the “year of the Linux computer” will never happen.

It won’t, that’s fine. People who don’t want to lean anything about computers use iOS and Android now. And that’s fine. I never want Linux distros to become like that.

Don’t know what kind of program you’re running but… No.

My Linux has updates every week, which means that if I was on Windows to keep everything the same up to date I would need to check every website to see which app released this week, maybe this week Firefox had a new release, maybe next week it’s mullvad VPN, and next week is the NVIDIA driver, but if I hadn’t checked all of them I would not know which ones have a new release.

Also if you want adoption you need to make your product easy to use and not ask them to become experts at how things work

Agreed, but also you should have options so that power users can take advantage of it.

Do you think all bike riders know how to adjust their derailer or even care to know?

Do you think that bikes should not have gears since most people don’t know how they work? No, because even if you don’t understand the mechanics you can understand the general terms, and even if you don’t understand gears you can just not use them, same as a package manager. Options is always better.

if Linux requires users to understand how to do things manually in the terminal then the “year of the Linux computer” will never happen.

It doesn’t require it, you’re ignoring the fact that OP could have just clicked download and download an installer same as he would on Windows. But if you can use the terminal and understand package managers you can use Linux in a way that Windows is impossible, if you can’t you can still use Linux in the same way you would windows with all of the sales downsides.

if Linux requires users to understand how to do things manually in the terminal

It doesn’t require it but it is often easier. It’s also alien when you’re new.