this is a topic i’ve been heavily involved with because i still consider myself to be someone who prefers using technology at a very beginner friendly level, plus it’s very good when a linux operating system makes you feel right at home when it has a modern desktop environment. this is why i really like gnome, its simplicity and usability is something available for everyone, for beginners and for a lot of other people, but if you had to, say, rearrange xfce or kde for someone who was an elderly person or an absolute beginner so that they wouldn’t have any trouble using linux, how would you do it? (screenshot is my current linux mint desktop, very simple and extremely user friendly!!!)
No, Gnome is a non-starter for being as mouse negative as it is. You are very heavily supposed to use Gnome with keyboard shortcuts and it will only sometimes begrudgingly allow you to use the mouse.
I also really want to kick the app drawer in the head. Why is it two operations deep? Why can’t it be sorted by category like every other Linux app menu?
I would go with Mint Cinnamon, increase font sizes or UI scaling, switch to the Cinnemenu because it offers bigger square icons rather than a tiny list, turn off a lot of its extra features, and put launchers for commonly used applications on the desktop. Configure updates to automatic, and otherwise sand down a few rough edges and I think you’re good to go.
Make it easy to change the font sizes, etc.
I setup an Ubuntu/Gnome laptop for an older person. When they asked me to make everything bigger, it took me like 20 minutes for a half-assed solution.
That’s part of the reason I switched to Debian/Plasma, although I haven’t replicated this experiment yet…
Is that a practical question looking for a real solution right now or is more of a philosophical question?
If the latter:
Tech should be approachable by teaching users and add safeguards, not by dumbing things down to a degree users stay dumb. Options should be easy to find, preview what they do, and always offer to restore defaults. A desktop for extreme beginners may even adopt an idea from gaming and have them do a tutorial section first. It may even double as a wizard of which accessibility features to enable for elderly users.
I’d made the default desktop wallpaper just some text that says “try typing man man in the terminal”
You have to remember older people grew up with computers that are pretty similar to how most of us use Linux. Mint, bluefin would be my choices for someone with lower tech experience.
