@mcc
You're absolutely right. It took me months of trying different distros and actively tweaking, as someone who's used Linux since 1993, to get my high end laptop (Framework AMD 13) working acceptably. Not an option for most.

(Debian with KDE Plasma in Wayland is where I landed. Still some rough edges but I'm pretty happy with it.)

That said, it depends on the comparison OS. Windows is also a bin fire but with a different constellation of issues, Microsoft being dicks and third party vendors bundled by the manufacturer using all the dark patterns. I wouldn't want to unleash that on a not-confident-with-tech person.

But compared to Mac or Chrome OS, the Year of Linux on the Desktop still seems a long way away.