Linux

Non techies have two settings. Either everything is a virus or nothing is a virus.

My dad is in his 70s, but he is thankfully rather aware of these kinds of things. He forwards me messages or calls me to ask "is this legitimate?"

He's aware of computer viruses, but I think he's really on the lookout for scams, which is an interesting and effective approach.

I absolutely lost it the first time he called me a nerd for using Arch and straight up started doing Fedora elitism lmao

haha I thought exactly the same thing lol He's linuxplained why his distro is better. That's the spirit.

I mean, there are definitely wrong ways to run Linux, like a single root user with no password, but your point is well taken. If Linux fanboys would keep the subjective gatekeeping to themselves the new user experience would be much more pleasant.

He's learning

Yes, it's just for OP to say "I use Arch".

The kid's name? Little Bobby Tables.

You have to give them a reason to get interested in the OS and the programs they're using. I gave Linux a try because I was concerned about privacy and I wanted to use more ethical and user respecting OS and software than what I used at that time. Linux and the FOSS world was an obvious choice for me. Custom ROM on Android was sort of the bridge which allowed me to transition. If it wasn't for that, I would still be on Windows and I wouldn't learn that much on how an operating system works and what differentiate them, aside from the look. The fact they're kids or that they play games have nothing to do with it: a lot of adults don't know either what type of OS they're using, despite it being in their best interest. The problem is that we don't give or show them the reason they should be interested, or at least be curious about it and most of time, before people get a degree, we end up killing their curiosity.

As they play Minecraft, you can advise them to switch to Prism Launcher instead of the minecraft launcher, especially if they mod the game, it's much better for that. It could be a good start.

The fact that they're gaming on it means they'll know how to use it later

When I was that age I didn't think much about the system I was using, it doesn't really appeal to kids but they'll still be learning

I actually remember reddit posts complaining they hit the same bug as he did, some days prior and also some days later lol

As a terminal fan, my main reasons for preferring them over a gui (for some tasks) are:

1. It's faster to type than to navigate menus
2. If I don't know where something is and can't guess it instantly, it's usually faster to search for it in a man page than randomly digging through gui menus
3. You can combine commands with each other with pipes or $()
4. You can search through your command history to find previous commands
5. You can write scripts and aliases to automate common tasks
6. The terminal requires less context switching. Typing ten commands is less mentally taxing than opening ten different guis

The barrier for entry is higher with terminals but unless you need visual feedback (e.g. because you're editing an image) it's easier and faster for both common and rare tasks.

the os should do as i say, that includes breaking it if i please. the problem are people writing into the terminal "i understand that i uninstall half my os with this command but want to do it anyway" and then wonder why half their os gets uninstalled.

They all use it if they want to pass school, so you are out of luck.