Around a year ago my grandparents asked me to update their computers to Windows 10. One from 7 and one from 8.1. I couldn’t update from 7 to 10 so I just reinstalled directly to 10. The license was lost but grandfather didn’t mind that “activate windows”. And for office I installed libreoffice (or onlyoffice, I dont remember). On 7 he was using Chrome so I installed him Brave, which is similar enough and has an adblocker. He never complained about anything… until now.
Both grantfather and grandmother on the same day they got some notification (probably fullscreen, otherwise they wouldn’t even told me) about end of 10 and that they should upgrade. So I told them Windows 10 support is ending in about a year. I gave them 3 options:
- Buy a new computer for windows 11
- Use windows 10 without updates - more likely to be hacked.
- Try linux. As soon as I said “Linux” my grandfatger said: “Linux, thats something… lightweight… right?”. I’m a gentoo user and I forced my brother and sister to install linux but I never mentiond a word to my grandparents. I have no idea where he heard that. But I’m happy he did!
So the main question: What distro? I’m thinking of Fedora with Gnome. Something stable, modern, secure, and simple. Gnome is different, I know, but I also think Gnome is the simplest. Should I go with Silverblue or normal version? I will also definitely install rustdesk and make backups of windows. And I will first try liveusb so they can decide if they like gnome.
Edit: I’m currently trying to liveboot linux. I rebooted the computer and windows started updating…
Edit: I livebooted Fedora and Mint DE, they said they like Mint more so I installed Mint. Grandfather’s scanner and printer were detected out of the box with preinstalled apps, ptinter sadlly doesn’t work but that was also with windows - probably hardware failed. Now I’m Installing Brave for grandfather and uBlock Origin for firefox for grandmother. Everything good so far!
I have been using Universal Blue’s Bluefin variant and it has been rock solid. It is atomic desktop and all updates, both Flatpak and Image update, are handled automatically.
GNOME for sure. My wife really struggled with Windows 7/10 interface because options and settings are all over the place, and filemanager was inconsistent. Set her up with NixOS and GNOME. She no longer gets in a tizzy over the OS
Mint, it just works.
You can set up automatic updates too, so they won’t end up with out of date software and possible security holes. The only downside is Firefox. If an update runs while your grandparents are using Firefox, it will stop working and show them a page that says it needs to be restarted.
It’s not a major issue in itself, but if you have any sort of memory issues, like I do and lots of older people do, it can derail your train of thought and cause you problems.
My parents were happily using Mint for about 5 years, until my brother took over the it support role, and was uncomfortable trying to troubleshoot issues in Linux.
Can’t you setup Firefox to remember the last session and reopen the same pages upon relaunch without any user interaction?
Yes, that’s what it does by default. The problem happens when you open a new tab to search for something, for example, and the update screen and restart distract you and you forget what you were going to search for. It’s like the feeling you get when you walk into a room and can’t remember why.
Many friends of mine had great success setting their grandparents up with Linux mint
I have 3 elderly people for whom I installed Linux Mint, they have been using it for 5 years now. Without any problems.
For grandfathers nad mothers I personally install an inmutable distro. If they come from windows, KDE Plasma will probably be easier for them than gnome. So I would say Fedora Kinoite, but Silverblue Aurora is IMHO even best fitted for the case.
If you think your grandparents would prefer the Windows 8 or macOS type UI, then GNOME is the way.
I think Xfce or MATE is vastly better tho.
My father switched to linux (Mint, I think) in his 70s. I was in another state so he did it solo. He had a few questions but otherwise it was smooth sailing.
Mint is an unironically beautiful experience. They’ve made it perfect, I had my uncle install mint for his personal work too and he used a lot of MS Office suite, but mint just kept him right at home. Didn’t have to buy another overpriced consumer laptop.
For Windows users, Linux Mint is the best option.
Lots of great options here. Just wanted to add it may be worth using KDE if they’re transitioning from Windows. I try and get the look visually close to what they previously had so they’re not fighting against muscle memory.
I know KDE is the most similar to windows but I would never install it due to 2 reasons:
- too many options for them
- too many options for me (the support guy)
Xfce. Keep it lightweight and simple.
I’d go Mint xfce.
I use Fedora with GNOME for my parents and other family members. Some have used Windows prior, some have not used computers at all really, only iPads. They all get along very well on GNOME!
I have started using Silverblue the last year, which simplify things even further. Combined with the excellent remote controll functionality, it has been a really pleasant experience both for me and them.
Fedora silverblue works great for family, it has the least issues and they (family) can’t fuck it up
I personally have a grandmother i got setup using Mint Cinnamon and she hasnt had a single issue in months. So id go Mint.
When mom tried Linux Mint she said: there is no wait time at shutdown, I am use to wait on Windows Update.
“A stop job is running for … (56s / 2min)”
I may be in the minority, but I’ve had some success in the past with getting Windows users to adjust to XFCE and LXDE on low resource machines. I know Ubuntu based distros are frowned upon by the community (even actively hated sometimes), but xubuntu and lubuntu might be worth a look for liveusb testing and having a low barrier to maintain.
I’ve installed Kinoite on a few Linux newbie computers and they have worked near flawlessly. I would think Silverblue would be the same
