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Choosing a distro for a technophobe's computer (aussie.zone)

submitted 6 days ago by mycatsays@aussie.zone to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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I'm looking for recommendations.

I have run Linux on my own computers off and on for the last 10 years. I'm not an advanced user, but I'm comfortable enough playing around with different distros and settings to find a good fit for myself and my own devices, and problem-solve as needed.

But now with the end of Windows 10 looming, I need to upgrade a family member's computer to Linux. This device is only used by people whose attitude toward computers is "if it doesn't just work, it's too hard and I can't engage". So this needs to be something that both is not going to break on its own (e.g. while doing automatic updates) and also won't be accidentally broken by the users. As well as not being too steep of a learning curve for Windows users. (Their needs are uncomplicated - mostly just LibreOffice and Firefox, both of which they already use.)

Mint is often recommended for inexperienced Windows refugees. But I've had several things break in the process of getting Mint installed and updated on this machine. That wouldn't be an issue if it were my own computer, but it's not filling me with confidence that this is going to meet the ongoing "just works" requirement for this device. There's no way I'm going to be able to handle long-distance tech support if things break more than once in a blue moon.

Which other distros would you recommend for this use case?

Thanks in advance.

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[–] Wfh@lemmy.zip 27 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

Any one of the uBlue projects is perfect for this use case.

KDE: https://getaurora.dev/
Gnome: https://projectbluefin.io/
Gaming: https://bazzite.gg/

Install and setup once, run forever. Immutable so impossible to break for a tech illiterate user, no package upgrades fuck-ups because updates are atomic and don't touch the currently running system, are done in the background and are completely invisible for the user, great hardware support, based on Fedora. Users can only install Flatpaks through the App Store.

The only "maintenance" needed is a weekly reboot to move to the latest OS image.

As a personal feedback, I moved my gadget enthusiast but tech illiterate father on Bluefin. He can ruin a Mac in less than a few months. He can generate undocumented bugs on iOS by his mere presence. But somehow, Bluefin is still running perfectly after a year. That's how robust it is.

[–] ehyuman@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

thanks, I'm moving my mom's laptop from regular fedora to aurora right now

[–] aaravchen@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 days ago

Far and away the biggest thing I can recommend: Use the same distro yourself. If there ever are issues, you'll almost certainly encounter them first and know how to fix them quickly. Ideally use it yourself for a bit before you put it on your mom's computer so you can find any initial issues too.

[–] OhVenus_Baby@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

I vote against immutables. Been there and it's not if something breaks it's when. I had to completely reinstall my kiniote. Trust. Go with Mint LMDE to be exact skip ubuntus bullshit.

[–] aaravchen@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I experienced that only when doing expert things on my system like trying to install new drivers. I've been using 4 different immutable distros for a few years and literally the only "breaking" thing was when UBlue distros moved to Fedora 42, which no longer allowed you to use the ostree admin unlock --hot-fix hack to directly modify your system and made you build your own modified variant using their GitHub template repo.

I'm actually moving my wife to a UBlue distros specifically because I set it up remotely and it just auto updates.

I will warn however that Flatpaks can be a nightmare for basic things like browsers if you want to do things like use a webcam, microphone, or, god forbid, a USB device. Make sure you manually set that up in the (probably flatpak) you're using before handing it over (probably by using Flatseal).

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I had difficulty getting 1password set up on fedora atomic.

I think there are still gotchas where you need a relatively experienced person to set up for you.

If you’re setting it up for somebody else, ask them to go through 5 things they mostly do with you so you can make sure they work.

[–] giddy@aussie.zone 1 points 4 days ago

For power users like ourselves sure but for beginners who are not tinkering immutables are perfect.

[–] Sina@beehaw.org 17 points 6 days ago

Just go with Aurora (or Bluefin), that's the way to go for tech illiterates. Most of these recommendations are 5 years out of date, like why recommend Ubuntu or Zorin, when those are almost the same as Mint.

[–] digdilem@lemmy.ml 9 points 5 days ago

I moved my wife's laptop to Debian with Cinnamon as a desktop. She loves it and is as technophobic a person as I know..

Auto login, automated-updates set up, remote backups. She just has to open the lid and firefox is there, which is 95% of what she wants. Libre office is around for the remaining 5%.

This is someone who used to get angry at Windows forced updates and reboots, so not having any of that improved her quality of life.

[–] dil@lemmy.zip 4 points 5 days ago (2 children)

People tend to reccomend the only one theyve tried lol, id say de matters more, most distros will just work in my experience, and most of them use guis for grabbing apps with the terminal being optional, Mint is an obvious pick, with cinnamon de being easy to use, prob wouldn't reccomend gnome with extensions unless you've already used linux for a few months, most other des have a solid default experience and easier (more straightforward) customizability

[–] dil@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 days ago

Anduin Os is ubuntu gnome themed like windows 11, could be an easier transition

[–] dil@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 days ago

Ubuntu studio may be a good pico if they are creative and don't know about linux apps, will have many preinstalled, bazzite if they game

[–] alsimoneau@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 days ago

I put everyone on LMDE

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I’ve had several things break in the process of getting Mint installed and updated on this machine

Like what? That doesn't inspire confidence in the PC itself.

[–] mycatsays@aussie.zone 10 points 6 days ago (2 children)

There were some broken package dependencies which I had to fix manually (a non-issue on my own device; a major red flag for this device). And after one set of updates, it needed about three tries to boot successfully (requiring hopping into recovery mode to smooth out the wrinkle - again, a non-issue if it were my own device, but...).

As best I can tell at the moment, it's working fine with Mint installed. My concern is what happens next time something is updated or installed and I'm not there to resolve an issue.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Maybe something immutable, then. Solid updates, easy rollback.

What do you do when Windows crashes and you're not there?

[–] mycatsays@aussie.zone 7 points 6 days ago (2 children)

98% of the time when they've had a problem with Windows, they just needed to restart the computer. (It has been impossible to convince them that computers need a full shutdown periodically, and Windows doesn't cope with 'always on'.)

When it's something more than that, they either have to find someone closer to help or wait until we visit. Doing tech support long-distance for people who can't adequately describe the problem is a losing game.

[–] LeFantome@programming.dev 2 points 4 days ago

I put LMDE on my mother’s machine about 8 months ago. I think it has only been restarted twice and once was a power outage. She uses it daily.

[–] dgriffith@aussie.zone 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Whatever you setup, also do a reverse ssh connection back to a PC of yours and forward ports for SSH and VNC-or-similar to local ports on your PC.

That way if it still boots you've got a way to fix it remotely and with reverse ssh they don't have to do anything with port forwarding on their end.

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[–] data1701d@startrek.website 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Debian Stable. Get it installed, get everything working right and configured the way this person likes it on a reasonable DE with default themes, and more likely than not, you won't have to touch this thing for years.

The setup's not necessarily for noobs, but if you're the one doing the setup, you should be able to get it into a place where it will pretty much never break for them.

You should probably give them KDE or GNOME (probably KDE, as it's more Windows-like and less my way or the highway than Gnome). As much as I love XFCE, it's probably a good idea to give a layman a feature-heavy DE so that nothing is likely to be missing; also, it's way too easy to accidentally delete panel items or entire panels on accident and a little annoying to restore things back to the way they were. KDE's panels implementation mitigates these issues.

[–] mycatsays@aussie.zone 4 points 6 days ago

I'm currently playing around with Debian on an old laptop of mine. If I can get the setup to a place where it feels sufficient for me to take my hands off, it could be the answer for this other computer.

(Thanks for DE recommendations. It does my head in trying to keep straight which ones are suited to which uses.)

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Linux Mint

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[–] dajoho@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Bazzite Gnome- a hidden gem, as many think Bazzite is just for gaming, but it also has a great desktop mode. Pretty much indestructible (immutable), polished, pretty, has a modern kernel (so good driver support) and has Firefox and Libreoffice installable as Flatpaks. Great for kids and grandmas.

[–] hackathy@aussie.zone 1 points 4 days ago

Seconded, but since they're coming from windows, just do the normal bazzite non-deck, as that uses KDE plasma which is a lot more similar to the modern windows shell

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

+1 for immutable in general.

[–] giddy@aussie.zone 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

+1 I am installing bazzite gnome (configured to look like windows 10) on my wife and mum’s computers. As long as they have chrome they are good.

[–] duhlieluh@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 days ago

i cant believe anyone still uses that garbage

[–] pH3ra@lemmy.ml 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Since tech illiterate people don't really care what's under the hood as long as it works, I would choose anything with Cinnamon desktop: Gnome is a little alien for newcomers, KDE and XFCE are far too easy to screw up if you don't know what you're doing.
If Mint doesn't work well with you I would suggest either LMDE, stock Debian or the Fedora Cinnamon spin (in this order of priority)

[–] 7eter@feddit.org 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I would love if there was an atomic Cinnamon spin. Fedoras Atomic Budgie version gets close but I think I still prefer god old Mint Cinnamon. There is hardly stuff to simply break anyhow.

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[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Fedora kinoite for windows-minded users. Fedora silverblue for everyone else.

That’s what I’ve used for the old people I do tech work for and except for one who thinks Microsoft invented everything and nothing without MS branding is legit, they are all happy.

[–] Moltz@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Isn't Fedora and these immutable versions on a six month upgrade cycle? Do these update to a new version reliably? As much as immutable is hard to break, I know Fedora's regular distros and spins seem to update to the new version reliably.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yea fedora does sometime leave them Behind a while but catching them up again is simple. Even when the process breaks, it does so in a simple to salvage way.

[–] Moltz@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I guess that's my worry. Simple for me to fix, yes. For my parents or grandparents, I'm not so sure.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Well you could always just host a remote session from a home machine and have them just use a dumb thing client. If anything goes wrong it’s at your end and easy to fix.

[–] LeFantome@programming.dev 2 points 4 days ago

All the normal folks I have moved over use Mint. It is not the distro I use. It has worked great for them. No complaints.

[–] MXX53@programming.dev 5 points 6 days ago

I would go for mint.

I want to suggest something immutable, but even when I use it, I have just had some issues occasionally or when trying to get the one off software here and there.

Of all the people in my family, even elderly, mint has been the easiest transition and I have very rarely needed to perform any additional maintenance outside of doing updates for them here and there.

[–] RmDebArc_5@piefed.zip 6 points 6 days ago

If you(they) don’t mind having outdated software Debian stable might be worth looking into. Otherwise there are immutable distros which are very hard to fuck up, and even if you do there is the option to rollback to the previous version. I’d recommend Aurora or Fedora (fedora doesn’t include some proprietary stuff like some codecs so if you need that it’s probably better to use Aurora).

Linux Mint also has a version based on Debian stable, LMDE, which is could also be an option. It’s not as stable as Debian as it adds its own stuff but has the out of the box experience.

As general advice I’d suggest using less packages and more flatpaks as a faulty flatpak update can only break that flatpak, not your system. For packages be sure to disable online updates, meaning you have to reboot to apply them. This isn’t as convenient but if stability is that important to you I’d go for it

[–] Summa@lemmy.wtf 6 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Zorin OS

[–] mycatsays@aussie.zone 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I had Zorin on my own computer for a while and really liked it, but it was crashing every few days and I decided I didn't want to put up with that. I'll give it another try one of these days - the issue may have been resolved, or my hardware my be different by then. But I won't use it on a computer whose user can't do thryr own tech support.

[–] Notamoosen@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 days ago

This has become my go to OS for less technical users. I've even had a couple go for the Pro version so they could get the pre configured macOS like desktop.

[–] willybe@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Ubuntu is a commercially supported os. That is my bar for recommending an OS to someone.

[–] m33@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 days ago

Then Mint is Ubuntu refined for technophobe or people too busy to mess with their OS, plus perfect ability to reuse all Ubuntu targeted software and skills.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 4 points 6 days ago

These days I just install Aurora Linux for this kind of situations. It's exactly how you described it. Haven't heard complains about it yet and their tech service needs from me almost dropped to zero.

[–] jakemehoff11@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

FWIW, you can install Win11 on unsupported hardware with a pretty easy registry edit to bypass the TPM check. I did it for my mom's PC that lives 600 miles away from me, thus far with no issues.

If it has to be Linux, I'd recommend something that's immutable and atomic on a platform you're familiar with so as to prevent careless mistakes by technophobes.

Ubuntu Core, Fedora Silverblue, MicroOS from openSUSE are all pretty stable and have rollback if something gets borked. Unfortunately, nothing is guaranteed to 'just work'. Good luck!

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