In my opinion, it is perceived difficulty that keeps people from using it. Most basic users will use the OS that is installed on the computer when it ships and never stray from that. It often takes another Linux user to introduce someone to it before they will use it.
Those concerns you mentioned are basically non existent for a low level user who just wants to do email, internet, and word documents, which covers a decent chunk of home windows users. Not all, of course, but many.
In my entire social and family circle that comprises hundreds of people, I can count with one hand the number of people who are even close to proficient enough with a computer to be assured of a decent experience with *nix systems, (excluding macOS, naturally).
My litmus test is “will you be comfortable with opening a terminal and typing in a bunch of text commands?”
If not, I’d only recommend Windows or macOS. I don’t want to play tech support for hours to my parents or granny or my in-laws at 11pm on Saturday night guiding them to through a tutorial to fix their borked computer because they “accidentally clicked something but they can’t remember what and now it doesn’t load facebook”.
In my opinion, it is perceived difficulty that keeps people from using it. Most basic users will use the OS that is installed on the computer when it ships and never stray from that. It often takes another Linux user to introduce someone to it before they will use it.
Those concerns you mentioned are basically non existent for a low level user who just wants to do email, internet, and word documents, which covers a decent chunk of home windows users. Not all, of course, but many.
In my entire social and family circle that comprises hundreds of people, I can count with one hand the number of people who are even close to proficient enough with a computer to be assured of a decent experience with *nix systems, (excluding macOS, naturally).
My litmus test is “will you be comfortable with opening a terminal and typing in a bunch of text commands?”
If not, I’d only recommend Windows or macOS. I don’t want to play tech support for hours to my parents or granny or my in-laws at 11pm on Saturday night guiding them to through a tutorial to fix their borked computer because they “accidentally clicked something but they can’t remember what and now it doesn’t load facebook”.