Chronicae Novis Rebus

I saw plenty of efforts that aim to create a Linux distribution for non-enthusiasts, for people who just want to use their computers, and not care about the details - A Desktop for All on the GNOME blog, most recently. While I commend the effort, my own experience is that these efforts are futile, and start off from a fundamentally wrong premise: that people are willing (let alone wanting) to manage their own operating systems.

What follows, is both my personal experience, and what I see happening in the wider family, and among my group of friends. It is a small sample size, for sure, but I see the exact same thing in every case, with no exception: the non-enthusiast members of families just want something that works, and they have absolutely no desire whatsoever to maintain it. They may or may not agree about our ideals, but one thing is certain: they do not wish to get involved deeper. They just want a system that works, and a system they don’t have to maintain, and they couldn’t care less what is running beneath the surface.

This is how I ended up maintaining a Linux system for my parents and my wife (and in a couple of years, I’ll maintain two more for our twins), and how my Dad is maintaining a Windows system for my brother and my sister and their families. They don’t install software, they don’t update (unless Windows gives them no other choice), they don’t configure things, they don’t change things. If they want something, they turn to us.

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