How can we make Linux more appealing as "just works"?
Let's say just like for example like MacOS. It's awesome we have so many tools but at the same time lack of some kind of standardization can seem like nothing works and you get overwhelmed. I'm asking for people that want to support Linux or not so tech-savy people.
Simple, start teaching it in elementary school all the way up through high school. Apple did it long ago and got apple users out of those kids. Microsoft does it now, and now you have Windows users. Just need the computer education to be Linux centric from the start. It's not that it's different, it's that it's not what they grew up with and were taught.
I think it depends. If a school has a laptop for each student, it is most certainly a Chromebook. However, a lot of schools also have a mix of systems. In elementary school, I was taught to use Microsoft Office on Windows, for instance. At my high school, all the students had Chromebooks, but there were also some labs with Windows machines; graphic design, photography, and film classes had labs full of 5K iMacs.
Chromebooks are low cost and easy to manage. Unless it is for a highly specific use I wouldn't be surprised if a school was all Chromebooks and Chromeboxes.
Also there is a public high school full of expensive macs? That's wild
Not exactly “full of” - it was more like 3 classrooms with 30 each. Still a lot of Macs, but keep in mind this was a high school of 2000 students. Also, I’m pretty sure the Macs were paid for with grants for the visual arts programs rather than standard public funding.