As a fairly competent tech person with no experience with Linux and an increasing distrust/dislike of Microsoft, Linux has an opportunity to become a mainstream OS for everyday people. And its not.
Now, it doesn't have to be. If Linux is ultimately destined to be solely the OS for the back end world but never the user interface, then so be it. But something will be needed to be a user interface. And that user interface needs to be accessible and usable for people who don't have CS degrees, aren't willing/able to learn all the technical background, and have lives outside of computers.
I run a Linux Mint / Windows 11 dual boot. I usually boot into Windows because I often use Office files from other people.
However, Windows 11 is a POS. Some days the clock is wrong, and other days it updates correctly. I just turned off bitlocker after going into a loop where it would always ask for the decryption key, despite not having any updates that might have triggered it from the Linux partition of the hard drive. Nope - don't need that to happen on presentation day. And don't get me started on a rant about OneDrive, the ad tracking, the weather ap, or the fake news in the news feed. Plus my scanner that worked well in Windows 10 is suddenly no longer supported. Even the non-legacy picture viewer sucks. WTF Mistersofty?
In comparison, Linux Mint just goes. It generally gets out of the way of my workflows, its file manager does not have 3 versions of the same folders, and it plays well with my old peripheral hardware. It offers tons of free software that actually works, compared to the stripped down trialware available in the Windows Store. I can't remember if I've ever even used command line on this installation. The only maintenance is having to enter a password for updates to install, and quite frankly, updating is usually optional.
So I find myself wondering "If I'm always switching over to Linux when I need stuff to work, why am I not just doing everything there?" It comes down to my install of Office 2019 in Windows. I love Office and am very competent at it. I tried OfficeLibre and FreeOffice in the past, but the old fashioned UIs were awkward and it was hard to distinguish icons because of a lack of contrasting colors. Now I see that FreeOffice has updated to a new ribbon style UI, so I might try that. If they've also solved the old UI and compatibility issues (e.g. tables, fonts) there'd be no reason not to switch over.
I say this as a "fairly INcompetent" person with NO formal training in computer science, who started using Linux to revive computers found on trash piles, or machines given to me for free that were suffering BSOD. Yes, my username checks out. I'm not a nerd, I'm a cheapskate.
Installing Linux, and especially dual-booting, is just a graphical wizard-driven process, but users need some background knowledge at a very low level about disk partitions, swap space, and... well that's about it. And if that's too hard, the website tells you how to do it.
It's possible my next laptop will be something from eBay with a wiped hard drive. I'll install Linux and leave the costly ecosystems of Microsoft and Apple behind for good.
TL;DR - desktop Linux is already accessible to even the most basic computer users.
