In my experience, it can work well. For several people, I put Debian (or OpenBSD) on their machine, with XFCE as the desktop environment, and some icons on the

In my experience, it can work well. For several people, I put Debian (or OpenBSD) on their machine, with XFCE as the desktop environment, and some icons on the desktop for their most frequently-used apps (or direct browser URLs to go where they usually like to go), give them a few tips for finding things in the menu, set up and test CUPS printing, and be available to troubleshoot anything or answer questions, and they didn't have to "learn linux" at all. It's enough like Windows XP that they have been able to use it generally without problems other than the occasional question about how to manage a 2nd monitor (so I showed them how to click to xrandr or arandr or something). I also make/made sure to do upgrades for them. For debian, that includes but is not limited to installing the "unattended-upgrades" package, so many updates they get without my involvement. (Some users don't use these computers any more because it was for a class that was discontinued after a few years, another family member continues, happily.) edit:I admit, there have been some adventures with printing.