My elderly parents in their 60s use linux mint daily and have never had an issue with it (admittedly I did have to set it up for them still). I just set up the desktop shortcuts for them to their websites and turn on automatic updates. The hardest part isn't using an alternative OS like mint or pop, its getting an average person to figure out how to install it. Getting into your BIOS to boot into the installation drive, re-partitioning your harddrive to free up space for dual booting or nuking windows off all together, those are the hardest parts for any first timers IMO. After youve done it a dozen times its no problemo but the first time is nerve racking at least it was to me.

People say this but if you're just using something like Linux Mint, it's vastly simpler than Windows.

The search works. Never will you open the start menu, search for an app, and instead get ads and bing results.

All functions are done through graphical programs (terminal isn't needed).

It's laid out in the usual Windows UX, complete with a taskbar at the bottom, start button in the bottom left that opens a familiar menu, minimise, maximise, and close buttons in the top right of a window.

Apps are installed through an app store, rather than searching online, hoping you've downloaded the right installer, opening it, going through the installer, deleting the installer afterwards.

Auto updates can easily be enabled at first time setup, in the tutorial program that runs upon first boot.

A distro like Mint is easier than Windows or MacOS. It doesn't need to be made any simpler, it just needs to be available out of the box on more devices, because no average user will ever change their OS, not even to an easier to use one.

what maintenance? most of the peeps i have using it blindly are just automatically applying recommended updates.

linux is great for two types of people.. those that just need a browser or libreoffice and could use even a livecd or reset-on-reboot kiosk mode type se;tup that's been set up for them, and those that want to get their hands dirty.

for everyone else, it can really be a pain in the ass sometimes when something goes wrong. help is fragmented in even more ways than the distros themselves, and every third response is usually something along the lines of 'google it' ("i did, that's how i got here") or 'rtfm' ("what fucking manual?"--documentation is lacking for soooo many things) and then silence.

at least with windows you should already know going-in that 'backup and reinstall' is probably high-up at #3 on the list of things to try/do, after you search and scan a much larger pile of resources specific to windows and its (relatively few, by comparison) different versions.

I'm also on a Framework 13 with a 144Hz external. These problems do sound like some beginner-level issues you'd run into on a distro that runs behind in updates.

The only officially recommended distros by framework are Fedora and Ubuntu (although I've run a wide range and they've all worked). They have guides here for all sorts.

Issues 1 and 3, you need to use Wayland on KDE or GNOME and both Wayland and the DE need to be up to date. This is an area where Linux is rapidly getting better.

Issue 2, should be adjustable in any DE settings panel. That's a really strange one because I've never run into touchpad issues in my testing.

Issue 4, no idea. Logitech support is pretty good. Does this happen on all distro? I wonder if this is related to the touchpad issue.

Issue 5, they can be. It depends on your governor program. I strongly recommend setting up TLP. There's some good guides out there in the FW forums. However, avoid disabling USB ports. For other governor solutions I'm sure there's a config file laying around somewhere or perhaps it's saving the last used setting.

Issue 5a, if the issue is fan noise. Check out fw-fanctrl.

Issue 6, this just has to be a Mint thing. I've had fingerprint reading working on everything. My guess is that maybe they're missing the fprint package or the UI/UX is rough. You can set up finger print reading from the terminal.

Issue 7, just select FDE on install if the installer offers it. Linux uses dm-crypt for FDE and it has baked in HWE. I would imagine other Linux encryption programs are hardware accelerated by default as well as support for it is part of the kernel. But I may be wrong about that.

All in all your experience of Linux is going to be very distro dependent and yes it may take some work and troubleshooting. But I think it mostly feels harder because it's different from what you're used to.

I run EndeavorOS and like that it's all basic defaults because then I can build it into what I want. I highly recommend it once you become a little more used to Linux.