Would a Grandmother be comfortable on your recommended distro?

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agentrnge@reddit

I recommended MacOS to my mom ( who is a grandmother ) It just runs and works and there is nothing ever to think about.

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OneBakedJake@reddit

My 91 Yr Old Grandma is on Fedora Kinoite. She's got her apps and a stable base OS.

Being old doesn't make you infirm in the mind, you know.

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Makeitquick666@reddit

jokes on you my grandma would not be comfortable with anything other than a breathing machine

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SunSunFuegoThe2nd@reddit

my roommate is struggling with cachyos - despite the fact i thought it was easy.

so no... i would just install mint, but honestly does it really matter? i don´t think my grandma needs a rolling release distro and access to niche AUR packages.

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WokeBriton@reddit

I suggest you read about the software engineer in charge of the software for the Apollo Guidance Computer, Margaret Hamilton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer)

The link says she is 89 and has 1 child, so I suspect (based on the people I have encountered in life) that she is a Grandmother.

Now, I suggest you replace your stereotype of Grandmothers with this amazing woman so you can see how utterly imbecilic your sexist and ageist post is.

If you want another example of women who, I'm willing to bet, knew more about the cutting edge of computers in their time than you know now, I suggest you also read about Grace Hopper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper I accept you probably don't want the example, but you're getting it anyway.

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lirannl@reddit

Yeah OP's point could've been equally well communicated by using grandparents as an example rather than grandmothers.

I will say that the stereotype has a reason. I personally haven't met a grandmother who's good with tech.

I'm not going to reproduce so I won't be a grandmother, but I do firmly believe I'm going to break the "older women" version of that stereotype when I grow old.

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WokeBriton@reddit

I'm of an age where most people I went to school with are grandparents, yet my generation (gen-x) were the first kids with home computers.

The percentage of grandparents who are very capable with computers is larger than a lot of people assume. Please consider that many grandparents will happily pretend to be clueless on a particular subject because it allows enthusiastic grandchildren to talk excitedly about that subject.

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lirannl@reddit

I'm 26, and my parents had me over the age of 30, which meant my grandparents were the generation before boomers, and my parents are early gen X.

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WokeBriton@reddit

My idea of a grandparent is someone whose kids have had kids.

I'm really interested in what your idea is if its different.

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lirannl@reddit

I just mean that when I think of grandparents, I think of people over the age of 90, even though there are plenty of grandparents who are in their 60s.

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WokeBriton@reddit

OK. I have friends still in their 50s whose eldest grandchildren have already left school.

There are lots of grandparents still in their 40s.

I'm happy to accept that the majority of people in their 90s are grandparents. I reckon most are also great-grandparents; I suspect some are also great-great-grandparents, too.

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lirannl@reddit

I suspected something like that might broaden your view of grandparents to include younger grandparents than my view. 50s is the age of my parents, though I'm also friends with younger parents, so my view of parents is broader in age than my view of grandparents.

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WokeBriton@reddit

I never tried to say grandparents were all ancient, in fact I mentioned about being gen-x and many of my peers having grandchildren who have already left school.

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lirannl@reddit

I'm saying the exact opposite - I instinctively think of grandparents as ancient even though it's not true.

You have a more relevant view of grandparents than I do.

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fankin@reddit

Soooo, i should tell my grandmothers that this random foreign lady is super cool with computers so here is a gentoo.

Git gud grandma', love ya!

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WokeBriton@reddit

No. You miss the point, and I suspect that's because you didn't want to get it.

If you were to be setting up a computer for someone you don't know, which is the basis for the post, assuming that every individual is going to be a computer-clueless Grandmother is insulting to both that person and to every Grandmother with her own very wide set of skills.

You know your Grandmother, so you need to pick a suitable distro for her based on what you know of her computer skills. I recommend you don't be insulting to her, but its entirely up to you and you relationship with her.

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fankin@reddit

I do get your point and I think it's a shit point. Calling OP sexist-agist-imbecil because you can find extreme opposites to that statement is frivolous, so made fun of it.

But here is an equally stupid take: Those ladies are highly skilled and in an age and place where achieving the same status as man was multiple times harder than now, you diminish their achievement. They rose up above the masses, above their peers, made history, but you just handeave those feats as baseline now.

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WokeBriton@reddit

If you think "it's a shit point", it is clear you don't get it.

How is me saying Grandmothers now can operate modern computers diminishing the achievements of tgose fantastic women I brought up?

If any diminishing is happening its the ageist and sexist "assume people are as useless as grandma" from OP. Grandmothers are not useless. I'm gen-x, my Grandmothers both went through the blitz and raised families during rationing; they had skills which the men they married admired, and after raising their kids, they entered the workforce as fierce individuals.

This is the point, because you didn't get it: Grandmothers are not useless. Please stop pretending that OP's post is anything other than insulting to a huge body of people.

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fankin@reddit

no one said grandparents are useless. It's all in your head. Probably a strawman?

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WokeBriton@reddit

Are you as dense as your comments make you appear?

The post is based on assuming that grandmothers aren't smart enough to use arch, and that we must assume everyone else is as useless. Gramdmothers and grandfathers (grandparents, obviously) are not all useless and its not only insulting to assume they are, its insulting to your own intelligence to back up the post.

Is that clear enough?

I invite you to read about those extremely smart grandmothers who I linked. They're much more than just "this random foreign lady" as you responded, as are the majority of grandmothers. You might just learn something about the history of computing; that something being that women are smart and led parts of computer science from the very front.

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fankin@reddit

You just defaulted to a view that not computer savvy means useless. That is rude from your part, not OPs.

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WokeBriton@reddit

In terms of this post, which is what my position is about, the two are synonymous.

The rudeness is definitely from OP and those who agree with OP that when it comes to computers, grandparents are useless.

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lockh33d@reddit

Initially, since 15 years I've been putting completely computer-illiterate people (often 70+) on Ubuntu, but since it started being really problematic (hardware support, upgrades), I switched to Arch (my personal and server distro) and there were no more problems since. After all, there wouldn't admin their computers regardless if it was Windows or Gentoo, so to them there's no difficulty difference, except Arch is much more stable and easier to admin over years.

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Ps11889@reddit

My grandmother passed at the age of 90 a few years back. She was very content running openSUSE Leap.

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AdequatlyAdequate@reddit

Leap is underrated for beginners imo, even tumbleweed runs into far less issues than other rolling releases (in my limited experience)

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AdequatlyAdequate@reddit

Mint, Ubuntu, openSUSE Leap(this one is debatable), Zorin

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InformalGear9638@reddit

Zorin!

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Posiris610@reddit

My 80 yo grandna is on Pop! _OS and is fine with it. She uses the computer very sparingly, and typically uses her phone. Her last computer, which was offline for a couple decades, was a Windows 95 machine. I've put Pop and Fedora on computers that 'normies' use and they enjoy it.

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mklinger23@reddit

Yes, with a caveat. If I can set it up first and do some tweaks. I think fedora gnome is very user friendly, but you need to do some stuff like make the taskbar stay and install a few programs.

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viva1831@reddit

Whose grandmother? There were a lot more women in Computer Science prior to the 1980s so, you might end up with one who literally helped invent email, like one wonderful older lady I met ;)

But yeah, the majority of any generation shouldn't be using my distro, particularly genZ who tend not to get text & terminals

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blackcain@reddit

Y'all, you do know that we're at that age where grandmothers/grandfathers are in their 50s. We aren't boomers. We've been involved in computers since college.

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deadlygaming11@reddit

Yes, because I always suggest Mint or Ubuntu to people. I use gentoo and I like it, but its also not easy and too much work for an average person. Technical distros, such as gentoo and arch, are hard and require knowledge and time to work well.

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pangapingus@reddit

I'm on Debian but admittedly Mint is the de facto "for normal people" distro to use, especially older folks. I run my own IT biz and have migrated over several retirees over the years, they really just need an easy file manager, Libre Office, and a browser. They get way less tripped up than my Windows customers who are older long-term.

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bowbeforeme4iamroot@reddit

I'm a grandfather, but I've been in I.T. since 1980, so I can handle any distro out there, if I wanted to put the time into it. (Which for the most part I don't any more, because I've been in I.T. for 45 years.) My wife, a grandmother, could also probably handle any distro I set up for her, but only because all she needs to know about it is where the Chrome icon is. So even though I understand your reasoning, I think what you really mean is "would someone be comfortable on your recommended distro if they weren't very technically competent".

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huskypuppers@reddit

I put Arch Linux on my mom's computer to avoid the Win11 apocalypse, I have my own kids so that makes her a grandmother.

Not a peep from her in the month+ that I did it and the next time I was over her only request was for me to install Kobo Desktop (which turns out works without any hiccups under Wine).

Arch + KDE Plasma + Firefox + Libreoffice

She has a USB WiFi adaptor on it though which was a massive pain in the ass to get working because it tries to be "convenient" by having a small storage with Windows drivers built into it + requires a DKMS module... I'm actually quite surprised that I haven't got a call about it yet as it seems to confuse boot order in the BIOS/UEFI, but I've only noticed that after doing kernel updates and once I get the computer to boot once after an update it works fine until the next kernel update. I might buy her a new USB WiFi dongle and throw the current POS out.

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techeddy@reddit

How she is deploying updates?

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flemtone@reddit

Arch being a rolling release has a tendency to break, so yes Linux Mint would be the best choice for any newcomers.

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LateNightProphecy@reddit

I run Cachy on a ThinkPad P50 and it's been steady as hell for me. Much more so than Fedora or Ubuntu.

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rocket_dragon@reddit

How long do you wait between updates? Could you go a month without updating Cachy and still have a safe/stable update?

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FattyDrake@reddit

I use Arch on a couple computers and only update once a month. No issues for over a year.

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rocket_dragon@reddit

I'm assuming the Cachy team puts in work to make it more user-friendly because Arch is intentionally not user-friendly and expects you to put in a lot more regular administrative work.

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FattyDrake@reddit

Cachy likely does, yeah. I do think the perception of Arch is overblown admittedly. Doesn't help that they don't even have archinstall on their Install wiki page. Once it's set up it's not really different from any other major distro I've found.

The only administration work I do is typing pacman -Syu once every month, give or take a week.

To be clear though, I would not recommend Arch to a beginner at all. But I still think the perception is skewed, especially from people who haven't used it.

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rocket_dragon@reddit

It's not a perception, that's the values and principles of Arch development straight from the devs themselves.

This is the philosophy that actually makes Arch different from the other major distros. Arch may coincidentally be friendly and low maintenance for a time, but it's not bound to be. At any time the devs may push an update that requires you to read the wiki to not break your system, and if you don't read the wiki before updating and breaking your system, that's your fault.

If Arch was user friendly, it would lose it's identity. That's why Cachy is actually more similar to yet another Fedora/Debian/Ubuntu/Opensuse than to Arch, even if it's technically derivative from Arch: it doesn't follow the Arch philosophy.

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LateNightProphecy@reddit

It usually varies. There are periods where I updated daily but past 4 or 5 months its been closer to once a week, a couple of times I went as long as a month between updates. Never had a problem.

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Sirchacha@reddit

Surprising, I had cachy/Arch's kernel issues bring me to a tty several times now, I switched to fedora, no issues at all.

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LateNightProphecy@reddit

Yeah stability varies greatly between chipsets.

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l-roc@reddit

Not completely sure about that. For absolute beginners yes, but I successfully moved a quite inexperienced friend on EndeavourOS, because she had the same issue that I used to have:

Major version upgrades feel so much like a big chore to me, that I ended up a few times with very outdated or unstable ubuntu/fedora installs.

I much prefer the rolling release approach, because repeated small tasks suite me much better, and it's always the same (or rather, it's constantly evolving at a slow steady pace).

In 4 years i didn't have any issues yet that weren't fixed with a quick look at arch news, and those were minor ones, whereas i did have e.g. ubuntu dist upgrade break which led to way bigger issues.

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topcat5@reddit

Arch being a rolling release has a tendency to break

I've been using it for years and this is absolutely not true. But you have to be aware of the notes when you do perform an upgrade.

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SocialCoffeeDrinker@reddit

“Hey Grandma, this is Arch. Totally bleeding edge and gives you the latest packages. Just make sure you read the changlogs for your hourly updates or else the system might break”

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MysteriousSky2650@reddit

No mate. Some of us reading this would be grandparents (I'm a grandmother) and deserve respect.

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meowie-meow@reddit

I've been using it for years and this is absolutely true.

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AmusingAnecdote@reddit

But you have to be aware of the notes when you do perform an upgrade.

Because if you aren't, it might break?

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Impressive_Change593@reddit

the one issue I have is does it do major upgrades on its own? otherwise yes, I recommend it

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thomasgamer99@reddit

I'm pretty sure you can make it so whenever you get an update it does done automatically but otherwise you can just go to the update manager and click update all

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bootlegSkynet@reddit

Yes.

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Swizzel-Stixx@reddit

My grandma is actually enjoying linux mint lol

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xxxx69420xx@reddit

Any linux with mate desktop. Mate looks like windows just put some icons for each thing on the desktop. My grandmother never knew the difference

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funbike@reddit

A majority of non-technical home users would be happy with ChromeOS or an Android tablet. (Also available as FOSS as ChromiumOS and LineageOS.)

I don't push Linux on people that can't support their own device.

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yawn_brendan@reddit

I know it's not really what you're talking about, but literally any distro is fine for your grandmother. You just have to set it up so she can launch the applications she needs. Any distro can do that just fine.

My own grandmother ran Crunchbang back in the day. She didn't know what Crunchbang was, she didn't give a fuck, she just knew where to click to get her emails.

My mum currently runs Ubuntu but I'm probably gonna switch her over to NixOS soon, she won't notice a difference.

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sunxore@reddit

I have to manage her computer anyway even it is Windows so does it matter?

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KazutoOKirigay@reddit

If her computer has the specs to even run windows 11 as win10 support ran out

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TheHovercraft@reddit

Yeah. For that generation as long as the PC has a browser and updates don't break things it's fine. Anything will do as long as it's LTS or at least not a rolling release. And these days Windows is also fine.

The options really only matter if they were going to do something beyond light office work or web browsing.

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JudithMacTir@reddit

I'm using Xubuntu and so does my Grandma. She's perfectly happy with it.

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bliepp@reddit

The issue here is that different users have different requirements and that's especially true for new users. So I really dislike the concept of a "new user friendly distro" as it highly depends on the user. For that reason my recommendation depends non who has asked me and what they want from their operating system.

With regard the title question: My grandmother would probably get Debian as she never touched a PC in her life and would probably just use it for web browsing and emails and stuff and I had to do maintenance. Hence, a ultra stable and low maintenance distro is key. But I wouldn't recommend it to my gamer friends because installing proprietary drivers is a nightmare.

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lirannl@reddit

I'm curious, how does manjaro fit your use case better than Arch? I haven't used manjaro in ages but I recall that it has repos that are a week behind arch's

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bliepp@reddit

I would consider myself an experienced Linux user, so I would totally get along with vanilla Arch. However, I really appreciate the little quality of life things Manjaro offers. I like to think of Manjaro as an abstraction of Arch. I still get most of the nice things of Arch (AUR, rolling release, etc.) but with a little comfort layer on top. It comes at a cost, though, as you give up a little bit of flexibility initially.

It still has some of the problems Arch comes with (e.g. rolling release updates unavoidably breaking stuff), so it's definitely not a distro for most inexperienced users, but I can also totally see why advanced users would like to have more control over their OS.

repos that are a week behind arch's

That is true, but I'm fine with that. It might lead to problems with AUR, so one has to be careful with that.

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Bad-Booga@reddit

My Dad (78) was happy to use Xubuntu. Had a few calls mostly when he had forgotten something he already knew. I'd have no hesitation in recommending Mint to someone who hadn't used Linux before.

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Slackeee_@reddit

An OS is nothing but a tool that acts as an interface between the computer hardware and the user. And as it is with tools, there is no "one size fits all". When a knowledgeable person has to recommend a tool usually at first that person has to ask about the use case and the user and base their recommendation on that. That is why when you walk into a hardware store and ask for a hammer the person in the store won't just give you a hammer, the first thing they do is asking what you need the hammer for.

But regardless of that, in any part of life you will find people that think of their tools rather as religions, thinking in doctrines rather than logic. I would recommend not to take advice from these people.

For my grandmother I most likely would have used Mint, PopOS or a similar distro. I use Arch, btw.

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dddurd@reddit

I heard some old lady getting into university for studying math. It depends on the person. So i would recommend Gentoo

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gtrash81@reddit

Yes, because CachyOS.

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rarsamx@reddit

Only if I can be around for tech support. I live 4000 km from my dad. He had switched to Linux for a while but I have a cousin (his favourite nephew) who lived nearby and was constantly recommending useless windows things. I gave up.

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CCCBMMR@reddit

An immutable distro seems like the way to go in the near future. The only reason I am waiting to move my mother's computer to an immutable distro from Mint is the Flatpak permission system does not have enforced and sane defaults, which are also intuitively transparent to users.

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FattyDrake@reddit

Distro hopping is for people who treat computers as a hobby, not something for someone who just wants to get work done.

Vast majority of users will not do it. It's not really a thing for average users.

Mint is starting to have some issues because of their delayed Wayland progress compared to the major 2 DE's.

I recommend Fedora Plasma or Workstation to new users. It's easy enough for anyone to use and more up to date.

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raxon3433465@reddit

zorin os es lo mas facil de usar incluso mas que mint

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northrupthebandgeek@reddit

Given the observed success with putting Aeon Desktop on the main workstation of a small town's museum (that success being measured by the only reported issues being around the elderly curator's choice of Firefox add-ons for downloading YouTube videos), I'd say yes :)

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turdas@reddit

This question is pointless. When recommending distros on Reddit, you are not recommending them to grandmothers, you are recommending them to redditors.

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Y2K350@reddit

Probably not but then again most grandmas can barely use Windows either.

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Booty_Bumping@reddit

"New" does not have a single unified meaning. It could mean new to computing, or simply new to Linux but with decades of IT experience. It would be better if people just stopped assuming what "new" means and try to be more specific instead.

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minneyar@reddit

My grandmother was able to replace her own hard drive and install Windows 2000 on her own back in the early 00's, and Win2k is definitely harder to use than most modern desktop Linux distros. Don't understimate grandmas.

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updatelee@reddit

Probably not, is that important? Not to me

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chibiace@reddit

i'd disown my grandmother if she couldnt rice her own gentoo install

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circa68@reddit

I put an older woman, probably about 80 years old, on Mint and she loves it.

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InfiniteSheepherder1@reddit

Mint shouldn't be recommended to anyone TBH. The lack of Wayland means it is further behind then Debian, which would be an ok choice if you really want stability.

As someone who had their grandparents running on Linux since 2010, Ubuntu LTS or CentOS, and more recently maybe Aurora have been my go to.

I don't see the point of Arch over something like Fedora. Pop OS, Mint, and Arch anything are on my do not recommend list.

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unkilbeeg@reddit

I have my 63 year old sister on Linux Mint. She's about as non-technical as they come.

I've been using it myself since 2010 or so, because Gentoo lost its desktop on an update, right when I needed a functioning desktop for real life. I'd been using Gentoo for a decade at that point.

I'll be 70 in three weeks.

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Findas88@reddit

My 70 year old mother is on Ubuntu with here barebone pc for watching TV she likes it so much that we will switch her Windows 10 PC to Ubuntu, too.

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vi_it_armis@reddit

I have my 75 YO parents on mint. Chrome and onlyoffice were the key. No issues, no calls for 6 months.

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stommepool@reddit

I have my 73 yo father on Mint, he installed and maintains in on his own though.

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CaperGrrl79@reddit

This is the way. I feel that Mint is probably the best (at least beginner) distro for people coming from Windows.

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Slight_Manufacturer6@reddit

Most mainstream Distros are equally as easy as Mint. There really isn’t anything that makes Mint easier.

They all have a similar software center. Show them that at they should be set.

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CaperGrrl79@reddit

What tipped me over was the software center with ratings and reviews. I almost went with ZorinOS before that.

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94746382926@reddit

Beginner is the key word. For an intermediate to advanced use it's KDE all day

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rebelhead@reddit

Ya sure, why not?

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Slight_Manufacturer6@reddit

Yes, my Grandmother could use Arch as long as I set it up and configured regular automatic updates.

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homeless_wonders@reddit

I recommend Arch to people who want to learn Linux. That means more than just "how to play games or browse the Internet". Someone who is new, doesn't make a difference.

I recommend fedora, or a fedora based system for new Users.

Users, and people who want to learn a technology are two different kinds of people.

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KamiIsHate0@reddit

Yes. All they do is opening chrome and scrolling around anyways.

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Kernel-Mode-Driver@reddit

Unironically uBlue or a derivative

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sequential_doom@reddit

My dad is 65 almost. He's on Arch. No complaints.

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mrtruthiness@reddit

No.

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Several_Truck_8098@reddit

why should software and recommendations be catered to the common denominator and not the actual users? likewise why should we assume stupidity? anyone can learn arch if they put in the effort - and if they dont want to put in the time they could deduce from that effort simpler distros to use.

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MattyGWS@reddit

Sorry but you should always assume stupidity when it comes to the general public.

I mean just look at your comment, OP asked if Granny would be well suited with your recommended distro and you jumped straight to saying anyone can use arch if they try… which in itself is a stupid comment. Granny ain’t using arch.

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WokeBriton@reddit

What if Granny happens to be Margaret Hamilton, the software engineer who led development of the flight software for the Apollo Guidance Computer team at MIT?

I'm willing to bet that she knew more about the cutting edge of computing in her working days than you do now, and would find using arch very easy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer)

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Several_Truck_8098@reddit

im sure you have hundreds of grandmas knocking down your door asking for recommendations

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WokeBriton@reddit

"... catered to the common denominator... ?" Because the media feeds us stereotypes all the time, and people begin to think its OK to generalise again.

"... assume stupidity?" Because people like to feel they're somehow superior for having learned how to save and exit vi.

Posts like this are made all the time, and its tiring to point out how stupid they are. While tiring, its always nice to think that maybe a response pointing out how stupid these posts are will get through to someone intelligent enough to wonder why linux users post ageist and sexist generalisations all the time.

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Dread_Pony_Roberts@reddit (OP)

It is more a question for when you don't know the person, or at least not their skill level.

The goal is to convert windows users to linux users. Once they have settled in, then they will better understand what they want from a distro and can go from their.

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KlePu@reddit

Assuming your granny won't be into hardcore gaming, what difference does the distro make? I'd rather look for easily accessible DEs. Less blinkenlights, more focus.

My 70y mother is on Debian stable with XFCE. Sticky icons for Firefox, Thunderbird, Writer and a file browser, that's about it. I've set up openSSH and my key; if I ever need to remote in, I've taught her how to use her Android with USB-tethering and send me her IP (didn't want to permanently forward a port on her router for safety reasons).

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TheFredCain@reddit

I have had every senior in my family (and several children) on Linux Mint for the past 20 years and in every case I never got panic calls about anything not working. I setup all the systems with Auto Updates enabled and remote desktop so I could fix things without a trip over. Only time I have to use remote access is for things like them buying a new printer, but that is super rare because switching to Linux suddenly makes old "broken" printers work like new.

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JerryRiceOfOhio2@reddit

if they can click on an icon, they can use Linux, since most people click on a browser and that's all

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shawnfromnh@reddit

Just give a distro with xfce, on whisker menu right click and choose properties then click on show generic application names. Now they can click on internet browser or email or whatever app they need that has a generic name.

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Bonejob@reddit

I use Debian Cinnamon, I think I would steer them towards Mint. I prefer more comfort than having Ubuntu as the base. I am still waiting for the enshitification of Ubuntu.

Cinnamon is still the best desktop for users of the Windows ecosystem. Gnome is just too much of a change. KDE is decent, but Plasma requires a fair amount of hardware... could go on but you get the just

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goonwild18@reddit

None. The fact that you asked this question is further evidence that for over 30 years now.... the OS... the thing that should be irrelevant and out of your way..... is not a hobby... should not require tinkering..... should not evoke emotion... should not be significant to your computing experience. Linux has no place on the desktop.

Love,

Linux user since 1993.

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Ok_Rock_6726@reddit

Grandpa has kde Ubuntu Dad is on Mandriva or some mandrake related shit I'm on nix they would have issues with nix but Linux in general isn't as bad for non tech savvy users

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bward0@reddit

No. My grandmother is not a rackmount server. Also, source code is not very comfortable to sit on.

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Felix-the-duck@reddit

tbh arch is the hardest distro I would recommend to new users, but I would only do that to people I know are good with technology and like tinkering with stuff

typically I would either recommend Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint, or Zorin; slight possibility of Debian or MX if they want to do more but usually not

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Sea_Membership1312@reddit

I do the same. I recommend Arch (install without installer and without step-by-step manual) if the person is willing to put the time in and wants to learn something about how Linux "works".

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lelddit97@reddit

no, obviously not

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mrandr01d@reddit

When my mom needs a new laptop, I'm putting her on Ubuntu to replace her MacBook.

She mostly needs a browser, so she'll be perfectly fine.

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NatoBoram@reddit

My grandpa was able to enjoy Ubuntu

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Laughing_Orange@reddit

My grandpa is on Mint, and seems happy with it. I have locked it down a bit to make it harder for him to mess it up, and made myself the only admin account.

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xc82xb5qxwhhzeyt@reddit

Sorry grandma

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k-aikant@reddit

I have never hesitated to recommend Debian and Mint, including to very elderly people with minimal tech literacy.

In my opinion, the difficulty 'making the switch' is not an issue of relative complexity, and I'm not convinced it's best addressed by stressing the differences.

It's like coaxing a monolingual English speaker into participating in a discussion in another language: you have to get them to relax that bit of brain that keeps reminding them it's not what they're used to.

Personally I think distros are more accessible to new users with cognitive flexibility challenges (i.e., long-term Microsoft users) when they present themselves as coherent and consistent systems, and less accessible when they present as 'Windows except for x, y, z'. There's a contradiction in the latter that is not welcoming and which does not, in my opinion, facilitate fluency.

Having said that, I've never been unsuccessful suggesting Mint. But I think a large part of that is (forgive the word) branding: it presents itself as the safe option for Windows users. There's some built-in reassurance happening. Again, emotional, not technical.

It seems to me that for those uncomfortable with technology, distro hopping is not a solution... all of the people I am thinking of would have quailed at an indefinitely ongoing transition of that kind.

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CaperGrrl79@reddit

I completely concur. Mint seems to be quite intuitive for beginners and people coming from Windows.

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Sirchacha@reddit

I'm on fedora and I would say... Maybe. The codec/ffmpeg thing is annoying but I assume gramps isn't dealing with avi and MP4 files as much anymore as much as he's going to a website to view things, so it's a minor issue. I would put mint on a computer over basically anything for an older person at this point. Maybe something like kinoite since everything is at user level as far as apps, and harder to break.

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carlanwray@reddit

At this point there are millions of grandmas that spent a good bit of their career using Linux so probably not a useful metric. 🫣

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m_aguilar_one@reddit

Linux Mint Cinnamon for non-gamers, and ones who have older cpus/gpus. An especially for those who have relics sitting in the closet that can possibly be given a second life. Mint is amazing.

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StrictFinance2177@reddit

I've had my mom on Mint since 2007. The only calls I would get would be on why certain programs won't run, and everytime it turned out to be some malware exe.

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HyperWinX@reddit

I mean... if it was configured by me - yeah, probably. Otherwise, hell no.

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Dialectic-Compiler@reddit

I try to avoid recommending anything to anyone at this point, since I've fairly consistently found most people unwilling to invest the time and effort into learning how to actually use even fairly basic tools and so inevitably it comes up that something requires further investigation and it amounts either I fix it or they just leave broken.

I'm kind of hoping GnomeOS pans outs so I have something zero-fuss to recommend, but as I grow older I increasingly come to the opinion that user-friendly operating systems may have been a wildly irresponsible notion.

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ishtuwihtc@reddit

I'd say that on fedora, yeah a grandmother would be fine, specifically on one of the immutable flavours.

On CachyOS though? Definitely not

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cainhurstcat@reddit

Kubuntu.

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Some-Tip-5399@reddit

ChromeOS is the answer

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fiyawerx@reddit

It doesn’t matter what distro a grandmother is on. Show them where chrome is, set up a printer, and update it for them during holiday visits when you get burnt out on family and want a chill time.

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ficskala@reddit

I generally look into what people are looking to get out of their system before i recommend a distro, i generally recommend Ubuntu LTS to most people that don't care about their computer, and just want something other than windows to use their browser on, but if they're looking to game or do something specific, i generally recommend them to try a few different options before settling on what they want, including distros like debian, ubuntu, fedora, arch, etc.

the purpose of the device matters, for example,

on my main PC, i run arch, because i use this PC day to day, and i can easily keep it up to date

on my laptop, i run debian with kde plasma, because i don't use it much, and i don't feel like spending the first 5-15min after turning it on to update stuff, when i won't even benefit from those updates on that device

on my main server, i run proxmox, because i run VMs on it

on my NAS, i run debian, because it just works

on my media boxes i run armbian, etc.

The purpose matters a lot, and if i can't judge someones skills whenever i'm asked this question, i answer with a question, trying to get that info out of them, i gave my grandma a laptop with Ubuntu LTS, but i also recommended bazzite to a friend who's just looking to play games on his PC, and literally nothing else, and of course, i recommended arch to a friend who's main goal is to play with his system and make it do horrible things, while not worrying about destroying his install because that just means he'll be blessed with doing it all over again

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