Re: Ahhh SystemD
Note you only have to rebuild packages if you change their default compile options, just like with any other modern distribution that will generally only offer one or two variants of a package. I only added that part for completeness. "How do you know which ones" applies only to those packages: the rest is automatic and hassle-free; if you're compiling ports you will know already which ones to recompile. However, there are also various port tools that allow you to autonate even this process, so if you don't want to deal with it you can just set it up to work automatically, basically with a pourderie pkg repo and build scripts—the end user won't have to do anything, and you will just have to check build logs every blue moon to make sure nothing blows up. And yes, when it comes to one-button updates, that is the kind of experience you will see with TrueOS... Though admittedly I haven't used it much since it was rebranded from PC-BSD. But if it was as simple to use as it was back then I assume it will be even better now.
The only thing you will be running regularly if you don't care about manual package compilation and you aren't using TrueOS package management is the `pkg' command I mentioned, equivalent to your updating on Tumbleweed. I'll admit I don't have much history with zypper so I can't speak on that. I have only had long-term experience with apt, and speaking of that I had an autoremove command nuke a GalliumOS Chromebook the other day... My fault for not realizing it was happening, but there you are.
I haven't mentioned any problems with BTRFS, in fact I like it. I do like ZFS more however, which is now wonderfully stable and available on both BSDs and Linux boxen. They both perform their tasks adequately enough and which to use at this point is more down to which userland tools you prefer, unless you require absolute performance or the choice is mission-critical.
When I say raw simplicity is a plus, I mainly aimed that towards you, the implied sysop and manager of your family's systems. BSDs are easy to administrate AND understand; systemd-based distros and Windows-like GNU/Linux systems (think Mint) are all well and easy to administrate too most of the time, but the second anything goes wrong expect it to do so catastrophically... At least that's my experience with them. YMMV, and at the end of the day the system you know best will be easiest for you to work with, which aside from the pros of using the BSDs is partially why I stick with them despite the downsides.
As for your family and their usage of applications: whether or not it's a joke I recall SuperTuxKart being in both FreeBSD ports and NetBSD pkgsrc; I have no experience with Kdenlive but when it comes to editing I generally stick with compositors like Natron which usually works fine with my setup; I don't know what you mean by "talk", if you mean "plug it in and your DE handles it appropriately" I have never had the want to do this aside from adb and MTP transfers (a fusefs driver is available for both FreeBSD and NetBSD at the minimum), but I imagine TrueOS would either be able to handle it or can have the functionality added; CUPS/GhostScript/etc works fine and I print plenty, and if you prefer Avahi and other Poetterings can make it rather simple to get a printer up and running; I have never used iPlayer but if it's browser-based FreeBSD Chrome has DRM support... If it's an application you can check freshports.org to see if it's listed.
Obviously the layman is not going to appreciate all the benefits of a BSD system, just as the layman is equally not going to appreciate all the benefits of a GNU/Linux system. The difference is there are a number of projects and initiatives in the Linux ecosystem to try and dumb things down as much as possible for the hapless soccermom endusers, while the main project in the BSD ecosystem that I would think is actually usable in a day-to-day trend is TrueOS—unless you want to set up your own system for them, which in and of itself is not a difficult task, but it does require some upkeep. For example, I have FreeBSD running LXDE and various Wine-powered applications (Office 2010, etc) on my mom's laptop, and she is absolutely fine with it, 'specially because we don't have to waste money on more Windows licenses. It took some time to explain to her how things worked and the underlying benefits but now she's smarter for it and has a faster, less-crashy system, and the battery lasts nearly 1.8x as long compared to when it had Windows 10. Admittedly the battery part is merely a side-effect of not using Windows and reducing the clock rate, so it's not really a BSD-only thing.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
