I don't want to be dismissive of some of the concerns of switching to Linux, but I feel like a lot of the "it's too hard!" in 2025 is "it's needlessly difficult to get a consistent Python container in NixOS Unstable" like that's something Aunt Jennifer is going to need. Even the Adobe suite is not a factor for most people.
I ended up in this discussion with someone on Reddit who was convinced to their core that asking an older person to use Linux was "cruel" because they shouldn't have to spend their remaining years learning to type esoteric commands and older people simply aren't interested in or capable of learning new things. Aside from the bizarrely confident ageism, give someone a thinkpad running fedora with KDE (put away your knives for a moment) and they'll be fine. And if they have issues with Linux they're going to have issues with Windows too. (As to the distro, as long as it's not one of the DIY distros, it's also probably fine, and I'd bet most people--even those brittle, sad old people (/s)--would figure out Gnome in a day.)
I ended up in this discussion with someone on Reddit who was convinced to their core that asking an older person to use Linux was "cruel" because they shouldn't have to spend their remaining years learning to type esoteric commands and older people simply aren't interested in or capable of learning new things. Aside from the bizarrely confident ageism, give someone a thinkpad running fedora with KDE (put away your knives for a moment) and they'll be fine. And if they have issues with Linux they're going to have issues with Windows too. (As to the distro, as long as it's not one of the DIY distros, it's also probably fine, and I'd bet most people--even those brittle, sad old people (/s)--would figure out Gnome in a day.)