Around a year ago my grandparents asked me to update their computers to Windows 10. One from 7 and one from 8.1. I couldn’t update from 7 to 10 so I just reinstalled directly to 10. The license was lost but grandfather didn’t mind that “activate windows”. And for office I installed libreoffice (or onlyoffice, I dont remember). On 7 he was using Chrome so I installed him Brave, which is similar enough and has an adblocker. He never complained about anything… until now.
Both grantfather and grandmother on the same day they got some notification (probably fullscreen, otherwise they wouldn’t even told me) about end of 10 and that they should upgrade. So I told them Windows 10 support is ending in about a year. I gave them 3 options:
- Buy a new computer for windows 11
- Use windows 10 without updates - more likely to be hacked.
- Try linux. As soon as I said “Linux” my grandfatger said: “Linux, thats something… lightweight… right?”. I’m a gentoo user and I forced my brother and sister to install linux but I never mentiond a word to my grandparents. I have no idea where he heard that. But I’m happy he did!
So the main question: What distro? I’m thinking of Fedora with Gnome. Something stable, modern, secure, and simple. Gnome is different, I know, but I also think Gnome is the simplest. Should I go with Silverblue or normal version? I will also definitely install rustdesk and make backups of windows. And I will first try liveusb so they can decide if they like gnome.
Edit: I’m currently trying to liveboot linux. I rebooted the computer and windows started updating…
Edit: I livebooted Fedora and Mint DE, they said they like Mint more so I installed Mint. Grandfather’s scanner and printer were detected out of the box with preinstalled apps, ptinter sadlly doesn’t work but that was also with windows - probably hardware failed. Now I’m Installing Brave for grandfather and uBlock Origin for firefox for grandmother. Everything good so far!
Fourth option is forcing the Windows 11 update through Rufus
I did this for a few systems, but it doesn’t do major build updates. I’m getting full screen “You need to upgrade” notifications on a few 21h02 machines now, yet Windows update says it’s up to date.
Yup! Security updates, but not build updates. You’re good until 23H02 goes out of support, then you’ll have to reinstall 11. At least, that’s what I understand. My 21H02 machines just never get the push for 22,23,24 etc major build updates.
For Windows user who don’t want to bother learning a new OS? Mint, no question. The latest releases are easy to install and configure, Cinnamon will feel familiar, and it works flawlessly on most hardware.
Mint, it just works.
You can set up automatic updates too, so they won’t end up with out of date software and possible security holes. The only downside is Firefox. If an update runs while your grandparents are using Firefox, it will stop working and show them a page that says it needs to be restarted.
It’s not a major issue in itself, but if you have any sort of memory issues, like I do and lots of older people do, it can derail your train of thought and cause you problems.
Can’t you setup Firefox to remember the last session and reopen the same pages upon relaunch without any user interaction?
Yes, that’s what it does by default. The problem happens when you open a new tab to search for something, for example, and the update screen and restart distract you and you forget what you were going to search for. It’s like the feeling you get when you walk into a room and can’t remember why.
This might be a good opportunity to try one of universal blue’s distros
They are kinda a “just set and forget” atomic distros, improving on Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite with usability improvements
I used to be in the “I prefer Linux but don’t have the time and energy to fight it when it doesn’t work” camp and would distro hop and occasionally go back to windows since the early aughts. I’ve been with Bluefin for a while now and it just works and I love the set it and forget it aspect. Also installed Bazzite on my Steam Deck.
Yeah. I think you can’t go wrong with either Debian or Fedora with Gnome. I would pick whichever I’m most comfortable with. The grandparents will probably never notice.
I love to give Gnome crap for being a large install, but I’ve lost count of the number of machines that I’ve put Gnome on and had it just work. And I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve searched for a fancy command line way to fix an annoyance in Gnome, and discovered there’s just a simple toggle in settings for what I want.
I am a Fedora fan, but I do think that they may have issues with needing to upgrade every year. I am currently holding off on a Fedora 40-41 upgrade on my school laptop until finals are done, just in case something breaks.
I’ve been on Fedora since about 32ish? And I’ve had a couple of times where the upgrade didn’t go smooth.
For grandparents, I’d probably lean towards Debian with Gnome.
