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I have been trying for about a month to get my parents to move to Linux, after my mom got an automatic update that bricked her computer [1]. I've tried very ha

• NicoJuicy 1y ago
  I always try to convince people that by staying in the same thing for longer, eventually they will need to switch and everything will be much harder. The brain needs to stay flexible. Good luck
• quamserena 1y ago
  Meh, Linux Mint has some serious rough edges from my experience. Suspend doesn’t work if multiple users are logged in, save-as dialog windows open under the current window (a 7-year old bug!!!) [0], audio devices are not shared between users, some drives don't mount on boot, etc. These problems are probably fixable if you have the know-how but it isn't great for the tech illiterate. That being said, I have never had kernel panics or opened my computer to find a corrupted OS after a bad update (unlike Windows), so there's that. [0] https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk/issues/137 https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk/issues/137
  • ekianjo 1y ago
    > save-as dialog windows open under the current window (a 7-year old bug!!!) This probably does not affect everyone because I have never seen this issue in Mint
    • tremon 1y ago
      I've seen this same behaviour in Wine (of all things): Installshield messageboxes regularly appear below the install progress window, making it appear stuck. It's so common that the first thing I do when installing anything is to move the progress window away from the center of the screen. Not using Mint though.
      • mafuy 1y ago
        I also do this, out of habit from my Windows days, where this bug existed, too :)
  • tombert 1y ago
    I am not sure my parents have ever had multiple accounts on any of their computers, so I don’t think that particular suspend bug would be an issue, and I haven’t encountered the save as dialog bug, though I don’t dispute that it happens (I just don’t run Gnome or Cinnamon anymore). Even still, even if it does require a tech-literate person to fix, they have access to that by me, and I can likely fix it for them in a few minutes with tmate or something, as opposed to Windows Update bricking the computer, which required basically an entire day from me to fix. Oh, and if an update does cause an issue, Linux has competent snapshotting tools because they have filesystems that didn’t coexist with dinosaurs and as such if something breaks a fix is a reboot (and probably a twenty minute phone call with me) away. On Ubuntu if you install ZFS on root you can configure it to take an auto snapshot before updates, for example.
• grogenaut 1y ago
  I couldn't get my spouse to try till her computer died, I installed it and said try for a day, I had to use linux to fix the computer (not a lie). See how it goes. She's a gimp wizard now (odd sentence). And very flexible on oses. The only killer app for her is excel on windows. "mac excel is crap". yes honey, yes it is.
  • XorNot 1y ago
    Has she tried LibreOffice Calc?
    • grogenaut 1y ago
      yes, it's not excel for windows. it's different. if she's hitting those differences she might as well a) run excel in a vm or b) learn another tool like sheets that's more acessible/sharable, or python. it also doesn't work with some of her old workbooks or with her mom's copy of excel
    • Too 1y ago
      Have you tried LibreOffice Calc? It’s so quirky and different from proper Excel. I would never recommend this to a family member, no matter how much better Linux is to Windows. In fact, the office suite is probably the only reason I might consider not recommending Linux. I mean, it gets the job done but nothing is convenient. The UI looks like a Christmas tree and still everything you need to do is found several sub-menus down in confusing dialogs, like in Excel pre-ribbon times. And for the love of god, please don’t say that ribbon spoiled everything, that discussion was boring even 10 years ago. Since then, state of the art has evolved beyond that. For small scale household data, the web version of excel is good enough and has an easier UI. For larger scale, duckdb and some python.
      • XorNot 1y ago
        > Have you tried LibreOffice Calc? It's my daily driver ever since... > ribbon spoiled everything
      • mafuy 1y ago
• ekianjo 1y ago
  You don't need to get their permission. Just install Linux (mint or any other flavor) and they will get used to it. Did this for a bunch of family members and after a few weeks of transition nobody ever complained after
  • barbs 1y ago
    Agreed. Find a distro that most looks like their current setup (maybe Zorin OS?), customize it so it has all the app icons and bookmarks etc in the same position as their Windows set up, and just leave them to it. If you don't want to be sneaky about it, just install it next time Windows craps itself.
  • tombert 1y ago
    I live several states away from them, so unless I manage to sneak in some elaborate KVM switch and abuse it in the rare time my mom is plugged into her desk, I don’t think that’s viable. I suppose I could do it when I come down and visit when they’re not looking, though I think they would be pretty pissed if I did that.
    • netsharc 1y ago
      How about having Linux in a VM, for them to try out... Hah, one could lie and say "Inside this window called Virtual Box is what Windows 12 will look like, it's a chance to learn it!".
      • tombert 1y ago
        I'm not going to lie to them, they're not children and they're not idiots, they would figure it out pretty quick. If I installed a VM for them, they would use it exactly once, right after I installed it for them, and then never again.
        • netsharc 1y ago
          My suggestion is not completely serious. Heh, "not children" but you complain about having to coddle them and their childish incapability/unwillingness to learn. Meh, enjoy your problem.
• righthand 1y ago
  Do the ultimatum or force them onto it. They will thank you later.
  • lstodd 1y ago
    Just force. Install linux and find an excuse like you'll do windows next week because reasons. Works wonders.
  • tombert 1y ago
    The problem is that even if i did manage to install it on their computer, I don’t think they would just get used to it, they would bitch at me and then just go to Best Buy and purchase a new computer.
    • righthand 1y ago
      I would make a back up of their Windows. Force onto Linux, train them. Make all the icons obvious and look like Windows. Pin their most used applications. Let them run for a bit and see if they request Windows. You have the backup so they can always go back. I bet she never buys a computer.
      • tombert 1y ago
        I'm not going to lie to them, I think that would be wrong and try and tell them it's actually Windows, though if I were upfront and just made the icons look like Windows that would be ok. Even with the default Cinnamon icon styling, if I put Chrome on the desktop they'd figure it out, but even if I were to somehow objectively prove that OnlyOffice or LibreOffice or Calligra or <insert Linux office application here> are better than Microsoft Office, unless I can get the desktop version of Microsoft Office working on there I'm pretty confident that they won't go for it. I recently tried to get my mom to use the PWA of Word online, and she said it was "worse" than the desktop version but refused to elaborate as to why. I know I sound like I'm being harsh on my parents, but it's not like they're stupid or anything. They have spent the last 30+ years using Windows and Microsoft Office, I don't blame them for relying on the tools that they have spent the last three decades learning; I use command line tools that have existed longer than I have [1]. I do understand the stubbornness even if it does drive me a little crazy. [1] Yes I know that GCC and Emacs and tar and grep have gotten updates since they've been released, but so has Windows.
• bee_rider 1y ago
  “I switched to Linux years ago, and don’t really know Windows 11. Good luck!” Your parents are adults, they can make their own decisions and deal with the outcomes.
  • tombert 1y ago
    Easier said than done. I love my parents and ultimately I do want to help them when they’re stuck with stuff, and I know if I the situation were reversed they’d do the same for me.
    • SoftTalker 1y ago
      You are assuming they're not doing it deliberately. A lot of old people have figured out that you can get other people do do stuff for you by pretending you don't understand it yourself.
      • tombert 1y ago
        I genuinely do not think they are doing it deliberately, at least not at any conscious level. I guess I don't know their inner psyche but I genuinely think that when they ask for help it's because they feel like they need help.
    • bee_rider 1y ago
      Are you actually good at Windows 11? Are you really helping them as much as you could be that way? I don’t think I could help somebody set up modern Windows. If I help someone with a computer, I’m telling them I’ve got it into a reasonably usable and safe state. With all the spyware built into a modern Windows system, I don’t think I could be confident there.
      • tombert 1y ago
        I mean, I'm not "good" at it exactly, but a lot of the old Windows XP terminology still applies (e.g. "run", "dxdiag", "device manager"), and I have a bit more intuition about computers than they do, so I can usually brute force a solution to their problems. I don't have any non-virtualized Windows computers in my house, so it is always me figuring it out, but I generally am able to figure stuff out quicker than they can. I agree with your point though, and I've tried explaining that to them; if something is broken on your Linux box I can get you to send me a tmate URL and I can likely fix any problem you have quickly just because I am much more used to it. At some point I probably should try doing the ultimatum.
• 4b11b4 1y ago
  You can find a story that sells it
• bsder 1y ago
  Install Linux, call it "Windows 11" and blame everything on Microsoft and AI? Unless they've got a genuine Windows app that they need, you might be able to get away with it...
  • tombert 1y ago
    I'm not going to lie to them about this. They're not stupid and even if they were that would be wrong. Even if I did do that, I'm quite confident that unless I install the desktop version of Microsoft Office, they would never go for it.
• ojbyrne 1y ago
  We gave our parents an iPad for Christmas. Now they have two and never turn on their computer.
  • tombert 1y ago
    I could probably convince my mom on that. My dad still writes a fair bit of code (GNU Octave, mostly), and so an iPad would be a decided downgrade.
    • Scrapemist 1y ago
      MacBook Air then
      • tombert 1y ago
        Yeah, I think I'd be more successful with trying to convince them to move to a Mac.
• mindslight 1y ago
  If their use is mostly web-centric, get them a second device with Linux on that. Then when Windows has problems again, the value proposition starts to become clear and it's sitting right there ready to use.
• antonvs 1y ago
  > [2] If anyone here works on Windows Update, please consider a career in literally anything else. Software development clearly isn't for you. There are many other positions out there and I suspect you'd be better at nearly any of them than you are at writing software. I started the switch from Windows to Linux in 1999, so have no up-to-date firsthand experience. But, do you think the issues with Windows Update go much beyond the problems with updating arbitrary hardware running software that's in an arbitrary state due to how users have used it? What I'd say to those Windows Update developers is they should go to Apple, where they can rely on a much more standardized hardware environment and a much more locked-down software environment, which makes that job a lot easier.
  • tombert 1y ago
    To be clear, this wasn't some custom hack job computer or anything. This was a relatively cheap HP laptop that was just using OEM Windows 10. The hardware is about as vanilla as you get for a laptop. Linux has the same or even greater hardware diversity, and I have never had a Linux update so thoroughly break my computer as Windows Update did for my mom's computer recently. I run NixOS unstable, I run a system update daily, and while I have had packages break, it still boots after the update. I can say similar things about Arch as well, and I think Ubuntu LTS would be even more reliable. Windows Update is worse though, because since Windows doesn't have snapshotting in the same way that Linux can have with btrfs or ZFS or bcachefs, an update can fully just break the computer. If you install ZFS on root in Ubuntu it will take a snapshot after each update or even every `sudo apt install`, so even if I did have something break because of an update I'm generally able to get the computer into a usable state by rebooting an choosing something earlier. But even worse, Windows updates aren't really "opt-in" like they are with Mac and Linux. Windows Updates will happen accidentally or just in the background, as was the case with my mom a few weeks ago. As far as she is aware, she didn't choose the update, it just happened and then her computer was bricked. Importantly, Windows Update really only has one job, which is to not brick the computer it's updating, or at the very least provide an easy way to roll back if they do. Updates are important, we want security vulnerabilities patched ASAP, but if users are afraid to update out of fear of their computer being bricked and actively do hacks to disable them, then they have utterly failed at their job. I stand by what I said. Whomever works on it should be ashamed of themselves, and they should stop being software engineers because they are very bad at it. I have never used a piece of software that has more consistently caused headaches than Windows Update; I'm sure I've used software that was more crappily written, but a system update tool IS NOT ALLOWED TO BE SHITTY.
• tasuki 1y ago
  > but I know they would call my bluff and ultimately I would end up caving Don't bluff then! I'd been trying to recommend Linux to my family for many years with no success. I stopped, perhaps a decade ago. Some two years ago or so, my father decided he was done with Windows (updates, always trying to sell you something or another, etc) and switched to Linux. Now he keeps telling me how much better the Linux experience is. I'm rather amused by that, but also proud of him for having made the jump all by himself. (He's into astro photography, so he spent a lot of time with raspberry pi's and learned some Linux along the way. I guess that made his desktop switch easier.)
• fatata123 1y ago
  [dead]
• MattPalmer1086 1y ago
  I used to be Windows tech support for my family. But I have been on Linux so long now I genuinely don't know how to help them. So that burden has passed. I have enough problems with the Windows my son has that I can't fix. Hardware randomly working one day and not the next (but works fine on the Linux system). Having to reinstall when updates break the system. Strange blue screen error codes where there's really no useful info online on how to resolve. I've been making the case for him to switch to Linux now that win 10 is not supported and all his games will run on Steam on Linux anyway now.
• y0eswddl 1y ago
  can you set them up with dual boot to try it out? maybe they won't miss it once you get it setup for you them and then you can just 86 windows