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My 70 year old mother has been using Linux on the desktop for the past 21 years

299 points by iio7 5y ago

joelbondurant1 5y ago
sally1620 5y ago
The problem with Linux has always been lack of support for newest hardware. I keep going back to Windows because I just want all the cool features of the hardware like webcam, fingerprint reader, and reliable sleep/hibernation. Linux always runs well on HW that is a few years old. or HW that was specifically certified for Linux, such as Thinkpads.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
frozenport 5y ago
>> In all my years of doing tech support, in all the various areas of work I have been doing, I have not seen a single case where it was not beneficial to migrate from Windows to Linux whether we're talking about servers or desktop. Doubt
TacticalCoder 5y ago
> I originally advised my mother to migrate from Microsoft Windows on the desktop to Linux because before that I had to go to her apartment about once a year to make a clean install of Windows because Windows had suddenly broken and didn't work any longer, or because everything suddenly started to become really slow. The classical Windows problems. Back in the Windows 95/98/Millenium days this was sooooo common and problematic that, as "the computer guy" in my friends and family circle, and because I hated Windows with a passion (I was already using Linux), I'd use the same ballistic solution: I'd perform a clean install, once. Then I'd use Ghost to image the install (Ghost from already way back before Norton bought it and it'd became Norton Ghost). Then I'd keep copies, on HDDs, of everybody in my circle's Windows clean install. Once every x months someone would call and I'd re-image the clean system. What a piece of turd.
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
> Proton and Wine are helping prolong the Microsoft monopoly on PC gaming! What we need is for some of the big game developing companies to release some of their biggest names on Linux only, with absolutely no support for Windows. Not going to happen unless the community comes up with something better than DirectX and port it everywhere.
- phkahler 5y ago
  OpenGL existed before DirectX. Now we also have Vulkan. I'm not a fan but there are also some DXn available on Linux. The problem is nothing more than a lack of will on game developers part to move the needle.
  - Filligree 5y ago
    You're proposing that developers should use OpenGL instead of DirectX 11/12? Unfortunately, there's no comparison. DirectX is much, much nicer to work with. As for Vulkan, it's... okay, in the sense that it lets you write fast code, but unless you're building a major engine it's a terrible idea.
  - bitwize 5y ago
    OpenGL is NOT a replacement or alternative for DirectX. Nor is Vulkan a replacement for DX12. DirectX is, quite simply, the 3D API with the best design, support, and tooling. Nothing else comes anywhere close. And because all the professional gamedev workflows are organized around DirectX, it becomes a GIMP vs. Photoshop situation. Developing for anything but Windows and DirectX adds cost and friction, and even if you use an engine that abstracts all that "away" you still have to deal with testing and support costs for niche platforms that do not pay for their costs in revenue. So no, if you want to play PC games, it's Windows or gtfo.
    - fao_ 5y ago
      > So no, if you want to play PC games, it's Windows or gtfo. I think you mean, if you want to develop PC games. So far the following have worked out of the box on Linux, via Steam's Proton compatibility layer: Elite Dangerous Halo MCC MSGV Sable Dark Souls Remastered Cloudpunk Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut Psychonauts (Windows version works better than Linux Native version -- Had to switch to Proton 5.13-6 to remove a log item appearing on the screen for whatever reason, but it was just selecting a different menu item) Journey The Witcher 2 The Witcher 3 Doom [2016] (I had to tinker with it to get it to have a decent framerate, but it was basically just switching an option to Vulkan and adding an option or two in the little box that I copied and pasted from https://protondb.com/ ) Risk of Rain 2 Sekiro Silicon Dreams Mirror's Edge Worms: Armageddon and a bunch more. Supposedly these actually run better, since a fair few of them are written using OpenGL, more than you would expect, actually.
don-code 5y ago
I find _myself_ confused by Windows, when I have to support it - I'm surprised Microsoft expects anyone without support chops to understand some of the questions they're asking. Several of my family members are in the same boat as the author's: they run Linux in spite of having low computer aptitude. I do typically have to help them with, say, installing software, but so much of their experience happens in a Web browser that it's a rarity (the last install I helped with was Skype, the web app not being terribly great). Given that they're also somewhat change-averse, the Linux desktop has been pretty great for them: the UI metaphor of Cinnamon is more or less the same as Windows XP's or Windows 7's, which is what they were used to, and it doesn't seem at risk of changing anytime soon.
BaconPackets 5y ago
A friend of the family has been running Mint as a daily driver for a couple of years. It works pretty well but it does require some Linux expertise. I definitely would not recommend that to anyone out of the box. More for power users still.
- fogihujy 5y ago
  Out of curiousity: what made the OOB experience bad for you? I've always found it extremely easy to use.
  - BaconPackets 5y ago
    There we're enough issues with a couple of things that I felt like I would have required some 1-800-linux-help for most of my family members. - APT randomly breaking and require some CLI magic. - Installing french translation packages was awkward since they we're not part of the official repos. - He unfortunately was running 32bit Mint which is much less fresh when it comes to the repos. Not bad overall, but I wouldn't throw my Windows for 25 years aunt in there!
GlenTheMachine 5y ago
It's a little ironic, but I find Linux to be perfect for two groups of people: the nearly computer illiterate, and coders. It's all the people in between where it struggles. Yes, if you need your computer to check email and visit websites, and maybe deal with digital photos and do a little light word processing, Linux is rock solid stable and more than up to the task. I can see my own mother being just fine with it for those purposes. Conversely, if you need to roll some scientific HPC code, it's the preferred solution. But God help you if you need to do multimedia desktop publishing or do Photoshop-level editing of photos or (in my case) do anything requiring a Common Access Card.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I used Linux to play my music collection for a while, but it just had too many problems with crashing and randomly needing to regenerate its index. Windows Media Player just works.
  - mixedCase 5y ago
    Weird. Sounds like you had an issue with a buggy music player. What lead you to think the entire operating system was to blame?
    - rbanffy 5y ago
      A surprising lot of people consider a media player as part of the OS.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      As a desktop replacement, I expect a music player, just like I expect a browser. The music player is a pretty good test of if the the operating system drivers work, although it was never clear if the music players were bad, or the sound drivers. BTW, the music players on Roku, Grace Digital's streaming boxes, and Galaxy Audio's streaming boxes, are all unusable. The only ones that ever worked were the Turtle Beach Audiotron (now obsolete), and Windows Media Player. I also have an Ubuntu desktop machine. It started pestering me to upgrade to a newer Ubuntu, and I finally relented and did. The new Ubuntu simply would not function with my graphics card. The old one worked fine with it. I spent a whole day trying to figure that one out, but there was no solution other than wiping the disk and reinstalling the older Ubuntu. A proper desktop replacement would: 1. warn me that I needed a new graphics card when pestering me to upgrade 2. refuse to install if I had a graphics card that was abandoned
nestorD 5y ago
I got my grand-father (who is an early-adopter type of person but not tech savy) on Linux (latest LTS Ubuntu) about three years ago. Telling him he won't have to bother about antivirus and making sure it had applications and drivers for all his uses (chess, emails, internet navigation, picture and video) was the only things needed. So far he is really happy it and loves that you can get a high contrast user interface with large font size out of the box.
BuckRogers 5y ago
These sort of crusaders will never quit. Reality is that you can't beat a Macbook Air for most people on battery life, performance etc. And I say that as someone that loves his Windows and Samsung Notebook 9 Pen with that lovely Wacom EMR S-Pen. Have no intention of buying a Mac, but it's laughable to compare an M1 Macbook to what you're going to get out of a Linux laptop. Same goes for this 2-in-1's smooth operating Wacom EMR touchscreen on the Windows side. I like Linux on the server, it is a server OS primarily after all, then adapted for other uses. And my personal use of it is usually in Android form. To each their own, but in no world do I see eye to eye with people who think Linux-all-the-things makes sense. As someone whose choices include a Linux VPS, iPhone, Windows desktop, Windows laptop, Android set-top boxes, I'll always be switching up my gear to whatever I consider to be best-of-breed for the task at hand. As always, my opinion subject to change upon receiving new information. I don't recommend going on crusades.
- Koshkin 5y ago
  > it is a server OS primarily after all Whether it is a server OS or a desktop OS or an embedded OS depends on the configuration. By itself Linux and even most of the distros are completely application-agnostic.
- ghostly_s 5y ago
  Until recently I worked support in a large design firm. I love (/hate) Macs, but the firm like most places was mostly Windows. The graphic designers of course got Macs, and were mostly Mac-native and loved it. But I have so many stories of 40+ manager-level people pulling strings to get a Macbook because it's "hip", who were like fish out of water on MacOS. Strangely no amount of time spent with it seemed to get the core concepts across, they just came up with groan-inducing workarounds that were good enough for them. A couple decades spent on Windows seems to really poison some people against MacOS for good.
  - sbuk 5y ago
    Having worked in IT support early on in my career, I have observed that the typical user doesn't so much learn how to use a computer/OS as much as they learn to perform tasks by rote. You will get users that live in Word or Excel and know it inside and out, but for most other tasks they are stumped. This, I would suggest is the same for the "70 year old" grandmothers out there using "Linux".
Animats 5y ago
A good case could be made for using Windows 7. That was pretty good. Microsoft had finally figured out how to make their OS work reliably. (The two key tricks: the Static Driver Verifier to do proof of not breaking the kernel for kernel drivers, and a classifier for crash dumps which routed all the crash reports for similar problems to the same developer.) But since then, it's been all downhill. Ads on the desktop? Come on.
gigel82 5y ago
I really-really tried to on-board Linux on the desktop, but it's not there quality-wise. On my work setup, I have 2 monitors connected to 2 computers (to fully isolate work-connected / monitored PC and personal stuff), using a software KVM (Barrier) to share the mouse / keyboard / clipboard. I went through half a dozen distros and none actually worked ok with my PC (an older Asus laptop) - either the external monitor wasn't seen, the touchpad kept registering ghost movements with the lid closed, the KVM lagged (mouse movements or -worse- virtual keys stuck pressed), or the main monitor switched to the (closed lid) built-in randomly. Installed Windows 10 and everything just worked flawlessly :(. All this on a PC were I literally only needed / used a browser, didn't even venture into the native programs space. That said, I am running Linux on a home server (Docker everything) and a bunch of Raspberry Pis and it works awesomely, but they're all headless (just managed remotely through SSH / Portainer / etc). I don't doubt there are some setups where Linux on the Desktop works, but so far it never did for my needs.
- BeefWellington 5y ago
  I use the exact setup you describe and have no issues. I recently replaced an older Acer laptop with a newer Lenovo but otherwise you're describing a system that's worked for me for literally years, down to the software KVM (I'm using Synergy rather than Barrier).
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago
  So basically, "I bought hardware designed to work with Win10, the suppliers of which decided only to make it work with Win10, and it worked better with Win10"? Weird that no one starts with "I bought hardware designed for the Linux distro I installed" and nothing worked. It's like "I bought flip flops and live somewhere really muddy, flip-flops are obviously not ready for walking in yet; I'll stick with welly-boots". But if you'd bought a house on the beach to start with then the flip-flops would be better and you be complaining that welly-boots are bad!?!1one
  - gigel82 5y ago
    I mean, that's literally Linux's whole spiel: "works great on older hardware", isn't it? I wasn't in the market for a new computer, just wanted to use an old one I had lying around (from the Windows 8 era BTW).
perl4ever 5y ago
Should we be surprised someone who perhaps retired in 2017 is computer savvy? An 80 year old grandmother was 65 in 2007. She could be a retired tech company CEO.
- jpindar 5y ago
  So many times here on HN I see "grandmas" used to mean "people who cannot use a computer at all except maybe to check Facebook". Somehow I never see anyone do this for any demographic category other than age and sex.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  Yeah I was thinking the same thing... a lot of Linux was probably written by people who are almost 70 now...
- johnchristopher 5y ago
  In my mind, being over 50 has stopped being an excuse to be computer illiterate while holding an office job in the last decade. They were 30 in 2000, 25 in 95 when you started working with computers. If in 2020 you still don't understand how to print a document or find your word files then you are. I don't know what you are but you better have a medical issue or something to justify still not getting file size and things like that.
cosmotic 5y ago
Windows' reliability has improved significantly over the past 20 years so maybe this author needs to revisit. I'm happy the author's mother is happy using GNU/Linux, but as someone that's used Windows, MacOS, and Linux, I don't think this article is giving Windows a fair shot. I'd rank all Linux distributions I've used relatively recently (Mint, Ubuntu, Rasbian) a distant last place when it comes to reliability and robustness. Even trivial things like upgrading minor versions of hugely popular distributions with out-of-box configurations is fraught with highly technical problems that need hours of internet searching. I'd say my experience might be an outlier, but it's consistent year after year.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  I use windows 10 for a gaming PC that I turn on once every few weeks. Almost every single time, windows update and defender scan bring disk and CPU usage to their knees. I can’t game until it’s done, sometimes an hour and one or more reboots. I’ve spent significant time trying to turn these off and allow me to run them manually. No luck. I think I was able to turn one of them off but not the other, don’t recall. So it might be stable but it’s not usable unless you leave the device powered on 24/7.
  - Flameancer 5y ago
    I’m curious. I dual boot both windows and Linux and when I switch over to my windows vm I don’t have these issues. Then again I’m running decent hardware and my boot drive is on an nvme drive. Are you running windows on an HDD? I’ve noticed probably since Microsoft dropped all support for Windows 7 that Windows 10 runs horribly on an HDD, but if you swap the HDD for an SSD it’s like a whole new machine.
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      I get the same problem on a machine with an SSD. The only time I hear the fans is when Windows update is running.
  - bentcorner 5y ago
philliphaydon 5y ago
I tried to move my parents to Ubuntu, but it ultimately caused them to call me more often than when they had Windows. Especially with things related to printing. In the end I bought them a macbook air. I've had 1 call in 5 years due to internet not working and it turned out the ISP had an outage.
- silisili 5y ago
  This is the one use case I -semi- didn't believe. I'm a Linux diehard of two decades, and always get confused when people claim they have to compile drivers or things not working. Maybe I've been fortunate. BUT....printing in Linux is still a nightmare for most brands I've used. Currently using a Canon laser that I love the quality of, but want to sledgehammer it every time I need to print something.
bee_rider 5y ago
> Not only is it much less likely you will ever get a virus on your computer, but you will also enjoy better performance, [...] When I (rarely, just to game) boot into Windows, I'm always surprised to see how much CPU it eats up just... sitting there. Being Windows I guess? I don't think my system is totally virus riddled or anything, and I'm sure Windows is doing something useful in the background, but jeez. Mine appears to be completely allergic to idle.
- bschwindHN 5y ago
  This is what I don't get - what is it doing? What is possibly more important than responding to user input as fast as possible? Computers serve us as a tool, why should humans have to wait on them as if they're asking another busy human for help?
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    It is scanning for viruses (windows defender), and downloading and applying updates. It sucks. The only solution I’ve found is to leave the device on 24/7 so all this nonsense happens when I’m not using it.
throw7 5y ago
This guy has me beat by a few years... I think I had my parents on linux somewhere in the mid-2000's. It was gnome 2 and seamonkey back then and it is mate & firefox right now. I wish seamonkey/netscape suite (web/email) could have stuck around, but the banners of "unsupported browsers" from banks et al. was the tipping point. I really feel for those who don't have someone like me to support them... if I wasn't around, my mom would be certainly paying someone for either windows or macs. It kinda makes me sad, but that's the reality.
xupybd 5y ago
I worked with a Linux desktop for years. Changed jobs and moved to Windows. The huge advantage is Microsoft office finally works for me. I don't have issue with documents and spreadsheets that people send. Outlook has a search that works much better than Thunderbird. With windows subsystem for Linux everything works well, with one exception docker desktop. That seems to be a steaming pile on Windows. Every few months the networking falls over and a reinstall of docker desktop is required.
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago
  >Outlook has a search that works much better than Thunderbird. // I can never find anything with Outlook search, but Thunderbird gets me what I want straight away. Maybe we're holding it wrong?
  - Flameancer 5y ago
    Honestly I love outlook search, but it definitely works better if the items you are searching for are in a exchange mailbox. Anything outside of exchange is usually hit or miss.
  - commoner 5y ago
    There's a Thunderbird add-on called "Expression Search - NG" that provides advanced search options: - Add-on: https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/expression-search-ng/ https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/expre... - Source: https://github.com/opto/expression-search-NG https://github.com/opto/expression-search-NG It's a nice substitute for Outlook's Advanced Find feature, but without the GUI. (Despite the description, it is working on Thunderbird 91.)
not2b 5y ago
Same with my nontechnical wife and daughter: they run Ubuntu. My wife mainly uses the browser, LibreOffice, and Google Docs+Sheets. Same with my daughter, who also plays Steam games and does a bit of relatively simple Python programming.
betterunix2 5y ago
My mother has been using Linux exclusively since I was in high school. Occasionally I have to head over to her place to deal with some weird issue but it has become less and less common over time, to the point where I am almost surprised when problems arise. Of course she has very straightforward needs. If Firefox and VLC work she has 95% of her needs met, and the remaining 5% are related to her printer which has not been a problem for a long time now. For some people who need specific Windows software this is probably much harder, and likewise for anyone who purchase some obscure hardware that only has Windows drivers.
TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
How do they do updates? Do they not do updates?
mythrwy 5y ago
My GF, who is a realtor (and not what I'd call a power user), has been using Linux and LibreOffice for nearly a decade and it's been nothing but great. Before, I'd have to go to her office at least a couple of times a month to deal with Windows issues (I don't recall what but I was there frequently). Now? Never. Like twice a year I have to go help her. I've been a Linux user primarily for 15 or 18 years and even made my own distro at one point (it was for fun and not that great). I'm not sure she would have had the same ease of use 15 years ago but now? Many Linux distros are very usable for non power users and much more stable and trouble free then Windows (which to be fair may have changed as well, I haven't used Windows in a long time).
da39a3ee 5y ago
It's cool but it's not going to be that uncommon a story around here! I also switched my parents from Windows to Ubuntu 20 years ago. However, I subsequently switched them to Mac 10 years ago. They'd have been mostly OK staying on Ubuntu but various annoyances would have come up over the years; their hardware wouldn't have been as nice; they get their daily paper "delivered" to their iPad, etc.
kentonv 5y ago
Many years ago, my mother (in her 60's) called me to tell me she had dumpster-dived an old laptop that she wanted to get working but it needed a reformat and she didn't have the Windows install media nor product key. What should she do? I really didn't want to deal with walking her through this so in an attempt to brush her off I said: "I dunno, I guess you could install Ubuntu." Didn't hear anything more about it for some time. Many months later I asked what happened to the laptop. She said she installed Ubuntu and it was working great. Wait, what!?!
- wnolens 5y ago
  Imagining my own mother in this scenario is only possible in a sitcom episode
- ludamad 5y ago
  Linux is underrated for "webbooks"
  - scruple 5y ago
    It was wonderful on an eeePC 1000HA that I picked up in 2008. I used that netbook until 2014 or 2015 when I needed more RAM and IIRC I couldn't extend it beyond 2GB. I've been on ThinkPads as my personal laptop ever since but I do sometimes miss the smaller form factor that those netbooks had.
- harikb 5y ago
  Come on, she raised kentonv - have your seen your profile?
- signa11 5y ago
  this https://xkcd.com/456/ https://xkcd.com/456/ seems relevant…
  - mizzao 5y ago
    Going through the Gentoo install process was a great drinking from the firehose experience in understanding how Linux worked. And compiling your own kernel, that feeling when it actually booted and worked after your many attempts failing and having to remount the install image...quite amazing.
rbanffy 5y ago
My mom, now 87, used Linux as her daily driver from 2010 to 2019. The only reason she changed is because I moved to a different country in 2016 and my cousin set her up with a newer PC running Windows and manages it as part of her corporate fleet - she’s a total Windows fangirl. She also can get to my moms house about 100 times faster than me.
- em-bee 5y ago
  my grandmother started using a computer when she was 72. i helped her buy it and put OS/2 on it with emacs and LaTeX. some time after i left, when she had trouble a helpful friend replaced OS/2 with a pirated copy of windows. i then put linux on it and she continued to use that until she passed away almost 20 years later. it helped that i was nearby so i could help her and she could learn from watching me. i had set up a gui with shortcuts for her commands but eventually she started using the commandline as she saw me do it. i created a LaTeX template for the reports and letters she wanted to write and a spreadsheet with a script to convert it to a LaTeX table. beyond that she liked to play a few of the games that were available at the time.
dleslie 5y ago
> What we need is for some of the big game developing companies to release some of their biggest names on Linux only, with absolutely no support for Windows. This will help break the monopoly and make gamers want to migrate to Linux for PC gaming. And why would they do that? Make a solid business case for it.
- sofixa 5y ago
  Not everything is about business. Steam's heavy investment in various SteamOSes, Proton and co could be defended from a business perspective ( they don't want to be fully reliant on Microsoft's whims regarding an app store), but it's also quite easy to argue against such an operation on purely business terms - it's a monumental undertaking with an unclear chance of success. However, it's absolutely a wonderful thing to do for everyone, and everyone benefits but Microsoft.
- Shared404 5y ago
  Going hypothetical for a moment, if Windows finally pulls the trigger on the app store only model or get too close to doing it, I could see Valve pulling out one of their big name series and going Linux only with it. Pretty much the only situation I see this happening in, aside from some company deciding they just want to try breaking Windows down, come hell or high water.
- scruffyherder 5y ago
  Have you seen the actual market share? Linux is a fraction of a percentage point. There is no way this is happening anytime ever since quake iii drummed up zero support. A hardware platform like the steam deck is the only hope. And I wonder how many will be running windows within a year of launch
  - DantesKite 5y ago
    It’ll always be an option to install Windows, but Valve has been trying to get away from Windows dominance for years now. SteamDeck is a Trojan horse in disguise, designed to get their gaming platform off the dominance of Windows.
bill_from_tampa 5y ago
I'm the same age as OP's mother (69, will be 70 in July) and I've been using linux on the desktop since 1997 (24 years ago). Windows 97/98 was so flaky and crash-prone that I did a search for some other OS for my Compaq desktop after being connected to a neighborhood cable modem from Roadrunner. I read about Unix and the commercial trademark fights, and then came across info on Linux on Yahoo. It seemed promising and I found a Red Hat boxed version in my local CompUSA in Florida - I used a different commercial boot-loader and kept windows and Red Hat on my computer - it was great! Linux (in 1997) was a bit clunky and stiff but it was reliable and programs could run overnight or for days and not crash - unlike my experience in Windows. I've kept some version of Linux in a dual-boot configuration ever since (Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake, Ubuntu, Debian sid, and for 10 years Debian testing). I've never been able to find native Linux tax programs so have needed to boot into Windows each tax season - but this year I may use a cloud/online tax service, so after 24 years I may be able to nuke the windows partition and use it for additional ext4 storage. But I'll wait till after my taxes are filed this year to see how things go - I'm a bit conservative!
- seanw444 5y ago
  Curious why you have still decided to go with a dual boot configuration for simple programs like tax software? Virtual machines are sufficiently effective nowadays. The only reason I still have a dual boot is for video games now. But once I can afford a new graphics card, I'll keep my current one in the secondary PCIe slot, and pass it through to a virtual machine so it's basically native performance, and I will no longer dual boot.
  - commoner 5y ago
    TurboTax always worked perfectly in a Windows virtual machine. I used Microsoft's Internet Explorer VMs for this purpose, since they're free of charge. Microsoft currently offers downloads of Windows 7-10 VMs (intended for testing IE8-11 and Edge): https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/ https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/v... I've since switched to the web-based FreeTaxUSA (https://www.freetaxusa.com https://www.freetaxusa.com), and the operating system became irrelevant.
wvenable 5y ago
> However, you're really not supposed to run Windows games on Linux. Just like you're not supposed to run PlayStation games on Windows. Windows games and Windows applications are meant to be run on Windows, not on Linux. I couldn't disagree with this more! Operating systems are designed to run programs and an OS designed to run more programs is better than one that runs less. Windows 11 can run Linux, Android, and Windows apps and is better for it. The ultimate OS, in my mind, should be able to run everything.
gramie 5y ago
My parents, both 90, use Linux Mint as their only OS (aside from occasionally using an iPad), and have for more than 5 years. They only surf the web and send email, and it (almost always) works perfectly for them. I visit every month or two and keep their system updated. The only issue came when they needed to use a Wi-fi dongle, and after trying four different dongles I ended up having to downgrade to an older version because none of the newer kernels seem to work with these dongles.
a-dub 5y ago
i've had some kind of linux in my life since 0.99pl2. ('93 maybe?) truth be told, it's been quite usable out of the box since canonical/ubuntu. previous incarnations were also usable, but required time or skill to bring to a stable state.
phosphophyllite 5y ago
albertopv 5y ago
Devil's advocate (I use Ubuntu at home). My parents 20 years ago had a windows xp lenovo notebook, never had to reinstall, battery just stopped working after 10 years, IIRC. My brother had a windows 8 notebook, never had to reinstall, 1 year and half ago the hdd failed, he bought a new notebook, I kept the old one with a cheap ssd as a spare. In 2010 I bought an acer 4810tg (450€, really cheap) with windows 7. Over time I upgraded RAM and replaced hdd with ssd using dd to copy data from old hdd to new ssd, so no reinstall was done. I stopped using it because it became too slow, even for a "normal" linux distro with a DE (I don't have time anymore to play around with distros).
desktopninja 5y ago
Started helping elderly people (all retired) in the early 2000's with their Windows PCs and as you guessed it, quickly became the computer guy as word spread. The service was "free" ... Payment was tea, some-carbs and a nice story if it organically came up. After the first few service calls, my repair formula became: - backup data - clean install windows + restore data - create user with only User permissions - create strong admin password shared to both I and them - rename the admin user account to root :) - enabled "run as" option in context menu - setup that HP printer with just a print driver! lol Issues went poof! No more accidentally installing those "${YIKES}.exe" files Some would "sabotage" their PC's just so I could pay them a visit. That was actually fun lol. I appreciated the childish nature of their antiques like "the mouse doesn't work" or "my printer stopped working" when clearly they unplugged it. If anyone's missed it, giving uneducated computer users admin/root perms by default is a bad idea. A little education goes a long way. Those windows-pcs remained rock solid/fast and matched any linux-pcs uptime. Watching those "pesky computer smart grand kids" being stopped dead in their tracks from mindlessly installing "games" was weirdly satisfying. You get that "ah ha! it was you feeling" The typical use for those computers was word, excel, some-app-to-print-cards-for-grand-kids, aol/msn chat, media-player, and some simple games. Am equally comfortable in windows||*nix. and harbor impure thoughts of linux as DOS and the desktop-environment as windows 2000 experience (WoL - Windows on Linux)
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Most of my support problems went away when I took away my parents admin privileges. It wasn't really them that was the problem, somehow my brother had managed to install two 3rd-party anti-virus programs on top of Windows Defender.
  - zinekeller 5y ago
    > my brother had managed to install two 3rd-party anti-virus programs on top of Windows Defender Well, uhm, I knew for a fact that proprietary antivirus software for Linux* makes the system unstable, and two of them will crash the whole system. I know that Windows has ELAM APIs, but I'm still impressed on some of my relatives' computer on how their computer still runs despite having McAfee/Norton and Avast (for example). * The kind that closely matches Windows' (aka with real-time scanning), not ClamAV scanning mail attachments.
bArray 5y ago
Just the other day I found myself offering tech support for Windows 10. Bare in mind, I last really used Windows Vista (which was a curse). I managed to figure out how to solve all of their problems, install Chrome, convince them not to download McAffee, put VLC and GIMP on there, and away they go. My review is this: The UI change from XP/Vista is jarring, people are _still_ not used to it. I can understand wanting to consolidate the user experience across touch and non-touch devices, but at what expense? I _really_ suggest to offer a 'classic' mode, bring back a proper taskbar and startbar that your customer base recognises. It's not that hard, it's one program (explorer.exe). The menus are ultra confusing. I type 'config' into the start search and open some configuration menu. I select the one that has 'power', opening a menu of the configuration (which is not clear). I then go through the power options, randomly find what looks like a hyperlink to adjust power configurations. This then opens a new window that looks different and allows me to adjust the configuration. I then asked them how they wanted to set the configuration, and explained how the behaviour would be experienced. The average person for example does not know what the difference between sleep and hibernate are, but they will certainly know when their battery is drained. The person looked at what I was doing and said "I would never have figured this out". It's like Microsoft Windows is still stuck somewhere between XP (probably older) and Windows 10. A lot of the tools in the background look like legacy tools (and have a legacy UI). The experience is simply broken. How hard would it have been to write a wrapper library around their new UI layout and compile the old tools against it? And then don't get me started on user accounts, privacy settings, a virus scanner that is essentially broken unless you are constantly networked, an OS that is essentially baked into all UEFI firmware - it's just insane. It's not even obvious how to fix it at this point. I'm not sure there is even meaningful levels of kernel abstraction that can be built upon.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Yeah I finally abandoned Windows for good after Windows 7. Up until then it still basically was familiar (except for the earlier change in Office to the Ribbon interface, which I still find unfathomable). Windows 10 was just a bridge too far. It was not worth the effort for something I wasn't using much anyway.
branon 5y ago
> While it is possible to play a lot of Windows games on Linux using Wine and/or Proton I don't recommend it. Getting Windows games to run on Linux in the first place is "a miracle", it's amazing how well many games run and perform. However, you're really not supposed to run Windows games on Linux. Just like you're not supposed to run PlayStation games on Windows. Windows games and Windows applications are meant to be run on Windows, not on Linux. I appreciate the piece but you lost me here. I get that Proton isn't as good as a native title, but how do we get from there to being told what I'm "supposed" to run on my computer? Emulators are a pretty valid use case I think. I'm glad the author's family is comfortable on Linux, but I hope they won't get this type of bad advice if they happen to ask about Linux gaming (or emulation! or compatibility libraries for foreign systems, or ...).
efitz 5y ago
For internet browsing and light email (even light word processing), I would suggest than an iPad with a keyboard is a better choice than a PC, regardless of whether it runs Linux or Windows.
- commoner 5y ago
  I can't really agree with this, since web browsers on iOS/iPadOS (and Android, for that matter) have reduced functionality compared to desktop web browsers. For iOS/iPadOS specifically, the lack of uBlock Origin makes it a hard sell for users who are discerning about comprehensive ad blocking.
  - efitz 5y ago
    Why does my mom need an ad blocker? (And btw there are ad blocker plugins for mobile Safari now). For someone who is not tech savvy, it might break her favorite sites in ways that she can’t fix herself. I could also put a pi-hole on her network rather than a browser plug-in.
    - commoner 5y ago
      Everyone benefits from not seeing ads that sap their time and attention, distracting them from what they're trying to do on the device. I have never had anyone report any issues with uBlock Origin on default settings after setting it up for them, and the users are generally very grateful. It's also simple to make sure there's another browser on the device without ad blocking, and to tell the person to use that as a backup in the rare case the main browser doesn't work with anything. Pi-hole is great (and can block some ads in other apps), but it's not as comprehensive as uBlock Origin in the browser. For example, Pi-hole doesn't block YouTube video ads. It also doesn't cover any other network than the one it's on, a blind spot for devices that are used in locations you don't manage.
  - wintermutestwin 5y ago
    This. Every few months I think that I should get an iPad as a light weight browser / video player alternative to traveling with my awesome new (but heavy and large) MacBook Pro. I am all in on Apple's ecosystem and so it makes sense, but then I think of not having uBlock Origin and I recoil in horror as I remember why I don't browse or watch videos on my iPhone.
hnbear 5y ago
“ She uses her computer daily for banking, email, online shopping, browsing, printing, writing documents, etc.” So, just a browser then. This feels like a very common use-case, but it’s not like Linux is tailor made for it. Any basic OS will handle it. Chromebook would be ideal and even easier to setup and powerwash where necessary.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  Isn't that kind of the point, that most people don't use enough stuff to make it matter?
DantesKite 5y ago
I suspect the Steam Deck will help chip away at Windows dominance over the long run. Not at first. It’ll be a slow transition. But it’ll definitely be the beginning.
sidm83 5y ago
My mum had started using a desktop at work (Windows) for the first time in the mid 2000s (she was ~50 at the time) which was used for basic work like creating / editing documents / spreadsheets and emails/browsing. She used to find it challenging to use and usually got her work done by subordinates. Around 2008 I got myself a new personal laptop and gave her my old one (2003 compaq, setup with Ubuntu) and taught her basic usage during a short trip to home. She picked it up quite well and managed to do all her work on her own, and even used it for general browsing. She continued to use it till around 2015 when she retired and decided to live with us. It functioned just fine even then without slowing down like a typical windows machine, even though the battery had basically become useless and it needed to be plugged on to be used. Recently we emptied our old home (set to be sold) and she got that laptop back. It still functions the same way, though she has no use for it now as she's used to smartphones/tablets so its set to be donated.
northisup 5y ago
i'm confused, which of those years is the year of the linux desktop?
8K832d7tNmiQ 5y ago
I found out that offloading any windows softwares I need to other PC and use remote desktop to use it is the best of both worlds instead of trying to run it on linux
r_hoods_ghost 5y ago
As an article this starts well but descends into the usual denial of commercial reality you see from Linux enthusiasts. The reason why you can get your 70 year old mother, or my 75 year old father in law to use Linux is because for their use case it is good enough and the best operating system is the one that a) meets your needs and b) you are used to. For me that is Windows. It could be macOS (except for games), but it isn't, because I'm not used to it so find it frustrating. It can't be Linux because I do a lot of intensive image manipulation, digital sculpting and CAD and frankly gimp et. al are terrible compared to photoshop, Zbrush is a none starter (yes Blender is good, I develop addons for it, no it's not a replacement for zbrush), fusion360, catia etc. not a chance to get them working properly and the open source alternatives are like going back to the 90s. The idea that major games companies should spend 10s or 100s of millions to develop games just for Linux isn't commercially viable. I mean why would They do this? They don't have any kind of emotional investment in Foss which is the only real motivator. They would go broke AND they would get attacked by every other Linux user because the game wasn't free (as in beer and as in speech).
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Relatively few people do intensive image manipulation requiring photoshop. If an iPad or Chromebook is good enough (and for many people, it is) then a Linux distro with a sensible desktop certainly is.
- mariusor 5y ago
  You seem to be blaming linux users for vendors' lack of interest in launching the software you want for the linux platform. It's not their fault. Nobody really expects Adobe or Epic to launch their products just on linux, but in today's age when a game gets shipped to multiple platforms and Photoshop has OSX and Windows versions, what's one more platform to add to the build matrix? Granted linux is not exactly a single uniform platform, the market is small, and the users are the most vocal about submitting issues. However Valve proved it can be done, and other vendors are just hiding their laziness with "market share" excuses. And to your last point, to my knowledge nobody is really up in arms against Valve because "closed source" because if you want to support a open source OS you inadvertently contribute to the ecosystem one way or another, and their work with Proton and flatpak and Steam OS is more than worth it. Edit: I guess I should have read TFA before replying to you, but as a linux user of almost 20 years I disagree with some of the fringe opinions in it, as you can tell from what I wrote. :D
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
On YouTube some years ago, there was a kid in Australia who made a series of videos where his Mum would try a different OS in each episode. IIRC, most were Linux distributions. With respect to computers, people can learn to use anything. With computers, most people exercise little choice. Most do not care about computers or software (i.e., they are not like you, dearest HN reader). These things are just a means to an end. They learn what they are forced to learn to do what they have to do. I once read the majority of "smartphone" owners do not even install any "apps". This sort of indifference is not something the "tech" crowd will ever acknowledge, but that does not make it less real. There is life outside of "tech" hype, lots of it. In the 1980's I watched many people who cared nothing for computers (i.e., not people like you, HN reader) use text-only programs to get things done. The lack of obsessively manipulative "UI" did not stop anyone from using computers back then.^1 Unlike today, not everyone had to use computers. Those that did used what they were forced to use. 1. I reckon it wouldn't stop them today either, if that was what they were forced to use. But we will never know. For a fun example of how things might have turned out differently, check out this Netflix series from 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniac_(miniseries) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniac_(miniseries)
- droidist2 5y ago
  > On YouTube some years ago, there was a kid in Australia who made a series of videos where his Mum would try a different OS in each episode. IIRC, most were Linux distributions. Yeah, I quite liked those videos. This is the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRjXNz9JNSuE8n-Oej4Rflw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRjXNz9JNSuE8n-Oej4Rflw
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jillesvangurp 5y ago
My father actually has an old laptop with Ubuntu that he uses exclusively to use its dvd drive; which is something he can't do with his Macbook Air. And he's about as clumsy with computers as you can imagine. I set up that laptop when the windows installation that came with it became so slow and obsolete that connecting it to the internet was just downright dangerous and irresponsible. The free update to windows 10 failed with some weird errors and after that, I just put Ubuntu on it and it was fine. My mother also used another old laptop with Ubuntu that was no longer usable with Windows on it right until she got her first iPad (which is awesome for people like her). The only application she ever used on that laptop was a browser. However, since she got her first iPad, she's the biggest Apple fan girl ever. And with good reason. They are very usable for people like her. However, for people with old crappy windows laptops, installing Linux on them is usually a massive upgrade. Hardware support can be an issue sometimes but mostly the old stuff is supported well enough. And it's not like getting a cheap new laptop with only 4GB is going to help people like that a lot in terms of performance. Crappy hardware like that is better with Linux on it. I switched out my own mac book pro for a linux laptop a few weeks ago. The mac broke and I needed a replacement urgently and the shiny new M1s were a combination of expensive and unobtainable in a hurry. So, I opted not to put money in getting an Intel based obsolete on day 1 replacement and picked up the cheapest windows laptop with 16GB I could find at a local store instead (700 Euro). I dutifully sat through the windows onboarding, which is ridiculously horrible these days. Just endless questions, nagging, and waiting. What a load of crap. After it finally activated, I rebooted it in disgust with a Manjaro USB stick, wiped the disk and I haven't looked back since. I've dabbled with linux on servers, in vms, and as a dual boot thing since the nineties (Slackware in 1995) but never really committed to using it full time as my primary driver until a few weeks ago. But it was always an option for me. I do mostly server and a bit of frontend development and spend a lot of time on the command line. All the development tools I use professionally are open source and actually run best on Linux. I've not used Microsoft Office since 2012, which is the last time I worked as an employee for a big corporation. These days, I do all my office stuff in a browser. Google Docs is good enough for me. Gmail & calendar work fine as well. I have zero need for native software for that stuff. I guess, if I ever needed it, I could use Microsoft Office 365 in a browser as well. In addition to that, I installed a variety of snap applications (slack, vs code, etc.). For photography, I've been using Darktable for several years on my mac and that of course works great on my new Linux laptop. If you are not familiar, it compares quite nicely with Adobe Lightroom in the sense that Darktable has way more features and capabilities. It's the opposite of Gimp vs Photoshop. The Darktable UX has gotten loads better with recent versions and its masking tools are fantastic. And it's a tool designed by photographers for photographers so it makes no compromises on quality. Lead developer Aurelian Pierre is doing some commercial work as a photographer and he is a hard core color theory and tone mapping nerd. And best of all, Steam works great on Manjaro and a lot of games that no longer worked on my mac are now usable again. It was really easy to set up and to my surprise Intel's Iris XE isn't half bad as a GPU and unlike my mac book pro, there is no thermal throttling. I was not expecting this laptop to be this good. This is the best laptop I've had since I got my 2012 mac book pro. And it only cost me 700 Euro.
jjav 5y ago
Same story here. My mom (in her 90s) has been using Linux since about 1997 or 1998. And here's the beauty: The interface is exactly the same today as it was then! This would be impossible to achieve with any commercial system where they break and change the UI and UX all the time. The setup is build on fvwm, mutt, emacs. All of them heavily customized to be minimal and simple. She's very non-technical, so the goal was to have a kiosk-like experience where everything is straightforward. But the most important criteria was stability, so once she memorized how to do something, it will never change. The browser is of course the most problematic one as that keeps changing, to endless frustration. I try to lock into extended support releases and keep them as long as possible but that's been the only difficult part.
petesergeant 5y ago
Mine too, for the last 10 years or so. She found some local IT guy who set her up with some random distro, provides in-person and remote support. Seems to work great. If she’d asked me I’d probably have just bought her a Mac.
Mikeb85 5y ago
Linux is super easy for users who only need a browser. Which is, these days, most people. Also incredibly easy for dev-things. The problem lies with certain proprietary software or ex Windows 'power users' who insist on doing strange things to their DE. Like people talk about changing config files and whatnot, I've never done that in a decade of using Linux on laptops.
mungoman2 5y ago
The problem with this is that you lock yourself to be the computer support forever. Problem with bank login? Bank won't be able to help, only you. Printer problem? Same thing.
- asddubs 5y ago
  do printer manufacturers actually help you if you're having trouble on windows? I assume you would either google it and figure it out, or post to some official forum and get responses by either people who don't work there or nobody. As for banks, everything uses the browser as a platform these days
stunt 5y ago
My parents use an Ubuntu PC for all their online banking on their saving accounts. My father knows how to keep it up to date and I help him to upgrade it to the latest LTS every 2-3 years. It's just a peace of mind, otherwise I will be paranoid about their online security. They still do usual stuff on their smart phone and their windows laptop. They can really use Ubuntu for all their needs at this point. I'm just too lazy to go there and install it on their laptop.
- herbst 5y ago
  This so much. The reason my family has no choice but running Linux is because I get peace. I still remember the regularity they found new viruses to fuck up their computers (15+ years ago). Hasn't happen once since.
mkarliner 5y ago
There is something inherently patronising about this statement. Is about older people or women that makes it remarkable? For what it's worth, I'm a 66 year old who's been using 'ix's since 1981. Is that remarkable?
- deleted 5y ago
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Lapsa 5y ago
btw I use Arch
bullen 5y ago
My son has been on linux TWM desktop since he was 3. Youtube and Java Minecraft!
xertopertha 5y ago
I am 71 and I have been using Linux-only laptops for 14 years. Pre-Linux days were the dark ages of my computing experience. I wasted so much of my life with Windows. I used to dread those untimely updates that used to ruin my apps and the data. I never seemed to have enough RAM or hard disk or enough processing power. A re-boot took forever. Regular fresh installation was a must. MacBook was a great improvement. But the flexibility and openness of Linux beat the pants off those. An ordinary cheap laptop with a fresh installation of Ubuntu flies like a bird. I never need to worry about big RAM or huge disk etc. I have created my own help files and ways of accessing all options and flags of commands and their examples with just a few clicks and key presses. I love learning new tips and tricks every day even though I know I will never master it fully. I don't waste time encouraging people to switch over to Linux. It is astonishing how much fear there is among even the young people to try a new operating system.
penjelly 5y ago
> is for some of the big game developing companies to release some of their biggest names on Linux only, with absolutely no support for Windows no game company could ever justify this, their primary goal is profit, not Linux adoption
gregors 5y ago
I set up a linux desktop for my mom and at some point she told me "I have a virus, I tried to fix it but it didn't work". Me: How do you know you have a virus? Her: It told me Me: Ummmmmm I go look. She'd get a "fix your virus" popup and download whatever sketchy .exe file, but it couldn't launch. I think I added a ad blocker at some point, but not having the ability to launch whatever random exe she inadvertently download was a huge win for me.
rabeener 5y ago
This post hit close to home. About 15 years ago, Ubuntu got decent enough to replace Windows on my parents PC. They needed to access websites and receive and send email, something Linux could definitely provide. No more worrying about malware or other Windows demons. Fast forward 15 years and their PC has been fully replaced by iPads with keyboard cases and iPhones. Yes, they are in a walled-garden curated by Apple but for the technical illiterate this is actually a good thing because the experience is seamless across devices. I’ve downloaded apps for all of their financial services and they've learned to never log in to a website when dealing with their banks which minimizes the risk of phishing. They use iOS’s native password manager to create unique passwords for all there sites, minimize password reuse risks. But most importantly, they know how to keep their devices up to date with the latest OS release without me having to do a monthly patch for them. Strongly recommend exploring this setup if you struggle with supporting your parents’ tech the way I did. Life is much better now.

299 points by iio7 5y ago

The problem with Linux has always been lack of support for newest hardware. I keep going back to Windows because I just want all the cool features of the hardware like webcam, fingerprint reader, and reliable sleep/hibernation. Linux always runs well on HW that is a few years old. or HW that was specifically certified for Linux, such as Thinkpads.

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frozenport 5y ago

>> In all my years of doing tech support, in all the various areas of work I have been doing, I have not seen a single case where it was not beneficial to migrate from Windows to Linux whether we're talking about servers or desktop. Doubt

TacticalCoder 5y ago

> I originally advised my mother to migrate from Microsoft Windows on the desktop to Linux because before that I had to go to her apartment about once a year to make a clean install of Windows because Windows had suddenly broken and didn't work any longer, or because everything suddenly started to become really slow. The classical Windows problems. Back in the Windows 95/98/Millenium days this was sooooo common and problematic that, as "the computer guy" in my friends and family circle, and because I hated Windows with a passion (I was already using Linux), I'd use the same ballistic solution: I'd perform a clean install, once. Then I'd use Ghost to image the install (Ghost from already way back before Norton bought it and it'd became Norton Ghost). Then I'd keep copies, on HDDs, of everybody in my circle's Windows clean install. Once every x months someone would call and I'd re-image the clean system. What a piece of turd.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

> Proton and Wine are helping prolong the Microsoft monopoly on PC gaming! What we need is for some of the big game developing companies to release some of their biggest names on Linux only, with absolutely no support for Windows. Not going to happen unless the community comes up with something better than DirectX and port it everywhere.

phkahler 5y ago
OpenGL existed before DirectX. Now we also have Vulkan. I'm not a fan but there are also some DXn available on Linux. The problem is nothing more than a lack of will on game developers part to move the needle.
- Filligree 5y ago
  You're proposing that developers should use OpenGL instead of DirectX 11/12? Unfortunately, there's no comparison. DirectX is much, much nicer to work with. As for Vulkan, it's... okay, in the sense that it lets you write fast code, but unless you're building a major engine it's a terrible idea.
- bitwize 5y ago
  OpenGL is NOT a replacement or alternative for DirectX. Nor is Vulkan a replacement for DX12. DirectX is, quite simply, the 3D API with the best design, support, and tooling. Nothing else comes anywhere close. And because all the professional gamedev workflows are organized around DirectX, it becomes a GIMP vs. Photoshop situation. Developing for anything but Windows and DirectX adds cost and friction, and even if you use an engine that abstracts all that "away" you still have to deal with testing and support costs for niche platforms that do not pay for their costs in revenue. So no, if you want to play PC games, it's Windows or gtfo.
  - fao_ 5y ago
    > So no, if you want to play PC games, it's Windows or gtfo. I think you mean, if you want to develop PC games. So far the following have worked out of the box on Linux, via Steam's Proton compatibility layer: Elite Dangerous Halo MCC MSGV Sable Dark Souls Remastered Cloudpunk Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut Psychonauts (Windows version works better than Linux Native version -- Had to switch to Proton 5.13-6 to remove a log item appearing on the screen for whatever reason, but it was just selecting a different menu item) Journey The Witcher 2 The Witcher 3 Doom [2016] (I had to tinker with it to get it to have a decent framerate, but it was basically just switching an option to Vulkan and adding an option or two in the little box that I copied and pasted from https://protondb.com/ ) Risk of Rain 2 Sekiro Silicon Dreams Mirror's Edge Worms: Armageddon and a bunch more. Supposedly these actually run better, since a fair few of them are written using OpenGL, more than you would expect, actually.

don-code 5y ago

I find _myself_ confused by Windows, when I have to support it - I'm surprised Microsoft expects anyone without support chops to understand some of the questions they're asking. Several of my family members are in the same boat as the author's: they run Linux in spite of having low computer aptitude. I do typically have to help them with, say, installing software, but so much of their experience happens in a Web browser that it's a rarity (the last install I helped with was Skype, the web app not being terribly great). Given that they're also somewhat change-averse, the Linux desktop has been pretty great for them: the UI metaphor of Cinnamon is more or less the same as Windows XP's or Windows 7's, which is what they were used to, and it doesn't seem at risk of changing anytime soon.

BaconPackets 5y ago

A friend of the family has been running Mint as a daily driver for a couple of years. It works pretty well but it does require some Linux expertise. I definitely would not recommend that to anyone out of the box. More for power users still.

fogihujy 5y ago
Out of curiousity: what made the OOB experience bad for you? I've always found it extremely easy to use.
- BaconPackets 5y ago
  There we're enough issues with a couple of things that I felt like I would have required some 1-800-linux-help for most of my family members. - APT randomly breaking and require some CLI magic. - Installing french translation packages was awkward since they we're not part of the official repos. - He unfortunately was running 32bit Mint which is much less fresh when it comes to the repos. Not bad overall, but I wouldn't throw my Windows for 25 years aunt in there!

GlenTheMachine 5y ago

It's a little ironic, but I find Linux to be perfect for two groups of people: the nearly computer illiterate, and coders. It's all the people in between where it struggles. Yes, if you need your computer to check email and visit websites, and maybe deal with digital photos and do a little light word processing, Linux is rock solid stable and more than up to the task. I can see my own mother being just fine with it for those purposes. Conversely, if you need to roll some scientific HPC code, it's the preferred solution. But God help you if you need to do multimedia desktop publishing or do Photoshop-level editing of photos or (in my case) do anything requiring a Common Access Card.

WalterBright 5y ago
I used Linux to play my music collection for a while, but it just had too many problems with crashing and randomly needing to regenerate its index. Windows Media Player just works.
- mixedCase 5y ago
  Weird. Sounds like you had an issue with a buggy music player. What lead you to think the entire operating system was to blame?
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    A surprising lot of people consider a media player as part of the OS.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    As a desktop replacement, I expect a music player, just like I expect a browser. The music player is a pretty good test of if the the operating system drivers work, although it was never clear if the music players were bad, or the sound drivers. BTW, the music players on Roku, Grace Digital's streaming boxes, and Galaxy Audio's streaming boxes, are all unusable. The only ones that ever worked were the Turtle Beach Audiotron (now obsolete), and Windows Media Player. I also have an Ubuntu desktop machine. It started pestering me to upgrade to a newer Ubuntu, and I finally relented and did. The new Ubuntu simply would not function with my graphics card. The old one worked fine with it. I spent a whole day trying to figure that one out, but there was no solution other than wiping the disk and reinstalling the older Ubuntu. A proper desktop replacement would: 1. warn me that I needed a new graphics card when pestering me to upgrade 2. refuse to install if I had a graphics card that was abandoned

nestorD 5y ago

I got my grand-father (who is an early-adopter type of person but not tech savy) on Linux (latest LTS Ubuntu) about three years ago. Telling him he won't have to bother about antivirus and making sure it had applications and drivers for all his uses (chess, emails, internet navigation, picture and video) was the only things needed. So far he is really happy it and loves that you can get a high contrast user interface with large font size out of the box.

BuckRogers 5y ago

These sort of crusaders will never quit. Reality is that you can't beat a Macbook Air for most people on battery life, performance etc. And I say that as someone that loves his Windows and Samsung Notebook 9 Pen with that lovely Wacom EMR S-Pen. Have no intention of buying a Mac, but it's laughable to compare an M1 Macbook to what you're going to get out of a Linux laptop. Same goes for this 2-in-1's smooth operating Wacom EMR touchscreen on the Windows side. I like Linux on the server, it is a server OS primarily after all, then adapted for other uses. And my personal use of it is usually in Android form. To each their own, but in no world do I see eye to eye with people who think Linux-all-the-things makes sense. As someone whose choices include a Linux VPS, iPhone, Windows desktop, Windows laptop, Android set-top boxes, I'll always be switching up my gear to whatever I consider to be best-of-breed for the task at hand. As always, my opinion subject to change upon receiving new information. I don't recommend going on crusades.

Koshkin 5y ago
> it is a server OS primarily after all Whether it is a server OS or a desktop OS or an embedded OS depends on the configuration. By itself Linux and even most of the distros are completely application-agnostic.
ghostly_s 5y ago
Until recently I worked support in a large design firm. I love (/hate) Macs, but the firm like most places was mostly Windows. The graphic designers of course got Macs, and were mostly Mac-native and loved it. But I have so many stories of 40+ manager-level people pulling strings to get a Macbook because it's "hip", who were like fish out of water on MacOS. Strangely no amount of time spent with it seemed to get the core concepts across, they just came up with groan-inducing workarounds that were good enough for them. A couple decades spent on Windows seems to really poison some people against MacOS for good.
- sbuk 5y ago
  Having worked in IT support early on in my career, I have observed that the typical user doesn't so much learn how to use a computer/OS as much as they learn to perform tasks by rote. You will get users that live in Word or Excel and know it inside and out, but for most other tasks they are stumped. This, I would suggest is the same for the "70 year old" grandmothers out there using "Linux".

Animats 5y ago

A good case could be made for using Windows 7. That was pretty good. Microsoft had finally figured out how to make their OS work reliably. (The two key tricks: the Static Driver Verifier to do proof of not breaking the kernel for kernel drivers, and a classifier for crash dumps which routed all the crash reports for similar problems to the same developer.) But since then, it's been all downhill. Ads on the desktop? Come on.

gigel82 5y ago

I really-really tried to on-board Linux on the desktop, but it's not there quality-wise. On my work setup, I have 2 monitors connected to 2 computers (to fully isolate work-connected / monitored PC and personal stuff), using a software KVM (Barrier) to share the mouse / keyboard / clipboard. I went through half a dozen distros and none actually worked ok with my PC (an older Asus laptop) - either the external monitor wasn't seen, the touchpad kept registering ghost movements with the lid closed, the KVM lagged (mouse movements or -worse- virtual keys stuck pressed), or the main monitor switched to the (closed lid) built-in randomly. Installed Windows 10 and everything just worked flawlessly :(. All this on a PC were I literally only needed / used a browser, didn't even venture into the native programs space. That said, I am running Linux on a home server (Docker everything) and a bunch of Raspberry Pis and it works awesomely, but they're all headless (just managed remotely through SSH / Portainer / etc). I don't doubt there are some setups where Linux on the Desktop works, but so far it never did for my needs.

BeefWellington 5y ago
I use the exact setup you describe and have no issues. I recently replaced an older Acer laptop with a newer Lenovo but otherwise you're describing a system that's worked for me for literally years, down to the software KVM (I'm using Synergy rather than Barrier).
pbhjpbhj 5y ago
So basically, "I bought hardware designed to work with Win10, the suppliers of which decided only to make it work with Win10, and it worked better with Win10"? Weird that no one starts with "I bought hardware designed for the Linux distro I installed" and nothing worked. It's like "I bought flip flops and live somewhere really muddy, flip-flops are obviously not ready for walking in yet; I'll stick with welly-boots". But if you'd bought a house on the beach to start with then the flip-flops would be better and you be complaining that welly-boots are bad!?!1one
- gigel82 5y ago
  I mean, that's literally Linux's whole spiel: "works great on older hardware", isn't it? I wasn't in the market for a new computer, just wanted to use an old one I had lying around (from the Windows 8 era BTW).

perl4ever 5y ago

Should we be surprised someone who perhaps retired in 2017 is computer savvy? An 80 year old grandmother was 65 in 2007. She could be a retired tech company CEO.

jpindar 5y ago
So many times here on HN I see "grandmas" used to mean "people who cannot use a computer at all except maybe to check Facebook". Somehow I never see anyone do this for any demographic category other than age and sex.
cortesoft 5y ago
Yeah I was thinking the same thing... a lot of Linux was probably written by people who are almost 70 now...
johnchristopher 5y ago
In my mind, being over 50 has stopped being an excuse to be computer illiterate while holding an office job in the last decade. They were 30 in 2000, 25 in 95 when you started working with computers. If in 2020 you still don't understand how to print a document or find your word files then you are. I don't know what you are but you better have a medical issue or something to justify still not getting file size and things like that.

cosmotic 5y ago

Windows' reliability has improved significantly over the past 20 years so maybe this author needs to revisit. I'm happy the author's mother is happy using GNU/Linux, but as someone that's used Windows, MacOS, and Linux, I don't think this article is giving Windows a fair shot. I'd rank all Linux distributions I've used relatively recently (Mint, Ubuntu, Rasbian) a distant last place when it comes to reliability and robustness. Even trivial things like upgrading minor versions of hugely popular distributions with out-of-box configurations is fraught with highly technical problems that need hours of internet searching. I'd say my experience might be an outlier, but it's consistent year after year.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
I use windows 10 for a gaming PC that I turn on once every few weeks. Almost every single time, windows update and defender scan bring disk and CPU usage to their knees. I can’t game until it’s done, sometimes an hour and one or more reboots. I’ve spent significant time trying to turn these off and allow me to run them manually. No luck. I think I was able to turn one of them off but not the other, don’t recall. So it might be stable but it’s not usable unless you leave the device powered on 24/7.
- Flameancer 5y ago
  I’m curious. I dual boot both windows and Linux and when I switch over to my windows vm I don’t have these issues. Then again I’m running decent hardware and my boot drive is on an nvme drive. Are you running windows on an HDD? I’ve noticed probably since Microsoft dropped all support for Windows 7 that Windows 10 runs horribly on an HDD, but if you swap the HDD for an SSD it’s like a whole new machine.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    I get the same problem on a machine with an SSD. The only time I hear the fans is when Windows update is running.
- bentcorner 5y ago

philliphaydon 5y ago

I tried to move my parents to Ubuntu, but it ultimately caused them to call me more often than when they had Windows. Especially with things related to printing. In the end I bought them a macbook air. I've had 1 call in 5 years due to internet not working and it turned out the ISP had an outage.

silisili 5y ago
This is the one use case I -semi- didn't believe. I'm a Linux diehard of two decades, and always get confused when people claim they have to compile drivers or things not working. Maybe I've been fortunate. BUT....printing in Linux is still a nightmare for most brands I've used. Currently using a Canon laser that I love the quality of, but want to sledgehammer it every time I need to print something.

bee_rider 5y ago

> Not only is it much less likely you will ever get a virus on your computer, but you will also enjoy better performance, [...] When I (rarely, just to game) boot into Windows, I'm always surprised to see how much CPU it eats up just... sitting there. Being Windows I guess? I don't think my system is totally virus riddled or anything, and I'm sure Windows is doing something useful in the background, but jeez. Mine appears to be completely allergic to idle.

bschwindHN 5y ago
This is what I don't get - what is it doing? What is possibly more important than responding to user input as fast as possible? Computers serve us as a tool, why should humans have to wait on them as if they're asking another busy human for help?
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  It is scanning for viruses (windows defender), and downloading and applying updates. It sucks. The only solution I’ve found is to leave the device on 24/7 so all this nonsense happens when I’m not using it.

throw7 5y ago

This guy has me beat by a few years... I think I had my parents on linux somewhere in the mid-2000's. It was gnome 2 and seamonkey back then and it is mate & firefox right now. I wish seamonkey/netscape suite (web/email) could have stuck around, but the banners of "unsupported browsers" from banks et al. was the tipping point. I really feel for those who don't have someone like me to support them... if I wasn't around, my mom would be certainly paying someone for either windows or macs. It kinda makes me sad, but that's the reality.

xupybd 5y ago

I worked with a Linux desktop for years. Changed jobs and moved to Windows. The huge advantage is Microsoft office finally works for me. I don't have issue with documents and spreadsheets that people send. Outlook has a search that works much better than Thunderbird. With windows subsystem for Linux everything works well, with one exception docker desktop. That seems to be a steaming pile on Windows. Every few months the networking falls over and a reinstall of docker desktop is required.

pbhjpbhj 5y ago
>Outlook has a search that works much better than Thunderbird. // I can never find anything with Outlook search, but Thunderbird gets me what I want straight away. Maybe we're holding it wrong?
- Flameancer 5y ago
  Honestly I love outlook search, but it definitely works better if the items you are searching for are in a exchange mailbox. Anything outside of exchange is usually hit or miss.
- commoner 5y ago
  There's a Thunderbird add-on called "Expression Search - NG" that provides advanced search options: - Add-on: https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/expression-search-ng/ https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/expre... - Source: https://github.com/opto/expression-search-NG https://github.com/opto/expression-search-NG It's a nice substitute for Outlook's Advanced Find feature, but without the GUI. (Despite the description, it is working on Thunderbird 91.)

not2b 5y ago

Same with my nontechnical wife and daughter: they run Ubuntu. My wife mainly uses the browser, LibreOffice, and Google Docs+Sheets. Same with my daughter, who also plays Steam games and does a bit of relatively simple Python programming.

betterunix2 5y ago

My mother has been using Linux exclusively since I was in high school. Occasionally I have to head over to her place to deal with some weird issue but it has become less and less common over time, to the point where I am almost surprised when problems arise. Of course she has very straightforward needs. If Firefox and VLC work she has 95% of her needs met, and the remaining 5% are related to her printer which has not been a problem for a long time now. For some people who need specific Windows software this is probably much harder, and likewise for anyone who purchase some obscure hardware that only has Windows drivers.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago

How do they do updates? Do they not do updates?

mythrwy 5y ago

My GF, who is a realtor (and not what I'd call a power user), has been using Linux and LibreOffice for nearly a decade and it's been nothing but great. Before, I'd have to go to her office at least a couple of times a month to deal with Windows issues (I don't recall what but I was there frequently). Now? Never. Like twice a year I have to go help her. I've been a Linux user primarily for 15 or 18 years and even made my own distro at one point (it was for fun and not that great). I'm not sure she would have had the same ease of use 15 years ago but now? Many Linux distros are very usable for non power users and much more stable and trouble free then Windows (which to be fair may have changed as well, I haven't used Windows in a long time).

da39a3ee 5y ago

It's cool but it's not going to be that uncommon a story around here! I also switched my parents from Windows to Ubuntu 20 years ago. However, I subsequently switched them to Mac 10 years ago. They'd have been mostly OK staying on Ubuntu but various annoyances would have come up over the years; their hardware wouldn't have been as nice; they get their daily paper "delivered" to their iPad, etc.

kentonv 5y ago

Many years ago, my mother (in her 60's) called me to tell me she had dumpster-dived an old laptop that she wanted to get working but it needed a reformat and she didn't have the Windows install media nor product key. What should she do? I really didn't want to deal with walking her through this so in an attempt to brush her off I said: "I dunno, I guess you could install Ubuntu." Didn't hear anything more about it for some time. Many months later I asked what happened to the laptop. She said she installed Ubuntu and it was working great. Wait, what!?!

wnolens 5y ago
Imagining my own mother in this scenario is only possible in a sitcom episode
ludamad 5y ago
Linux is underrated for "webbooks"
- scruple 5y ago
  It was wonderful on an eeePC 1000HA that I picked up in 2008. I used that netbook until 2014 or 2015 when I needed more RAM and IIRC I couldn't extend it beyond 2GB. I've been on ThinkPads as my personal laptop ever since but I do sometimes miss the smaller form factor that those netbooks had.
harikb 5y ago
Come on, she raised kentonv - have your seen your profile?
signa11 5y ago
this https://xkcd.com/456/ https://xkcd.com/456/ seems relevant…
- mizzao 5y ago
  Going through the Gentoo install process was a great drinking from the firehose experience in understanding how Linux worked. And compiling your own kernel, that feeling when it actually booted and worked after your many attempts failing and having to remount the install image...quite amazing.

rbanffy 5y ago

My mom, now 87, used Linux as her daily driver from 2010 to 2019. The only reason she changed is because I moved to a different country in 2016 and my cousin set her up with a newer PC running Windows and manages it as part of her corporate fleet - she’s a total Windows fangirl. She also can get to my moms house about 100 times faster than me.

em-bee 5y ago
my grandmother started using a computer when she was 72. i helped her buy it and put OS/2 on it with emacs and LaTeX. some time after i left, when she had trouble a helpful friend replaced OS/2 with a pirated copy of windows. i then put linux on it and she continued to use that until she passed away almost 20 years later. it helped that i was nearby so i could help her and she could learn from watching me. i had set up a gui with shortcuts for her commands but eventually she started using the commandline as she saw me do it. i created a LaTeX template for the reports and letters she wanted to write and a spreadsheet with a script to convert it to a LaTeX table. beyond that she liked to play a few of the games that were available at the time.

dleslie 5y ago

> What we need is for some of the big game developing companies to release some of their biggest names on Linux only, with absolutely no support for Windows. This will help break the monopoly and make gamers want to migrate to Linux for PC gaming. And why would they do that? Make a solid business case for it.

sofixa 5y ago
Not everything is about business. Steam's heavy investment in various SteamOSes, Proton and co could be defended from a business perspective ( they don't want to be fully reliant on Microsoft's whims regarding an app store), but it's also quite easy to argue against such an operation on purely business terms - it's a monumental undertaking with an unclear chance of success. However, it's absolutely a wonderful thing to do for everyone, and everyone benefits but Microsoft.
Shared404 5y ago
Going hypothetical for a moment, if Windows finally pulls the trigger on the app store only model or get too close to doing it, I could see Valve pulling out one of their big name series and going Linux only with it. Pretty much the only situation I see this happening in, aside from some company deciding they just want to try breaking Windows down, come hell or high water.
scruffyherder 5y ago
Have you seen the actual market share? Linux is a fraction of a percentage point. There is no way this is happening anytime ever since quake iii drummed up zero support. A hardware platform like the steam deck is the only hope. And I wonder how many will be running windows within a year of launch
- DantesKite 5y ago
  It’ll always be an option to install Windows, but Valve has been trying to get away from Windows dominance for years now. SteamDeck is a Trojan horse in disguise, designed to get their gaming platform off the dominance of Windows.

bill_from_tampa 5y ago

I'm the same age as OP's mother (69, will be 70 in July) and I've been using linux on the desktop since 1997 (24 years ago). Windows 97/98 was so flaky and crash-prone that I did a search for some other OS for my Compaq desktop after being connected to a neighborhood cable modem from Roadrunner. I read about Unix and the commercial trademark fights, and then came across info on Linux on Yahoo. It seemed promising and I found a Red Hat boxed version in my local CompUSA in Florida - I used a different commercial boot-loader and kept windows and Red Hat on my computer - it was great! Linux (in 1997) was a bit clunky and stiff but it was reliable and programs could run overnight or for days and not crash - unlike my experience in Windows. I've kept some version of Linux in a dual-boot configuration ever since (Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake, Ubuntu, Debian sid, and for 10 years Debian testing). I've never been able to find native Linux tax programs so have needed to boot into Windows each tax season - but this year I may use a cloud/online tax service, so after 24 years I may be able to nuke the windows partition and use it for additional ext4 storage. But I'll wait till after my taxes are filed this year to see how things go - I'm a bit conservative!

seanw444 5y ago
Curious why you have still decided to go with a dual boot configuration for simple programs like tax software? Virtual machines are sufficiently effective nowadays. The only reason I still have a dual boot is for video games now. But once I can afford a new graphics card, I'll keep my current one in the secondary PCIe slot, and pass it through to a virtual machine so it's basically native performance, and I will no longer dual boot.
- commoner 5y ago
  TurboTax always worked perfectly in a Windows virtual machine. I used Microsoft's Internet Explorer VMs for this purpose, since they're free of charge. Microsoft currently offers downloads of Windows 7-10 VMs (intended for testing IE8-11 and Edge): https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/ https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/v... I've since switched to the web-based FreeTaxUSA (https://www.freetaxusa.com https://www.freetaxusa.com), and the operating system became irrelevant.

wvenable 5y ago

> However, you're really not supposed to run Windows games on Linux. Just like you're not supposed to run PlayStation games on Windows. Windows games and Windows applications are meant to be run on Windows, not on Linux. I couldn't disagree with this more! Operating systems are designed to run programs and an OS designed to run more programs is better than one that runs less. Windows 11 can run Linux, Android, and Windows apps and is better for it. The ultimate OS, in my mind, should be able to run everything.

gramie 5y ago

My parents, both 90, use Linux Mint as their only OS (aside from occasionally using an iPad), and have for more than 5 years. They only surf the web and send email, and it (almost always) works perfectly for them. I visit every month or two and keep their system updated. The only issue came when they needed to use a Wi-fi dongle, and after trying four different dongles I ended up having to downgrade to an older version because none of the newer kernels seem to work with these dongles.

a-dub 5y ago

i've had some kind of linux in my life since 0.99pl2. ('93 maybe?) truth be told, it's been quite usable out of the box since canonical/ubuntu. previous incarnations were also usable, but required time or skill to bring to a stable state.

phosphophyllite 5y ago

albertopv 5y ago

Devil's advocate (I use Ubuntu at home). My parents 20 years ago had a windows xp lenovo notebook, never had to reinstall, battery just stopped working after 10 years, IIRC. My brother had a windows 8 notebook, never had to reinstall, 1 year and half ago the hdd failed, he bought a new notebook, I kept the old one with a cheap ssd as a spare. In 2010 I bought an acer 4810tg (450€, really cheap) with windows 7. Over time I upgraded RAM and replaced hdd with ssd using dd to copy data from old hdd to new ssd, so no reinstall was done. I stopped using it because it became too slow, even for a "normal" linux distro with a DE (I don't have time anymore to play around with distros).

desktopninja 5y ago

Started helping elderly people (all retired) in the early 2000's with their Windows PCs and as you guessed it, quickly became the computer guy as word spread. The service was "free" ... Payment was tea, some-carbs and a nice story if it organically came up. After the first few service calls, my repair formula became: - backup data - clean install windows + restore data - create user with only User permissions - create strong admin password shared to both I and them - rename the admin user account to root :) - enabled "run as" option in context menu - setup that HP printer with just a print driver! lol Issues went poof! No more accidentally installing those "${YIKES}.exe" files Some would "sabotage" their PC's just so I could pay them a visit. That was actually fun lol. I appreciated the childish nature of their antiques like "the mouse doesn't work" or "my printer stopped working" when clearly they unplugged it. If anyone's missed it, giving uneducated computer users admin/root perms by default is a bad idea. A little education goes a long way. Those windows-pcs remained rock solid/fast and matched any linux-pcs uptime. Watching those "pesky computer smart grand kids" being stopped dead in their tracks from mindlessly installing "games" was weirdly satisfying. You get that "ah ha! it was you feeling" The typical use for those computers was word, excel, some-app-to-print-cards-for-grand-kids, aol/msn chat, media-player, and some simple games. Am equally comfortable in windows||*nix. and harbor impure thoughts of linux as DOS and the desktop-environment as windows 2000 experience (WoL - Windows on Linux)

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
Most of my support problems went away when I took away my parents admin privileges. It wasn't really them that was the problem, somehow my brother had managed to install two 3rd-party anti-virus programs on top of Windows Defender.
- zinekeller 5y ago
  > my brother had managed to install two 3rd-party anti-virus programs on top of Windows Defender Well, uhm, I knew for a fact that proprietary antivirus software for Linux* makes the system unstable, and two of them will crash the whole system. I know that Windows has ELAM APIs, but I'm still impressed on some of my relatives' computer on how their computer still runs despite having McAfee/Norton and Avast (for example). * The kind that closely matches Windows' (aka with real-time scanning), not ClamAV scanning mail attachments.

bArray 5y ago

Just the other day I found myself offering tech support for Windows 10. Bare in mind, I last really used Windows Vista (which was a curse). I managed to figure out how to solve all of their problems, install Chrome, convince them not to download McAffee, put VLC and GIMP on there, and away they go. My review is this: The UI change from XP/Vista is jarring, people are _still_ not used to it. I can understand wanting to consolidate the user experience across touch and non-touch devices, but at what expense? I _really_ suggest to offer a 'classic' mode, bring back a proper taskbar and startbar that your customer base recognises. It's not that hard, it's one program (explorer.exe). The menus are ultra confusing. I type 'config' into the start search and open some configuration menu. I select the one that has 'power', opening a menu of the configuration (which is not clear). I then go through the power options, randomly find what looks like a hyperlink to adjust power configurations. This then opens a new window that looks different and allows me to adjust the configuration. I then asked them how they wanted to set the configuration, and explained how the behaviour would be experienced. The average person for example does not know what the difference between sleep and hibernate are, but they will certainly know when their battery is drained. The person looked at what I was doing and said "I would never have figured this out". It's like Microsoft Windows is still stuck somewhere between XP (probably older) and Windows 10. A lot of the tools in the background look like legacy tools (and have a legacy UI). The experience is simply broken. How hard would it have been to write a wrapper library around their new UI layout and compile the old tools against it? And then don't get me started on user accounts, privacy settings, a virus scanner that is essentially broken unless you are constantly networked, an OS that is essentially baked into all UEFI firmware - it's just insane. It's not even obvious how to fix it at this point. I'm not sure there is even meaningful levels of kernel abstraction that can be built upon.

throwawayboise 5y ago
Yeah I finally abandoned Windows for good after Windows 7. Up until then it still basically was familiar (except for the earlier change in Office to the Ribbon interface, which I still find unfathomable). Windows 10 was just a bridge too far. It was not worth the effort for something I wasn't using much anyway.

branon 5y ago

> While it is possible to play a lot of Windows games on Linux using Wine and/or Proton I don't recommend it. Getting Windows games to run on Linux in the first place is "a miracle", it's amazing how well many games run and perform. However, you're really not supposed to run Windows games on Linux. Just like you're not supposed to run PlayStation games on Windows. Windows games and Windows applications are meant to be run on Windows, not on Linux. I appreciate the piece but you lost me here. I get that Proton isn't as good as a native title, but how do we get from there to being told what I'm "supposed" to run on my computer? Emulators are a pretty valid use case I think. I'm glad the author's family is comfortable on Linux, but I hope they won't get this type of bad advice if they happen to ask about Linux gaming (or emulation! or compatibility libraries for foreign systems, or ...).

efitz 5y ago

For internet browsing and light email (even light word processing), I would suggest than an iPad with a keyboard is a better choice than a PC, regardless of whether it runs Linux or Windows.

commoner 5y ago
I can't really agree with this, since web browsers on iOS/iPadOS (and Android, for that matter) have reduced functionality compared to desktop web browsers. For iOS/iPadOS specifically, the lack of uBlock Origin makes it a hard sell for users who are discerning about comprehensive ad blocking.
- efitz 5y ago
  Why does my mom need an ad blocker? (And btw there are ad blocker plugins for mobile Safari now). For someone who is not tech savvy, it might break her favorite sites in ways that she can’t fix herself. I could also put a pi-hole on her network rather than a browser plug-in.
  - commoner 5y ago
    Everyone benefits from not seeing ads that sap their time and attention, distracting them from what they're trying to do on the device. I have never had anyone report any issues with uBlock Origin on default settings after setting it up for them, and the users are generally very grateful. It's also simple to make sure there's another browser on the device without ad blocking, and to tell the person to use that as a backup in the rare case the main browser doesn't work with anything. Pi-hole is great (and can block some ads in other apps), but it's not as comprehensive as uBlock Origin in the browser. For example, Pi-hole doesn't block YouTube video ads. It also doesn't cover any other network than the one it's on, a blind spot for devices that are used in locations you don't manage.
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  This. Every few months I think that I should get an iPad as a light weight browser / video player alternative to traveling with my awesome new (but heavy and large) MacBook Pro. I am all in on Apple's ecosystem and so it makes sense, but then I think of not having uBlock Origin and I recoil in horror as I remember why I don't browse or watch videos on my iPhone.

hnbear 5y ago

“ She uses her computer daily for banking, email, online shopping, browsing, printing, writing documents, etc.” So, just a browser then. This feels like a very common use-case, but it’s not like Linux is tailor made for it. Any basic OS will handle it. Chromebook would be ideal and even easier to setup and powerwash where necessary.

cortesoft 5y ago
Isn't that kind of the point, that most people don't use enough stuff to make it matter?

DantesKite 5y ago

I suspect the Steam Deck will help chip away at Windows dominance over the long run. Not at first. It’ll be a slow transition. But it’ll definitely be the beginning.

sidm83 5y ago

My mum had started using a desktop at work (Windows) for the first time in the mid 2000s (she was ~50 at the time) which was used for basic work like creating / editing documents / spreadsheets and emails/browsing. She used to find it challenging to use and usually got her work done by subordinates. Around 2008 I got myself a new personal laptop and gave her my old one (2003 compaq, setup with Ubuntu) and taught her basic usage during a short trip to home. She picked it up quite well and managed to do all her work on her own, and even used it for general browsing. She continued to use it till around 2015 when she retired and decided to live with us. It functioned just fine even then without slowing down like a typical windows machine, even though the battery had basically become useless and it needed to be plugged on to be used. Recently we emptied our old home (set to be sold) and she got that laptop back. It still functions the same way, though she has no use for it now as she's used to smartphones/tablets so its set to be donated.

northisup 5y ago

i'm confused, which of those years is the year of the linux desktop?

8K832d7tNmiQ 5y ago

I found out that offloading any windows softwares I need to other PC and use remote desktop to use it is the best of both worlds instead of trying to run it on linux

r_hoods_ghost 5y ago

As an article this starts well but descends into the usual denial of commercial reality you see from Linux enthusiasts. The reason why you can get your 70 year old mother, or my 75 year old father in law to use Linux is because for their use case it is good enough and the best operating system is the one that a) meets your needs and b) you are used to. For me that is Windows. It could be macOS (except for games), but it isn't, because I'm not used to it so find it frustrating. It can't be Linux because I do a lot of intensive image manipulation, digital sculpting and CAD and frankly gimp et. al are terrible compared to photoshop, Zbrush is a none starter (yes Blender is good, I develop addons for it, no it's not a replacement for zbrush), fusion360, catia etc. not a chance to get them working properly and the open source alternatives are like going back to the 90s. The idea that major games companies should spend 10s or 100s of millions to develop games just for Linux isn't commercially viable. I mean why would They do this? They don't have any kind of emotional investment in Foss which is the only real motivator. They would go broke AND they would get attacked by every other Linux user because the game wasn't free (as in beer and as in speech).

throwawayboise 5y ago
Relatively few people do intensive image manipulation requiring photoshop. If an iPad or Chromebook is good enough (and for many people, it is) then a Linux distro with a sensible desktop certainly is.
mariusor 5y ago
You seem to be blaming linux users for vendors' lack of interest in launching the software you want for the linux platform. It's not their fault. Nobody really expects Adobe or Epic to launch their products just on linux, but in today's age when a game gets shipped to multiple platforms and Photoshop has OSX and Windows versions, what's one more platform to add to the build matrix? Granted linux is not exactly a single uniform platform, the market is small, and the users are the most vocal about submitting issues. However Valve proved it can be done, and other vendors are just hiding their laziness with "market share" excuses. And to your last point, to my knowledge nobody is really up in arms against Valve because "closed source" because if you want to support a open source OS you inadvertently contribute to the ecosystem one way or another, and their work with Proton and flatpak and Steam OS is more than worth it. Edit: I guess I should have read TFA before replying to you, but as a linux user of almost 20 years I disagree with some of the fringe opinions in it, as you can tell from what I wrote. :D

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

On YouTube some years ago, there was a kid in Australia who made a series of videos where his Mum would try a different OS in each episode. IIRC, most were Linux distributions. With respect to computers, people can learn to use anything. With computers, most people exercise little choice. Most do not care about computers or software (i.e., they are not like you, dearest HN reader). These things are just a means to an end. They learn what they are forced to learn to do what they have to do. I once read the majority of "smartphone" owners do not even install any "apps". This sort of indifference is not something the "tech" crowd will ever acknowledge, but that does not make it less real. There is life outside of "tech" hype, lots of it. In the 1980's I watched many people who cared nothing for computers (i.e., not people like you, HN reader) use text-only programs to get things done. The lack of obsessively manipulative "UI" did not stop anyone from using computers back then.^1 Unlike today, not everyone had to use computers. Those that did used what they were forced to use. 1. I reckon it wouldn't stop them today either, if that was what they were forced to use. But we will never know. For a fun example of how things might have turned out differently, check out this Netflix series from 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniac_(miniseries) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniac_(miniseries)

droidist2 5y ago
> On YouTube some years ago, there was a kid in Australia who made a series of videos where his Mum would try a different OS in each episode. IIRC, most were Linux distributions. Yeah, I quite liked those videos. This is the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRjXNz9JNSuE8n-Oej4Rflw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRjXNz9JNSuE8n-Oej4Rflw

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jillesvangurp 5y ago

My father actually has an old laptop with Ubuntu that he uses exclusively to use its dvd drive; which is something he can't do with his Macbook Air. And he's about as clumsy with computers as you can imagine. I set up that laptop when the windows installation that came with it became so slow and obsolete that connecting it to the internet was just downright dangerous and irresponsible. The free update to windows 10 failed with some weird errors and after that, I just put Ubuntu on it and it was fine. My mother also used another old laptop with Ubuntu that was no longer usable with Windows on it right until she got her first iPad (which is awesome for people like her). The only application she ever used on that laptop was a browser. However, since she got her first iPad, she's the biggest Apple fan girl ever. And with good reason. They are very usable for people like her. However, for people with old crappy windows laptops, installing Linux on them is usually a massive upgrade. Hardware support can be an issue sometimes but mostly the old stuff is supported well enough. And it's not like getting a cheap new laptop with only 4GB is going to help people like that a lot in terms of performance. Crappy hardware like that is better with Linux on it. I switched out my own mac book pro for a linux laptop a few weeks ago. The mac broke and I needed a replacement urgently and the shiny new M1s were a combination of expensive and unobtainable in a hurry. So, I opted not to put money in getting an Intel based obsolete on day 1 replacement and picked up the cheapest windows laptop with 16GB I could find at a local store instead (700 Euro). I dutifully sat through the windows onboarding, which is ridiculously horrible these days. Just endless questions, nagging, and waiting. What a load of crap. After it finally activated, I rebooted it in disgust with a Manjaro USB stick, wiped the disk and I haven't looked back since. I've dabbled with linux on servers, in vms, and as a dual boot thing since the nineties (Slackware in 1995) but never really committed to using it full time as my primary driver until a few weeks ago. But it was always an option for me. I do mostly server and a bit of frontend development and spend a lot of time on the command line. All the development tools I use professionally are open source and actually run best on Linux. I've not used Microsoft Office since 2012, which is the last time I worked as an employee for a big corporation. These days, I do all my office stuff in a browser. Google Docs is good enough for me. Gmail & calendar work fine as well. I have zero need for native software for that stuff. I guess, if I ever needed it, I could use Microsoft Office 365 in a browser as well. In addition to that, I installed a variety of snap applications (slack, vs code, etc.). For photography, I've been using Darktable for several years on my mac and that of course works great on my new Linux laptop. If you are not familiar, it compares quite nicely with Adobe Lightroom in the sense that Darktable has way more features and capabilities. It's the opposite of Gimp vs Photoshop. The Darktable UX has gotten loads better with recent versions and its masking tools are fantastic. And it's a tool designed by photographers for photographers so it makes no compromises on quality. Lead developer Aurelian Pierre is doing some commercial work as a photographer and he is a hard core color theory and tone mapping nerd. And best of all, Steam works great on Manjaro and a lot of games that no longer worked on my mac are now usable again. It was really easy to set up and to my surprise Intel's Iris XE isn't half bad as a GPU and unlike my mac book pro, there is no thermal throttling. I was not expecting this laptop to be this good. This is the best laptop I've had since I got my 2012 mac book pro. And it only cost me 700 Euro.

jjav 5y ago

Same story here. My mom (in her 90s) has been using Linux since about 1997 or 1998. And here's the beauty: The interface is exactly the same today as it was then! This would be impossible to achieve with any commercial system where they break and change the UI and UX all the time. The setup is build on fvwm, mutt, emacs. All of them heavily customized to be minimal and simple. She's very non-technical, so the goal was to have a kiosk-like experience where everything is straightforward. But the most important criteria was stability, so once she memorized how to do something, it will never change. The browser is of course the most problematic one as that keeps changing, to endless frustration. I try to lock into extended support releases and keep them as long as possible but that's been the only difficult part.

petesergeant 5y ago

Mine too, for the last 10 years or so. She found some local IT guy who set her up with some random distro, provides in-person and remote support. Seems to work great. If she’d asked me I’d probably have just bought her a Mac.

Mikeb85 5y ago

Linux is super easy for users who only need a browser. Which is, these days, most people. Also incredibly easy for dev-things. The problem lies with certain proprietary software or ex Windows 'power users' who insist on doing strange things to their DE. Like people talk about changing config files and whatnot, I've never done that in a decade of using Linux on laptops.

mungoman2 5y ago

The problem with this is that you lock yourself to be the computer support forever. Problem with bank login? Bank won't be able to help, only you. Printer problem? Same thing.

asddubs 5y ago
do printer manufacturers actually help you if you're having trouble on windows? I assume you would either google it and figure it out, or post to some official forum and get responses by either people who don't work there or nobody. As for banks, everything uses the browser as a platform these days

stunt 5y ago

My parents use an Ubuntu PC for all their online banking on their saving accounts. My father knows how to keep it up to date and I help him to upgrade it to the latest LTS every 2-3 years. It's just a peace of mind, otherwise I will be paranoid about their online security. They still do usual stuff on their smart phone and their windows laptop. They can really use Ubuntu for all their needs at this point. I'm just too lazy to go there and install it on their laptop.

herbst 5y ago
This so much. The reason my family has no choice but running Linux is because I get peace. I still remember the regularity they found new viruses to fuck up their computers (15+ years ago). Hasn't happen once since.

mkarliner 5y ago

There is something inherently patronising about this statement. Is about older people or women that makes it remarkable? For what it's worth, I'm a 66 year old who's been using 'ix's since 1981. Is that remarkable?

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Lapsa 5y ago

btw I use Arch

bullen 5y ago

My son has been on linux TWM desktop since he was 3. Youtube and Java Minecraft!

xertopertha 5y ago

I am 71 and I have been using Linux-only laptops for 14 years. Pre-Linux days were the dark ages of my computing experience. I wasted so much of my life with Windows. I used to dread those untimely updates that used to ruin my apps and the data. I never seemed to have enough RAM or hard disk or enough processing power. A re-boot took forever. Regular fresh installation was a must. MacBook was a great improvement. But the flexibility and openness of Linux beat the pants off those. An ordinary cheap laptop with a fresh installation of Ubuntu flies like a bird. I never need to worry about big RAM or huge disk etc. I have created my own help files and ways of accessing all options and flags of commands and their examples with just a few clicks and key presses. I love learning new tips and tricks every day even though I know I will never master it fully. I don't waste time encouraging people to switch over to Linux. It is astonishing how much fear there is among even the young people to try a new operating system.

penjelly 5y ago

> is for some of the big game developing companies to release some of their biggest names on Linux only, with absolutely no support for Windows no game company could ever justify this, their primary goal is profit, not Linux adoption

gregors 5y ago

I set up a linux desktop for my mom and at some point she told me "I have a virus, I tried to fix it but it didn't work". Me: How do you know you have a virus? Her: It told me Me: Ummmmmm I go look. She'd get a "fix your virus" popup and download whatever sketchy .exe file, but it couldn't launch. I think I added a ad blocker at some point, but not having the ability to launch whatever random exe she inadvertently download was a huge win for me.

rabeener 5y ago

This post hit close to home. About 15 years ago, Ubuntu got decent enough to replace Windows on my parents PC. They needed to access websites and receive and send email, something Linux could definitely provide. No more worrying about malware or other Windows demons. Fast forward 15 years and their PC has been fully replaced by iPads with keyboard cases and iPhones. Yes, they are in a walled-garden curated by Apple but for the technical illiterate this is actually a good thing because the experience is seamless across devices. I’ve downloaded apps for all of their financial services and they've learned to never log in to a website when dealing with their banks which minimizes the risk of phishing. They use iOS’s native password manager to create unique passwords for all there sites, minimize password reuse risks. But most importantly, they know how to keep their devices up to date with the latest OS release without me having to do a monthly patch for them. Strongly recommend exploring this setup if you struggle with supporting your parents’ tech the way I did. Life is much better now.