Honestly, tell them to get a Mac. It runs certified UNIX. You get to think it’s cool, they get to get by not caring what that means. The M4 Mac is like $500 and it kicks the tar outta PCs that aren’t meant for gaming. Even still, it can run Cyberpunk. But it’s not a gaming machine and shouldn’t be viewed as one.

In my experience, while Linux has never been hard for me to use, the problem you’re going to run into in telling your friend or family member to install this cool free hacker OS or whatever it is you try to sell it as, the second they run into a problem, they’re going to come to you to fix it.

That said, I’d tell them to install Ubuntu if I wanted to take on that level of responsibility. By telling them to just get a Mac, I’m doing a few things. One, I’m getting someone out from under Microsoft’s thumb. Maybe you don’t think Apple is much better, but they’re a lot better. Maybe not the best, but a fine alternative to Microsoft. Two, I’m making them a customer of a company that has good tech support. “Call them, not me, you got a free year of AppleCare, use it!” Three, I’m turning them on to a good computer.

Someone who needs help installing Linux is not going to be a self sufficient Linux user who will contribute in any more a meaningful way other than metrics (which aren’t tracked by a lot of distros). Someone who is those latter things won’t really need your help installing it, but they may come to you for advice on which distro to go with.

I’m not saying Linux is only for computer geeks and scientists, though it does attract that sort. I’m not saying new people shouldn’t be introduced to Linux, just that they shouldn’t be pushed in the deep end and expected to swim. Because now you’re either a lifeguard, or you’ve contributed to a bigger problem — helping them to navigate from Linux to something like Windows or macOS (and now they trust you less).