I empathize with this even as a highly computer literate person who works in tech. I turn 40 this year, and when I’m off the clock, I need to read books, touch grass, and live my life as if I don’t know how computers work.

I think this is a very valid reason. I used to reinstall Windows every 6 months or so for various reasons, switching to Linux wasn't any more work. But if you don't enjoy researching, installing OSs, etc then it's only ever going to feel like a chore.

Look, to be perfectly honest, I've had to do far less "computery" bullshit on Linux. After about six months of everything just working fast and flawless, I realised Windows is the OS that requires a pretty high level of computer literacy. Even installing Linux is a simple and quick breeze compared to Windows.

All it took was a final, "Oh, for fuck's sake! That's it! I'm fucking done!" moment. I just didn't want to do it anymore. Never had one since. Using a computer is a nice thing again.

I 100% recommend Linux for grandparents!

Bazzite seems like it would fit perfectly with you then

I've used old computers for phasing out certain social networks - e.g. I'd block Facebook on my main computers, and only access it on my old laptop. That's been quite effective. You could do that, and just use Linux Mint or Xubuntu on that old laptop. Very real learning necessary, and you do manage to break it somehow, it's not a big deal.

I already use Linux, on and off, but the lack of support for a (proper) CAD program is the biggest issue for me.

For me, as someone who's not into esports-games, I just expect games to work on Linux now, and they nearly always do. The exception has been a couple of old or obscure titles that run fine in a virtual machine. I'm not running any fancy version of Linux, just Mint, and the only thing I do to get them to work, is install them on Steam. Proton is amazing.

If you are into esports-games, though, there's a risk that they'll require kernel-level anticheat, and Linux does not do that.

Most games are, but there's a few asterisks mostly not because Linux is incapable of running it but because there's super invasive anti-cheat that doesn't allow it.

What games aren’t supported that you play?

Most games have worked for years now

I need games to be supported

SteamOS and steam consoles will be really helpful for this I think

Edit: typo

Steam and Heroic have been working fine for me for playing games on Linux.

And how would the advertising world even get their shitty software onto your computer? Unlike windows, there isn't some monolithic corporate entity making decisions about your computer for you.

Your last paragraph nails it. I'm not trying to get the whole world to switch, but I'd be happy to get the like minded peopleout who haven't switched.

When it stops being a tool that works for me and starts working for corpos, well, then I will be in the minority again.

This topic used to come up all the time on Reddit subs, but this is the first time I can remember seeing it on Lemmy.

Some distros’ discord servers and sites have actually set up AI assistants to handle that clippy concept of being able to ask questions without judgmental users responding.

I stayed with Windows largely because their guidance to those actions was generally good, and left when it started sucking - when a Start search for some normal desktop action instead gave a website article that got an automated “Try restarting” answer from an MS volunteer.

I still don’t think Linux guides people all that well (better or worse depending on the distro). These days, I think it does get better than Windows if only because Microsoft got so lazy with their own product.

The “suckyness carryover” isn’t as natural as you think when people can fork distros so easily.

I haven’t used Windows in over 20 years. I’m not sure what random things you’d need it for. In fact when I fix people’s Windows machines I oftentimes have to use Linux to do it.

Funny, I could never afford photoshop so I find GIMP much easier to get around in 😆. There used to be a GIMP plugin that changed everything to be like Photoshop, not sure if it still exists. But GIMP doesn't have feature parity with Photoshop, one of these days we'll be able to draw shapes.

Is InDesign not already a subscription service?

Have you tried Krita as a photoshop replacement?

Adobe products can run on wine now. As of a few weeks ago. I still need to test it more in depth, but they started at least!

What about Photopea? https://www.photopea.com/

nobody should be using adobe, not even on windows. made thebswitch tonaffinity and never looked back

What I would give to be able to comfortably give up MacOS. I don’t even hate it, but Ableton is about the only software that I need it for.

Ableton, recordbox, and traktor are really the only things keeping me from moving full time.

I didn't want to go back to Windows so bad, I actually taught myself Reaper lol. It's by far the best DAW I've used (former FL and Abelton user,).

Not gonna like, though, it was a pretty rough ride and steep initial learning curve like all creative programs be. I could like it to playing the guitar for ten years and suddenly you have to play left-handed. Like, you can so do it, but fuuuuuuuu

Could use the browser versions of the office tools as an intermediary.

You can also run all the office stuff in WinBoat. Only Office is pretty close to ms office as well, but is missing some really important stuff that really pissed my wife off.

I recommend trying out OnlyOffice. It's free and it's scarily similar to MS Office, to the point where there's no learning curve and it's impressive how they haven't gotten sued yet. Plus, it's got a Windows version so you can try it out without committing to Linux

I'm not a fan of LibreOffice, even with the GUI tweaks to make it look like MS Office, so I've been actively finding Office alternatives for a long time now. OnlyOffice is by far the best one I've found

I am curious about how Lightroom workflow is better that Darkable for you. I juste started to learn RAW photo editing with darktable and want to learn more about photography in general

Razer mouse software that supports the full range of configuration options available on Windows plus automatic profile switching based on active app.

This has been a big sticking point for me. I'm using a Razer Naga (thats the one with the numpad on the side) and like to make use of those extra buttons - esspecially since I play a lot of more complex and/or more competitve games, but even for day-to-day use. Since it doesn't have on board memory, its useless on Linux, and that undoes about a decade of muscle memory (and requires me to buy a new mouse).

VLC will let you do this! This is how I got all of my music off of my Linux machine over to my iPad and iPhone. I haven’t tried transferring from iPhone back to Linux, however.

The iPhone is intentionally incompatible with Linux, or at least it was. They dropped support for Linux over 10 years ago.

It supports Super Tux Cart, and what more could a games-loving child need?

This is pretty much me. If Linux and associated software like Proton were at their current state 10 years ago, I would've made the jump by now. At this point, I just can't be bothered. I work in IT, so I already deal with computer stuff at work, and I really don't want to tinker with my pc at home as well. I bought some extra storage a few months ago, partially in preparation to try Linux, but have yet to install it.

A trick I hear you can do with Steam is install the Windows app using Wine, then adding it to Steam as a "non-Steam game" to be able to run it in its version of Proton.

I've found that 90% of users probably wouldn't have a difficult time using Linux as their new OS. The problems usually show up when needing to use terminal or when specific software companies don't support Linux.

The average user that just browses the internet and uses basic office apps most likely wouldn't have any issues.

Find an old PC lying around your home swap the drive out or create a separate partition, there are plenty of YouTube videos out there. Worst case you waste an afternoon.

what games? what programs?

Every game and every program cannot be guaranteed to work even after the next Windows update. Almost all games that don't use a kernel level anti cheat will work though.