN who bitch about "Owning their computer". Literally the people who should have the skills and knowledge to fix the very problem they are complaining about. If you tried to talk to your mom or your sister about how they don't own their computers they would likely look at you as if you were insane.
FWIW, I'm only intermittently a Linux user, mostly I use MacOS.
[0] and belive me, I've tried [1][2].
[1] Some evangelist is typing a response right now about how I haven't really tried. They are part of the problem.
[2] I've put together my own distro, written and contributed to open source projects, until sometime earlier this year ran Linux on 4/5 computers I used regularly at home (now down to 1/5), and was even president of a LUG for a while. So shut up about how your grandma uses it as a web kiosk so it must be fine for everyone.