I have been enjoying pop os. A lot more plug and play than I was expecting.
Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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It's interesting how far Linux desktop has progressed recently... I don't hate Windows, in fact I think it's a great OS for most purposes. But I happened to try Linux Mint a few years ago in a fit of pique about being excluded from the Win11 upgrade for spurious reasons... and it just kind of stuck.
Two years later and I am full on Linux now. Don't even have a Windows partition (though I do keep a VM). And I'm about to buy a new laptop that I intend to buy without an OS, it will never be touched by Windows, there's just no need.
For my purposes, Linux does everything now. OS, software, the games I want to play... I never even think about it. Also, everywhere I look, I see Linux - my Steamdeck, my MiSTer, my Pis, my Miyoo Mini. It's everywhere...
Your not missing much with window 11. It's like moving from a toxic relationship to an abusive one. Your constantly second guessing yourself on what your still allowed to do on it while you question if you actually own the os you spent $200 on.
I use it for work. Other than having to think for a second to find weirdly hidden menu items, it's fine. At least for my purposes, as a .NET dev. One thing I love about it is Windows Sandbox... really wish Linux would could up something similar.
really wish Linux would could up something similar.
I mean, it kinda already exists. Just run it in a Docker container and remap the users in the container to non-existent uids/gids on the host.
As far as I'm aware WS is pretty close to what you get by just using virtalbox (with an easier setup) so you could do that on Linux. With Linux you also have more advanced solutions though like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubes_OS
I get it for personal or even business use on a small scale is great. I use Linux daily, I'm a sysadmin and manage windows and Linux servers. My main desktop is windows. I'm considering switching my home pc over to Linux again since generally (from what I hear) gaming works mostly and that was what used to always bring me back to windows. Now I don't really game that much anymore anyway so it may not even really matter that much for me.
But for a business that has hundreds or thousands of user devices that they need to secure, configure, meet compliance, etc, how would they do that with a Linux distribution? Microsoft has active directory and group policy to manage this kind of thing (and now moving toward AAD and intune to manage device configuration) but I have yet to see any kind of Linux desktop distribution that has a central configuration management, patch management and security management. Sure you can configure it to auto update and send it out hoping for the best, but what happens when a device stops checking in, or the VPN client breaks, or there is some software we need to push out to all our users immediately? What choice do we have?
Yes, it's possible to deploy Linux in enterprise. Google even develops ChromeOS for that purpose, deploys Chromebooks in-house, and sells Chromebooks. Heck, you can enroll your Linux boxes into Active Directory with SSSD if you want to. You can use pull-based configuration management tools to configure workstations. Albeit rare, there're MDM solutions similar to Windows ones with Linux support, such as Kolide and Scalefusion. I agree that the Windows sysadmin experience is seamless if you fit into Microsoft's model, compared to Linux. Linux sysadmins must know how to write scripts to bridge the gap. Although I suspect the Microsoft experience will get worse as Microsoft deprecates older solutions in favor of Azure.
If your parents don't have any Windows specific software, you can quietly switch their PC to Linux.
Use Linux Mint Cinnamon, as it is really close to Win 7 interface, and they got one of the best out-of-box experience as well as hardware support (especially for aging devices).
You can either tell them you installed a new theme, or you can have a theme that mimics Windows 7. In my case, I opted for the latter, fooling a friend who needed to use it in the process.
They will notice 100%, and be angry about it as it looks different and don't work the same way. It will be annoying and ask you to revert back so they can work. They dont want to learn something new when they dont have time and are stressed and have not learned anything. You need to go through it on your own computer first and ask them what they think and why they have to use it.
In comparison: my mom was pissed that I forget that to install Chrome and had to use MS Edge which was too confusing for her to understand. It showed a weird page with news, weather, ad, Bing search etc as soon as she started it and could not understand why she was not seeing the familiar Google search webpage. Edge bad, she said. Too much popus.