algernon

Again, you're misunderstanding the problem. Keeping applications up to date is not a problem. Keeping things working the way my family got used to is an entirely different matter, and it's actually worse on Android & iOS (thus, most phones and tablets).

The main reason the family even has desktop PCs is because we couldn't make tablets work for them. Something as simple as reading email was a problem, because the various email apps (gmail, k9, etc) changed their UIs, confusing the heck out of my parents. It would've been possible to improve that situation, but the tooling to remotely manage an android phone are far more limited than on a bog standard Linux desktop.

A lot of people do use phones tablets as their main computer, yes. Ask them how happy they are about it, how much trouble updates and random UI changes cause. Just because they "can live with it" does not mean they enjoy the experience, or want to live with it. Chances are, they don't have other options. My family does. I think more people should have those options available to them.

(Also, the blog post is about desktop, specifically, and is a critique of distros trying to aim at non-enthusiasts. When it comes to mobile, those efforts are even more futile, because those specialised distros will have absolutely no chance of working on anything but a very tiny subset of mobile devices.)

I don't like it. I don't hate it, but I don't like it. It's not flexible enough for what I - and my family - needs from an operating system.

That does not address the problem at all, though. That solves the upgrade and maintenance problem, but does nothing for users who just want things to work as they always did. It does not address change.

By maintaining a system for my family, I can address that: either by undoing things, working them around, or preparing them in advance. No amount of automation will solve that. It's not a technical problem.

Sadly, no. That doesn't account for software changing, which is the #1 reason my family hates upgrades, and which is why I manage their systems, so I can either undo a change they don't want, work it around, or prepare them in advance. No amount of A/B updates and automation helps with this.

It's not even the upgrades. Automatic, unattended upgrades have been a thing for a long while, and in general, they work remarkably well. At least in the sense that nothing "breaks": programs will still work, and start up, and all that.

But automatic upgrades can change things. Change an icon, move things around, change behaviour, introduce new features, new bugs, and so on. That is the hard part of maintenance, not the technical "go from version A.B to A.C".

Most immutable distros I've seen aim at improving the A.B->A.C upgrade scenario. They do very little, if anything at all, to keep the system familiar. Because they can't, unless they control the entire stack. And even if they do, like in the case of the proposed GNOME OS, the UI still changes - often considerably - between major versions. If I maintain a system for others, I can prepare them in advance. If they do it themselves, they do not have that luxury, they're not going to follow the development of the software they use, and I wouldn't expect them to do so either. I can do it, and I am doing it, because I'd be doing it anyway for myself.

I'm supporting three people, only one of them lives with me. My parents live in a different city, pretty far away (far enough that just randomly visiting them for in-person troubleshooting is not an option). I maintain three separate computers for them. It doesn't take much effort nowadays, because I used a system I am familiar with, a general purpose distribution, and set it up so that I can manage it remotely.

I wouldn't be able to maintain a more limited system for them, because it would lack the tools I need for remote maintenance. Hence my assertion that distributions focused entirely on non-enthusiasts are a futile attempt.

There seems to be a big gap between what people think others "ought" to understand. Like the expectation that changing tires is something someone needs to be able to do. Or one should be filing their own taxes. I can do both, but I'm never going to do either, because it's more practical to let someone with way more expertise and knowledge do it for me.

When it comes to taxes, for example, doing it would take a considerable time for me, to double check and verify everything, and it would be a frustrating experience. By hiring an accountant to do that for me, I save a lot of time and frustration, and can turn that time into work, which ends up netting me more money than my accountant's pay. So why exactly should I be doing my own taxes?

And changing tires: since we got our car some 8 years ago, we only ever had to change tires unexpectedly once. We called help, they were there in 10 minutes, meanwhile we nursed our one year olds back to sleep. A lot more convenient - and a lot faster! - than if we had to change tires ourselves.

To bring this back on topic: I believe that it is perfectly fine to be an end-user who can use their system, their programs, but delegate the administrative tasks to someone else. Installing, upgrading, and in general, maintaining an operating system is not a skill that everyone ought to know. It certainly helps if they do, but it should not be a required skill.

I'm going to disagree here, partially. I agree that teaching people how to use a computer, at an early age, is important. It's also important to teach them about failure, and set realistic expectations.

That has little to do with constant system updates & maintenance. That is an entirely different skillset. Like, I can use my oven just fine, I know how to get around its kinda awkward menu system, to tell it whether I want to heat up frozen pizza, or if I'm baking bread, and stuff like that. I'm okay with learning a new menu system if I have to replace my oven. I will, however, leave the replacement to a professional. I will let a professional fix it too, should it break.

Same goes for computers and my family: they are perfectly capable of using computers. They can - reluctantly - adapt to change. They do not want to fix or maintain things, however. And that's fine! It's not their area of expertise, nor are they interested in it.

Most end-users are like that: they can use their systems, but don't want to keep up with the constant change. That's tiresome and distracting and annoying and error-prone. I believe these things are best done by someone who can smooth out the experience, someone who can help the end-users adapt, too, perhaps even prepare them in advance. That is what we should focus on, rather than trying to force unwilling people into maintenance. That never ends well.

I disagree that users won’t do stuff on their own. They will, but they will allocate very little time to it, on average, especially when compared to a tech savy person.

My experience differs here. My parents will not maintain their systems. They could, especially my Dad (he is a techy, after all), they just don't want to.

I think distro must make mundane tasks such as system maintenance hands off. As an opt-in option not to upset power user. But things such as updates, full system update, disk space reclaiming, … should have a single “do the right thing without being asked to” toggle.

That's the thing: doing this is impossible, unless the distro controls the entire stack (which they don't). Updates and upgrades can break things, and they will break things. Or if not break, then change things. You may find it surprising, but most users I talked to, regardless of their expertise, hate when the software they use daily suddenly changes.

They just want to get things done. If their tools transform under them, that sets them back. Automated updates don't help there. In fact, automated updates work against this goal. Which is why I maintain my parents systems: so if anything changes in a way that would break their routine, I can either reconfigure it, patch it, work it around some other way, or prepare them in advance. That needs a human element. And this part is why they have no desire to maintain their own systems.

The technical part of "update all packages" is pretty much a solved problem, and can be automated away in the vast majority of cases. But that's just a tiny part of the whole system maintenance problem space.

Things a bit more complicated such as printing/scanning document should be more context aware.

Now, this is something that has not been a problem for my family for literal decades. Printer is plugged in, they turn it on, press "Print", done. If out of ink, or paper gets jammed, they get a notification, and can fix that, and try again. Scanning... just worked since forever. We did make an effort to buy hardware that works well with Linux - something I helped with, too.

Daily tasks are not a problem, and never were. The maintaining a system parts are, and there, not even the automatable parts.

Immutable distro have made good progress on that front IMO. But we still need better integration between applications and the Desktop Environment for things like printing, sharing and so on. I’m hopeful though. Generally speaking, things are moving in that direction. Even if we can argue flapak and snap are a step backward with regards to the integration of the DE, this is also an opportunity to formalize some form of protocol with the DE.

From personal experience, these distros make no difference whatsoever for the end user. The hard part isn't upgrading software, that worked fine with traditional packaging too. The hard part is making sure software doesn't change in a way that breaks the habits and expectations of users. There is no technical solution there, which is another reason distros targeting non-enthusiasts are futile: they solve problems that never were a problem, but leave the real issues unaddressed.

Flatpak did help me, because when Dad said he wants the latest LibreOffice, and doesn't care if they completely change the UI, I could just install it for him via flatpak, instead of using Debian's repo. My Mom, on the other hand, does not want the latest LibreOffice. She does not want it to change, ever. Every major upgrade so far brought in something that required her to re-learn parts of it, so she's sticking to whatever is in Debian stable, and we set aside a few hours every two years or so, to learn the changed things whenever I upgrade her to the next Debian release.

You see, different people have different needs, and there's no one-size-fits-all solution. A general purpose operating system like Debian lets me build a systems that suit both of my parents. An immutable distro that relies entirely on flatpak for end-user applications would be unusable for my Mom. It would also be unusable for my Wife, because she relies on software I wrote, which I could easily install on her system as a NixOS derivation (something I am familiar with building), but one that I would have a much harder time turning into a flatpak thing (because I have no clue how to do that, and frankly, I'm not interested in learning it either).

I think you don’t distinguish enough between professionals and capables.

Oh, but I do. The thing you're not seeing is that there's a difference between "can do something" and "willing to do something".

I am absolutely capable of filing my own taxes, did so in the past, but will never do it again: I hired a professional instead. She can do it faster than me, I can be sure she does it accurately, and according to the latest laws and regulations (so I don't have to keep myself up to date on those!). Not to mention that I save a ton of time, which I can translate into work, and I end up making more money in that time than the services of my accountant cost. Likewise, I also know how to change a tire. I also know that I never want to do that. If I have to, I will call a professional, because I can, and changing the tire myself is absolutely not necessary.

Similarly, both my parents are perfectly capable of maintaining their own systems (my Dad spent decades in IT, taught IT at a university, authored successful technical books on his area of expertise, etc; Mom programmed in DBase way back when), but they have no desire to do so. They have better things to do with their time.

It's not a question of "can", but a question of "want". A whole lot of people could maintain their operating systems. They absolutely do not want to, though. And if someone doesn't want to do something, the best way to help them is to make it possible for them to avoid doing the thing they don't want to do. In our particular case, that means maintaining their OS for them, for that helps a ton more than trying to force them to learn or do something they could, but viscerally hate.

You do not need to maintain your own operating system in order to use it. Rather than trying to force people into maintaining theirs, we should make it easier for friends & family to maintain it for them. That would be a far bigger win for everyone involved.

A capable user is already a willing one. A whole lot of them aren't, and that is fine.

There is a huge difference between being able to use something, and being able to fix them, and being willing to fix them.

Case in point, if my car breaks down, I take it to a professional to fix it. Not because it is magic I have no hope of learning, but because I am absolutely uninterested in it.

If my pants rip, I take it to a professional, because that's far more practical than trying to fix it myself.

Same goes for computers: my Dad is a very capable user. He spent 3 decades in IT, authored succesful books on subjects that interested him. He would be capable of learning how to maintain his system, but he simply doesn't want to. It isn't interesting, nor fun for him. So I help him by doing it myself.

My wife is also a very capable user, she can do everything on her computer that she wants. She hates computers, though, and would sooner divorce me than learning how to run apt update. She is a very capable user because I built a system she's ok with.

Similarly, she is an amazing cook, and I am not. I am a disaster in the kitchen even if I try. So I simply don't. The best I can do is throwing frozen pizza in the oven, amd I am not interested in becomimg more capable than that. Why should she become more familiar with computers then?

What I am trying to say is that people have wildly varying interests. We should not expect everyone to be competent at everything they may ever encounter.

The blog post is about people who don't want to maintain their systems, and distros that try to cater to them. Mint isn't in that set. Nor are people who'd buy a framework laptop.