Exactly!
Unfortunately, there needs to be a commercial/financial effort behind the mass adoption of Linux. The average person has no idea that an alternative to Windows or MacOS even exists because they have not seen it advertised on TV or mainstream social media.
These conversations on Linux communities on Lemmy and Mastodon are just us nerds yelling into our own echo chamber. The average person needs something that “just works” without having to read a book about how to set it up.
If you had to install Windows every time you bought a PC you’d think that Linux and Windows are comparable. That is the issue, tbh. It’s not the RTFM; its because the average PC user had NEVER NEEDED to install an OS. Windows just comes preinstalled on 99% of consumer PCs! For the “year of Linux” to be a reality, there needs to be an easy way to get a retail PC with Linux preinstalled. When I show my Windows-only users my Linux laptop, how quickly it boots up, how many apps I have installed, how easy it is to install and update apps, etc., most say: “Oh wow! I can use this”. But when I demonstrate having to choose the boot loader, partition setup, etc., they say, “Nah! I’ll just go buy a laptop with Windows!”
There are plenty of ways to configure Linux to circumvent sudo. I’ve even seen people who log in as root by default. I do not, however, advise anyone to do that even if it’s just, as you put it, a Molly Guard. It has prevented me personally from doing catastrophic things to my system on a number of occasions.
This would literally render sudo utterly useless. Sudo is meant to require password to accomplish admin tasks. In your scenario anyone using your computer can do anything without knowing the password.
I suggest setting up Timeshift so it can backup your drive daily and keep several days worth. This way when you or an update screws up your system, you can simply restore to the last working version.
The notion of an “agreement” with Putler is laughable! The only agreement he’s capable of not breaking is one he makes at the Hague to spare his life in exchange for peacefully dying in a cell somewhere.
Have you tried Waterfox? It satisfies most of your requirements, I believe.
I’ve been using Linux for more than a decade and distro hopped quite a bit. Mint used to be my happy place, but recently within the last 5 years or so I’ve been on Arch derivatives. Endeavour was never stable enough for my liking, but Manjaro has been great. I did have to go back to a snapshot once, fairly recently, but that was primary because I fecked it up and not due to an update.
You mentioned that you have tried several Arch-based distros, so I’m not sure if this includes Manjaro.
Personally I use 24 hr time and YYYY-MM-DD date format almost exclusively, but here in the US you’ll get a bunch of people arguing and frothing at the mouth that MM-DD-YYYY is way superior because you say “March 16th 2025” instead of “2025 March 16th” and 24 hr clock is called “military time” because they are the ones using it. So, in short, it’ll take a lot of effort to change people’s habits.
Steam Deck is a step in the right direction, but the manufacturer does not highlight the fact that it runs Linux.
Most people don’t realize that they are probably using Linux daily already. If they have a fire TV stick, or Android phone, or a smart speaker, etc.