Most of us don't react well to "different" and I do remember far enough back to when early Gnome used to use some real cutie pie names for some things.
That was a while ago and Gnome isn't default for any distro any more
(it died due to running off a cliff under the leadership of an idiot who wouldn't listen to anybody).
The son of Gnome is called Mate and it is run by the ones who baulked at the edge of the cliff and wouldn't drink the koolaide and refused to be stupid.
That was most of them, BTW.
Mate looks a whole lot like XP, you change the wallpaper by right clicking on the blank desktop then selecting what you want. Mate looks to be a stable desktop now that has figured out that using a mouse and keyboard is the best way to go with a PC screen, not touch and gestures.
Is it always the exact same as XP, no. But it is consistent and if you type in a question about how do you do "?" in Mint Mate (version #) the internet instantly tells you how to do it. After a while the jump to get used to Mate is a whole lot less than the jump that Windows made going from Win 7 to Win 8.
Plus, once you get your desktop set up and your program icons where yo want them, the whole thing just sits there working, day in, day out, year after year until a new LTS comes out and you upgrade to it.
Flash comes and goes periodically (Adobe has now dropped all direct support for everything but Windows and Mac) but Google has taken up the slack on that front. DRM makes a pain in the butt out of itself every month or so with the free Amazon Prime movies, but that is just Amazon trying to get you to buy a Kindle by twisting your arm.
Serowbot has tried Linux a while back and didn't like it. I'd say 50% of those who try Linux for the first time simply don't like the distros they try out first.
Me, I hated Red Hat and all the KDE distros, and Slackware, and Knoppix. I liked Puppy, but it seemed like it really wasn't all there. I used to use Ubuntu until the Unity thing ran me over to Mint. Then the Gnome split up took place with Mate surviving and stabilizing several years ago and I found what I liked and stayed there.
Linux Mint gives you all the non-free graphics drivers and proprietary stuff in the original easy install and Mate gives you a simple, clean, stable, normal acting desktop experience.
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Me, I'd give Justin a good shot, but I fear he's about like Serowbot and won't like hitting very much "different" all that much. The size of the speed bump that will make your suspension go CLUNK varies per vehicle and operator ..... everyone is different.
I'm serious about Apple using women to use-test all the software before they release it --
Apple has learned that men aren't their main customers and anything that makes the woman happy stays .... and that anything that frustrates her very quickly goes away.
Linux is learning that fact quicker than Windows, since women programmers contribute more to FOSS than the average male programmer does. Problem is that there are a lot more male programmers in the world right now so Linux still tends to be geeky sometimes.
However, my wife uses my Mint/Mate rig with no instructions and just a few minor complaints about the odd menu system I use on my Word ....
She however LIVES on her I-Pad 2 and curses her Windows laptop bi-weekly. Her Android phone frustrates her because it is too complicated to use .... and she hates the GPS in the car because it is totally stupid (Japanese software engineering).
Women have strong feelings about technology (and everything else too).
Roku is my current example of "good software that was written for/by women" I don't even think there IS an instruction manual for how to use a Roku -- it is that simple and
completely intuitive.
Compare that Roku remote to most TV and DVR remotes -- Roku has
very few buttons and only uses a simple "move and select" system for doing everything.
The magic of Roku is intentional simplicity and large clear screens to do the selecting on.