My partner doesn’t do much on the computer except web browsing and writing. The Scrivener writing program had a Linux version at some point that was abandoned.
I wanted to see if anyone personally has used Scrivener with Wine and if it is fussy or not. How has your experience been?
I could set it up for them, but they’re not a tech person and will probably reject Linux if it breaks all the time and they have to get me to come fix it.
Extra irrelevant info: trying to decide on having them try Mint or Ubuntu. Fedora is my daily driver and I typically use a headless Debian install for servers, but I heard Mint and Ubuntu are pretty perfect and low fuss for Windows users.
I think someone trying to get their partner to give free software a chance isn’t necessarily bad. They’re passionate about Linux stuff and maybe their partner shares some of OP’s concerns about the endless enshittification of Windows. Making the switch unguided is hard, but with tech support right by your side it becomes a lot easier.
Linux is as great for the most basic computer users (as a Facebook scrolling device) as it is for experts. Installation and configuration is quicker and easier and updates are quicker. When you just need a browser, a file manager, and maybe a basic spreadsheet, you’re good to go right after installing Ubuntu.
It’s only terrible for the intermediate users thst need to run specialised software, like in this case. The usability vs computer literacy graph is U-shaped. Part of this is because of lack of polish, another part is the lack of proper documentation (and the community telling you to open a terminal every time you ask a question).
The answer to “I want to run this program” shouldn’t be “akshually you should run this free, open source program someone made for a college assignment that looks like Word 97 had a stroke” or “just open a terminal and run sudo apt kajiggle ziggle zaggle --delete-all-my-files | grep -oKbRUH | awk ‘{print $100}’ 2>&123;# trust me bro”.
Hardware support is another issue, but if a device has been out for a while most hardware will just work if you pick a recent enough distro. The latest non LTS of Ubuntu or Mint usually works Fine™, or at least as well as Windows does in many cases.
As for OP: try running Zorin from a flash drive. It comes with integrated WINE support and is supposed to make Linux easier to use for Windows users. Performance isn’t great within a VM but VMs work too if you want to try it without a bootable drive. I don’t know how much easier it is to get used to Zorin because I’ve been on Linux for a while, but my first impressions were quite good.