What it takes is people being able to buy a Linux machine at the local electronics store. Installing your OS yourself is still a major hurdle for most people.

Problem is Youtube is known to censor these kind of campaigns. I think they literally got caught delisting Tiny11 tutorials recently. Imagine what they‘ll do if Linux Tutorials pick up steam. Big tech is one giant illegal syndicate and politicians have invested in all of them.

And soon there would be a corpo that will make a closed source commercial OS based on Linux and people will somehow use their crap.

Or COSMIC in the second configuration option

funny you should say it like that. I just recently I tried using Debian's default GNOME desktop and thought I had corrupted the install somehow. I reinstalled the OS two more times because it kept dumping me into a nearly blank screen with no obvious buttons to click aside network/sound/power.

I'm used to LXDE, KDE, and Cinnamon, so this was completely foreign to me... and trying to find the web browser had me at a caveman level of confusion.

Only Office has a UI very similar to Word. I generally prefer LibreOffice for its functionality, but Only Office has an easy layout for Word users to learn.

It's not about ease of use. Remember Windows RT? It worked exactly like normal Windows and it still died because people didn't understand what it is and were confused but the limitations. Making Linux as similar to Windows as possible is not a solution for the masses. It works for people that understand what they are doing or have someone who does at hand. Normal Windows user will just try to install Word and download exe files and be confused that they don't work. If you want normal users to use Linux you need to make it clear that it's something different, like OS X or Chrome OS does. You basically need a major OEM to create immutable Linux distro with clear branding and offer commercial support for it. Android for Desktop basically which will be very similar to Chrome OS.

It's always "one little thing", and often an OS-local feature that many wouldn't be aware of.

eg, You go to your grandma's to help with her computer. She mostly uses her web browser to check on news. BUT, she has one specific home-network file operation she performs regularly, using an old network drive that got set up decades ago by who-knows.

That's one tiny example, but there's hundreds of others around, and not from tech nuts. Someone has one specific VPN app they must use, on their personal device, infrequently, for work. Someone runs one app that still mentions Windows 95 compatibility. Someone with learning disabilities is very very used to the pattern of logging in, so much so that they're confused and ready to call IT when they don't get a Ctrl+Alt+Delete prompt.

Thankfully, those are often exaggerations, and it's good that most people's use cases for niche stuff has migrated to web apps. You're right that a lot of people really do only rely on their web browser. These days, even Edge is "sorta" available on Linux if someone is that dedicated to their list of bookmarks. Just don't expect it's always as simple as people not finding the start-menu-equivalent.

Yes. GNOME is great, but you better learn the logic behind it, it's not a DE that adjusts well to the user, it's actually the opposite, but if you get the gist of it, it works wonders.