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this is a topic i've been heavily involved with because i still consider myself to be someone who prefers using technology at a very beginner friendly level, plus it's very good when a linux operating system makes you feel right at home when it has a modern desktop environment. this is why i really like gnome, its simplicity and usability is something available for everyone, for beginners and for a lot of other people, but if you had to, say, rearrange xfce or kde for someone who was an elderly person or an absolute beginner so that they wouldn't have any trouble using linux, how would you do it? (screenshot is my current linux mint desktop, very simple and extremely user friendly!!!!)
Sure, but I wouldn't expect an elderly user to be one of the people with the natural ability to nuke their OS.
I've daily driven Bazzite, an immutable distro, since July, and I haven't seen the kind of Flatpak issues they talk about - or frankly any major issues, this whole experience has been way easier than Windows ever was with updates (it took me a few minutes to figure out Proton and Heroic launcher though). I didn't know about the new Fedora update until I booted up and my lock screen was different. My experience is that Bazzite (and likely all of the other uBlue Fedoras) is fantastic and absolutely ready now.
That said, nothing is more stable than something like Debian. Unless you've got some hardcore gamer grandma I think the immutable distros are a solution to a problem not present in OPs hypothetical.
I agree with the uBlue recommendation. The best thing about these for OP is that they update automatically on reboots, with zero user interaction. I can easily imagine anyone getting nervous accepting a Mint update and watching all the text zoom by. You don't see any of that with uBlue.
*I am using and loving Bluefin.
https://projectbluefin.io/
To me it's like the old saying from Win9x days "Help, I've deleted the internet". Removing an Internet Explorer shortcut from the desktop might be easier than nuking a Linux installation, but I think if the point is to be of service to absolute tech-illiterates then you need to be ready for anything, any edge case. And like you say, if Flatpaks and all that just work then what would be the downside of immutability?
I mean in theory one can make deep-rooted changes to macOS, but I haven't once seen it fail to upgrade successfully. And I definitely wouldn't consider Windows immutable with how many things can go wrong in practice. I've had more than a few customers who lost wifi drivers through no fault of their own, in one case the entire device wasn't visible anymore, so reinstalling a driver wouldn't have done anything, all I could do was roll back the feature update and ensure it won't install it again. In that sense, immutable Linux might even be the best offering out there today. The only thing it lacks (besides Android and SteamOS) is a multi-billion dollar company backing it for wider desktop adoption.