I’m going to reframe the question as “Are computers good for someone tech illiterate?”

I think the answer is “yes, if you have someone that can help you”.

The problem with proprietary systems like Windows or OS X is that that “someone” is a large corporation. And, in fairness, they generally do a good job of looking after tech illiterate people. They ensure that their users don’t have to worry about how to do updates, or figure out what browser they should be using, or what have you.

But (and it’s a big but) they don’t actually care about you. Their interest making sure you have a good experience ends at a dollar sign. If they think what’s best for you is to show you ads and spy on you, that’s what they’ll do. And you’re in a tricky position with them because you kind of have to trust them.

So with Linux you don’t have a corporation looking after you. You do have a community (like this one) to some degree, but there’s a limit to how much we can help you. We’re not there on your computer with you (thankfully, for your privacy’s sake), so to a large degree, you are kind of on your own.

But Linux actually works very well if you have a trusted friend/partner/child/sibling/whoever who can help you out now and then. If you’ve got someone to help you out with it, Linux can actually work very very well for tech illiterate people. The general experience of browsing around, editing documents, editing photos, etc., works very much the same way as it does on Windows or OS X. You will probably be able to do all that without help.

But you might not know which software is best for editing photos. Or you might need help with a specific task (like getting a printer set up) and having someone to fall back on will give you much better experience.

I think it depends on what you plan to use it for.
If it’s just browsing the web or basic usage (email, watching videos, etc.) it’s perfect for a tech illiterate person. You have distros that just work, like Mint, or Pop!_Os (compared to distros like Debian that can require a bit of tinkering, or Arch/Gentoo where you need to tinker a lot more). I’m not certain but I think these distros work well for gaming as well.
If you have specific needs for software like the Adobe suite, Excel or audio/video software, it’s still possible but definitely less accessible.

As far as the difference between Linux and Windows, I’m not sure you’d notice much if you stay at the surface. The main difference is the fact that you actually own your system and you can literally do what you want with it (even irreversibly break it).

There are several comments ITT that mention the “just works” distros, like Mint or Pop!_OS etc. But make no mistake, these distributions are every bit as powerful as any other distribution. They’re not “dumbed down” versions by any means, it just means that they’ve paid close attention to crafting a polished user experience.

Case in point: I’m a seasoned Linux user and still I prefer Pop!_OS. Some of my even more experienced Linux colleagues use Mint, Fedora, etc. because we’re paid to write code that solves customer problems, not tinker with our operating systems on our workstations. I don’t think I actually know anyone in real life that uses Arch (btw)—is it even a real distro or is it just a meme?—or even Debian (unless it’s for a server and even then we’re more likely to use Alpine and install+configure everything we want and nothing we don’t).

If you’re not doing anything crazy, there’s no reason linux should be any harder to use than Windows.

Once you’re up and running, daily life will be pretty straightforward.

Plenty of great advice in the other posts that I won’t rehash. One thing I didn’t see mentioned is using a live boot to try out linux. You can basically run it off a USB stick before you install it to get a feel for what it’s like. Most “beginner friendly” distros will have tutorials on how to create the live disk. Example for Pop!_OS: https://support.system76.com/articles/live-disk/

Can you remember a password?

I tried helping someone with their steam deck and they got stuck because they didn’t know what they set their password to.

That aside, start with running Linux on a liveboot USB. It is very easy. See how it is for yourself and decide from there

Yes. Linux is good enough for everyone, whether they like it or not. :)

I really think you would have a great time with either “Linux Mint” because of its rocksolid philosophy of not breaking stuff or shipping “beta software”.

Otherwise a safe option would be a Linux variant with professional support options - just in case you need it. ZorinOS, Tuxedo or Pop_OS! are the most common ones.

Personally i’d take Linux Mint, which in most cases works flawless out of the box. The premium options are nonetheless also great options.

I haven’t seen anyone mentioning this yet, so I will: if you’re looking for the most accessible way to use Linux, nothing beats Endless OS. It’s a Linux distribution that is built specifically with ease of use and offline usage in mind (if you don’t know what a “distribution” is, feel free to ask). It’s pretty different from Windows (the user interface is nothing alike, you should download every program/app from the App Center instead of downloading from your browser), but I think you’d get the gist of it quickly.

Now, whether you would want to change to Linux or not greatly depends on what you use your computer for. If you use your computer mostly for browsing the Internet and making Word documents, then I think you should change. If you play videogames on your computer, but mostly via Steam, then Linux won’t be bad. But if your work depends on something like Adobe Photoshop and you really aren’t available to using any other program, then you would not want tochange to Linux, because Photoshop isn’t compatible with it.

TL;DR: Have a look at Endless OS; and please share what you use your computer for / what devices other than a normal keyboard and mouse you normally connect to your computer, so we can help you determine whether you should just switch to Linux or not.

Yes just install something that never breaks, has a graphical appstore with the correct sources, and a good GUI.

I would say try Fedora Silverblue from Ublue.it. it updates automatically (at least it should), and all your apps can be installed from your software store.

Nowadays there are linux distros that gives the same “double clicks your cares away” experience ala windows – ZorinOS, Linux mint and Garuda linux.

Depends on just how illiterate imo.

Here’s a good usecase:

My mum is completely tech illiterate, I have to teach her how to every task individually, and she has to write them down and follow them step my step. Tasks like emailing a document are a challenge. Linux is great for her. She isn’t used to windows anyway, and Linux makes it harder for her to accidentally make damaging changes, collect viruses or experience unexpected ui updates. It has much less maintaince, so it’s a lot less work for me to manage the system.

Here’s a bad usecase:

You are a user who can do the basics of using a website, install new apps, use usb drives etc etc. You are used to windows ui like where to find apps, where the close button is etc. You dont have a tech friend set up your stuff but if something goes wrong you are boned. This isn’t a good use unless you are interesting in becoming more tech literate (its easier to learn, if you can google your problems).

Linux is perfect for teaching someone to be tech literate, which should be your ultimate goal.

Just because someone can follow a pictorial cookbook more easily is no reason to not teach them to read. Being tech literate is a little more important than people generally realize, just for having a cursory understanding of how things really work.

I recommend Ubuntu.

It’s development has been focused on teaching and enabling tech literacy across the world since its inception, and is designed to be very user friendly.

A beginner friendly distro like Linux Mint will probably serve you well.

Linux is great for the highly technical minded, who can fix anything themselves, and the tech-illiterates who basically only ever use a web browser and maybe something like Discord. As long as you remember to use the built-in app store (it’s not really a store, you can’t buy anything) as often as possible, you should be alright. You may need to unlearn the “Google software name, look for download button” approach that most Windows users have taught themselves, because there’s a good chance you’ll only make life harder on yourself if you try to apply that on Linux.

The tricky part is that as you get more demanding in your technical needs (like if you want to run Windows programs) the nice clickable buttons are soon replaced by command line scripts. It doesn’t help that a lot of online help articles about Linux will tell you to open up a terminal the moment you run into any kind of error message, because it’s very likely they the skilled people helping others for free only ever use the terminal themselves.

Then there’s gaming: if you use Steam, you can play most games out if the box, but outside of that you’ll find yourself reading wikis and messing with settings, maybe even changing numbers around in text files. The Steam Deck made a lot of Linux gaming super easy, but the focus for that is obviously on Steam games.

With most flavours of Linux, you can download Linux to a USB drive and run a full install from there so you can try it before you install it. It’ll run slower (possibly a lot slower), but you can experiment and click around as much as you like. Unless you actually start the installation or start editing files on your hard drive, the moment you shut down the computer, all of the stuff you did will be undone. Remove the USB drive and Windows will boot right back up.

As for the performance impact: it’s hard to say. I find Linux to be smoother than Windows in terms of general performance (and on my laptop the fan is making less than a third of the noise it makes on Windows!) but it’s not some kind of magical “make your computer twice as fast” button.

I would recommend you try a live disk (just follow the instructions on the Linux Mint website) and see if Linux is for you. If you don’t like how Mint looks or feels, there are alternatives you can try (Kubuntu may be quite familiar to a lot of Windows users!) but you will have to decide if Linux is for you.

Something I haven’t explored myself, but may be good for beginners, is ZorinOS. There’s a free version and a paid version (the paid version lets you turn the OS into something closer to Windows or macOS) but the distro tries to be the go-to beginner friendly Linux.

Lastly, and I may get a bunch of downvotes for this, consider Google’s ChromeOS Flex. It’s a Linux distro that’s basically what’s on Chromebooks, but for normal computers. It’s quite fast and nearly indestructible to normal users, at the cost of having to use either Google’s applications (Chrome, Gmail, etc.) or having to use command line stuff to use normal Linux programs (Firefox, OnlyOffice). It’s not entirely open source, which is why a lot of diehard Linux users hate it, but if you look at it like a sort of “alternative Windows” rather than a “get rid of the corporate overlords” OS, it may be a good match for you.

I am very curious about the type of person who would rather use a phone than a computer. I am already getting annoyed just typing these two sentences on my phone, because I know hoe much more convenient this would be on my computer.

Thank you so much everyone. I’m very likely going to try the live usb method with linux mint probably. I really appreciate all the advice.