I just can't bring myself to use Windows anymore, but I agree that Linux Desktop just isn't there. I'm mostly on Macs these days, but I still have a Dell laptop running Fedora 35.
Every other day something breaks. We're spanning the entire range here, from petty stuff like Firefox missing fonts, to straight up the kernel not booting. And obviously everyting in between, like apparently the only way to receive Exchange mail is to pay for a Thunderbird add-on. Or setting up the VPN requiring arcane SELinux magic.
I honestly don't see how one can recommend desktop linux to someone without at least a minimal knowledge of how the OS works and some decent terminal-fu.
As sad as it is your parent is right. Non-technical users should just get a chromebook.
I'd never recommend Fedora, non-LTS Ubuntu, or Debian Unstable for a Linux newcomer. Any time you run a development release, you risk breaking something whenever you update.
I've been happy running Cinnamon on Ubuntu LTS releases, and I like what I see playing with KDE as well. I've never had a kernel fail to boot (other than by hardware failure), and AppArmor is, IMO, far better at staying out of the way than SELinux. I can't help on the Exchange stuff, I've never had to deal with that.
It would be a little easier to just run Mint instead (Cinnamon being native there), but on Ubuntu you can just "apt install cinnamon-desktop-environment" and then choose Cinnamon the next time you log in.
Exchange access outside Outlook and Apple's Mail.app is PITA anywhere. Part of why you need to pay for Thunderbird add-on is that Microsoft asks for license fees. Nobody is going to pay that for you (and for Apple, it is hidden in the overall package price).
What SELinux magic you had to do for VPN? All VPNs that I've set up were fine with just clickety-click in the GUI.
Well you are running Fedora which is a bleeding edge distro aimed at Linux devs and is a testing ground for red hat. You’d have a lot less problems on Ubuntu.
I didn’t have many problems either except in regards to my nvidia graphics card. I’ve used Ubuntu for about a year (coming from Fedora for 3) and Ubuntu is more stable in that regard.
Every other day something breaks. We're spanning the entire range here, from petty stuff like Firefox missing fonts, to straight up the kernel not booting. And obviously everyting in between, like apparently the only way to receive Exchange mail is to pay for a Thunderbird add-on. Or setting up the VPN requiring arcane SELinux magic.
I honestly don't see how one can recommend desktop linux to someone without at least a minimal knowledge of how the OS works and some decent terminal-fu.
As sad as it is your parent is right. Non-technical users should just get a chromebook.