We've got a lot of very reasonable, level-headed Linux folk on this board:

I'm helping my mom look for a laptop to replace her ~10 year old one, and given all the mess Windows Update has been making of things since about Win7 onwards, I'm temped to just stick her on Linux (especially if I can't find anything still using Win7). Heck, 90% of what she does is just web browser anyway, with the other 10% being pretty much Linux compatible stuff (Hmm...although come to think of it, only possible exception might be her iPhone...I'll have to look into that, I'm not an iOS guy...).

Any suggestions on a potentially granny-friendly distro? (If such exists.) Personally, I use Manjaro, but I definitely don't want to set her up with that: While I think rolling-release would be a good fit (avoid the mess of periodic OS re-installs), the Arch/Manjaro updates all to often wind up failing and require manual intervention to fix. I've been able to handle that for myself, but she wouldn't be able to and I don't want to be the on-call extended-family IT dept...

Ideally, some rolling-release that can auto-update (preferably in the background) and won't force-reboot, force-interrupt you, or pull the Windows prank of delaying startup/shutdown for several minutes (or more...) for "Installing updates...you may as well go watch an entire series on Netflix 'cause you ain't packing up your laptop *or* getting any emails sent anytime soon...". Supporting rollbacks as well would be fantastic, but I realize that's pretty rare in Linuxland (outside of NixOS/Guix, but I'd say NixOS/Guix would *definitely* be a bad fit for other reasons...)

Would Mint fit the bill here? It's been quite awhile since I've paid any attention to Mint, so I'm kinda out-of-the-loop on that one. But I know it's always intended to be non-expert friendly.

I'm not too terribly concerned about the initial installation and setup, since I can just take care of that. I just don't want to be getting regular tech support phone calls afterwords...

On Sunday, 5 May 2019 at 23:32:46 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:
>
> Would Mint fit the bill here? It's been quite awhile since I've paid any attention to Mint, so I'm kinda out-of-the-loop on that one. But I know it's always intended to be non-expert friendly.
>

(Don't take my words as Linux expert, as I am not, my use case is just do Linux builds and tests)

If you are after such experiments on your poor old granny then just pick Ubuntu.
Mint is ubuntu anyway, but stability & quality... man this is something, they have their fancy desktop directly using python from package manager as dependency, I mean they literally put their modules inside that installation, guess what? when you update symlink for newer python version the whole thing collapses ahahaha... literally, no desktop, *poof*...
if you are lucky you may have terminal shortcut on desktop, or other program such as VS Code or IDEA that has terminal so you can restore symlink.
And that's just one thing, imagine what else they could have possibly messed up.

Really, their prime product (which is desktop environment) relies on mere fact you won't upgrade python interpreter. They failed to manage software dependencies and packaging what I say.

On Sunday, 5 May 2019 at 23:32:46 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:
> We've got a lot of very reasonable, level-headed Linux folk on this board:

What about a chromebook or similar? Does the 10% non-web activity preclude that?

As far as linux goes, how about Elementary OS? I don't use it myself but I believe its goal is to be a viable free replacement for casual win/mac users.

On Monday, 6 May 2019 at 01:35:00 UTC, evilrat wrote:
>
> (Don't take my words as Linux expert, as I am not, my use case is just do Linux builds and tests)
>
> If you are after such experiments on your poor old granny then just pick Ubuntu.

+1 for Ubuntu.

I've used and enjoyed Mint but have run into issues after upgrades, where Ubuntu seems to "just work" no matter what, for me at least. For my day-to-day use I prefer something more lightweight, but for ease of use Ubuntu is hard to beat.

-Doc

On Sunday, 5 May 2019 at 23:32:46 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:
Ubuntu LTS is a good choice. Stable, secure and can update in background. You can configure it to auto update too (without forcing reboots).

As for Netflix, there is no native app on Linux, you have to use the browser, so you could set up a bookmark on the desktop or in the application launcher.

Wine has progressed a lot so if there is some software that is not replaceable, you can install wine and try running it.

As for the iPhone, without iTunes, it can't do anything with Windows. iTunes allows for backing up data to the local computer, and syncing movies / songs / playlists that are not purchased from Apple. You can set up her iPhone to back up to iCloud (probably on by default). As for songs, apparently Rythmbox can sync with iPhones, but you will have to verify.

On Sunday, 5 May 2019 at 23:32:46 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:
> We've got a lot of very reasonable, level-headed Linux folk on this board:
>
> I'm helping my mom look for a laptop to replace her ~10 year old one, and given all the mess Windows Update has been making of things since about Win7 onwards, I'm temped to just stick her on Linux (especially if I can't find anything still using Win7). Heck, 90% of what she does is just web browser anyway, with the other 10% being pretty much Linux compatible stuff (Hmm...although come to think of it, only possible exception might be her iPhone...I'll have to look into that, I'm not an iOS guy...).
>
> Any suggestions on a potentially granny-friendly distro? (If such exists.) Personally, I use Manjaro, but I definitely don't want to set her up with that: While I think rolling-release would be a good fit (avoid the mess of periodic OS re-installs), the Arch/Manjaro updates all to often wind up failing and require manual intervention to fix. I've been able to handle that for myself, but she wouldn't be able to and I don't want to be the on-call extended-family IT dept...
>
> Ideally, some rolling-release that can auto-update (preferably in the background) and won't force-reboot, force-interrupt you, or pull the Windows prank of delaying startup/shutdown for several minutes (or more...) for "Installing updates...you may as well go watch an entire series on Netflix 'cause you ain't packing up your laptop *or* getting any emails sent anytime soon...". Supporting rollbacks as well would be fantastic, but I realize that's pretty rare in Linuxland (outside of NixOS/Guix, but I'd say NixOS/Guix would *definitely* be a bad fit for other reasons...)
>
> Would Mint fit the bill here? It's been quite awhile since I've paid any attention to Mint, so I'm kinda out-of-the-loop on that one. But I know it's always intended to be non-expert friendly.
>
> I'm not too terribly concerned about the initial installation and setup, since I can just take care of that. I just don't want to be getting regular tech support phone calls afterwords...


Ubuntu - an LTS release, i.e. 16.04 or 18.04.
Your granny will never look back !

On Sunday, 5 May 2019 at 23:32:46 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:
> Would Mint fit the bill here? It's been quite awhile since I've paid any attention to Mint, so I'm kinda out-of-the-loop on that one. But I know it's always intended to be non-expert friendly.
>
> I'm not too terribly concerned about the initial installation and setup, since I can just take care of that. I just don't want to be getting regular tech support phone calls afterwords...

Mint Xfce LTS. I tried Ubuntu and Mint twice, and both times Mint worked better, as a linux expert you can probably fix it if you know what to fix. As for laptop hardware compatibility can be a concern, I found linux works well on a laptop that had linux preinstalled. I think unattended updates are a myth, so yeah, if you want to work as a support service, leave them enabled.

On Sunday, 5 May 2019 at 23:32:46 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:
> We've got a lot of very reasonable, level-headed Linux folk on this board:
>
> [...]

I know of DFLinux which is a debian prepared for very beginners, we used it to teach older people in my engineering school. However it's a french project and I don't know if their configuration is prepared for english-speaking users or if there is another suitable distribution with similar goals.

Otherwise ubuntu might be a reasonnable choice, at least it's stable and about anything linuxy will install correctly.

On Monday, 6 May 2019 at 16:00:26 UTC, Cym13 wrote:
> On Sunday, 5 May 2019 at 23:32:46 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:
>> We've got a lot of very reasonable, level-headed Linux folk on this board:
>>
>> [...]
>
> I know of DFLinux which is a debian prepared for very beginners, we used it to teach older people in my engineering school. However it's a french project and I don't know if their configuration is prepared for english-speaking users or if there is another suitable distribution with similar goals.
>
> Otherwise ubuntu might be a reasonnable choice, at least it's stable and about anything linuxy will install correctly.

Link: https://dflinux.frama.io/home/

Thanks for all the responses. (Actually, it's not *my* granny, it's my mom, but she *is* a grandparent, as find I rather enjoy reminding her ;) Yea, I'm an ass...)

evilrat's comments about Mint's GUI are a bit worrying.

Ubuntu LTS certainly seems to be the common recommendation. But I have some (perhaps unfounded?) concerns:

- The LTSes are still, what, 3 or so years IIRC? I'm figuring her next machine will probably last her about another decade, so that's well beyond that. So what's the LTS-to-LTS upgrade process like? Is it basically an OS re-install like upgrading Windows traditionally is? Or is it as simple/transparent/painless as 'Uknown' describes Ubuntu's regular day-to-day update process to be?

- It's been a looong time since I last used Ubuntu, but I remember it being clearly designed to be very Mac-like (ie, OSX). She's not experienced with Mac, she's more WinXP-through-Win7. I remember alternative desktops like KDE/Xfce (along with Kubuntu/Xubuntu) being pretty much second-class citizens. Has this improved?

I'm not too terribly worried about the whole Linux-on-a-laptop thing. That's what my main machine is and in my experience Linux works pretty well on laptops these days. My main concern in this area is just making sure the BIOS (or...whatever the new thing is called now...) is unlockable so Linux can even be installed in the first place.

Chromebook's an interesting idea, but probably a no-go. She's gonna need more storage than that, plus something to backup her iPhone to, probably a bigger screen than those usually have, and definitely built-in CDR. She does enough audio recording (yes, actual audio recording, not music piracy) that external CDR would be too much of a hassle.

Netflix is no issue, she has one of those TVs with Roku built-in, so that's how she always does Netflix. (But ugh, I *thought* a RokuTV would be a great pick for her, but honestly, I'm seriously APPALLED at just how piss-poor the menu's responsiveness is (not to mention the boot time). It's absolutely absurd. Menus on my Apple II were more responsive, no joke. *Serious* blatant incompetence involved in these modern TVs these days. If I had it to do over, I'd go with a non-smart TV (if I could find one) and then just connect a Roku device. At least then, the Roku could be replaced without replacing the TV or worse, making her deal with two separate layers of Roku.)