
Even my mother can run Linux - ntnsndr
My mother, voluntarily and expertly, is now using Ubuntu Linux on her computer. The computer is a 2007 ThinkPad my uncle had lying around. Unlike her 2007 MacBook running MacOS, which is now incapable of updating enough to run modern browsers, her Linux rig is totally up to date and runs beautifully.<p>I really dislike feeding the stereotype according to which a young man referring to &quot;my mother&quot; presumes that an older woman must have technology skills that are edging around zero. In this case, however, the stereotype fits. My mother is brilliant, earned a PhD in medieval lingusitics, held a significant position at a major national cultural institution, and inspired me from a young age to be a blazing fast typist. She&#x27;s not a computer whiz by choice, because she rightly decided that becoming one was not worth her time. As a result, she has no interest wasting her life, as I do mine, by learning new programs or hacking around on the command line. For similar reasons, when her MacBook started breaking, she went to the Apple Store to replace it, but then returned it out of disgust for the commercialism of it all. So she asked me to set her up on an old computer running Linux. Today, we talked through how to use email on Thunderbird, and with a little bit of help she was able to get the old computer, full of nothing but community-created software, to meet her needs beautifully.<p>So, at risk of feeding the stereotype, it&#x27;s true: Even my mother can run Linux.
======
heyalexej
My parents are both ~60 y/o and run Ubuntu since roughly 5 years. I gave them
a crash course over the course of 3 days and my mother took notes on all the
things that she uses daily - spread sheets, word documents, images, browser,
Skype etc..

I've set up dynamic DNS and a few other things so I can help them if something
goes wrong as we live 12000 km apart. After a year I realized that none of
them ever asked me anything. So I asked my dad "Why do you never contact me to
help with the computer?". He responded: "Well, everything just runs!".

Before, with Windows, I can't even count the time I've spent fixing their
laptop.

~~~
silent_hunter
Hmm, my parents have a Win 7, I set their account to user level and gave a few
lessons on security and in the last 4 years I didn't have any complains
(except once with the printer which turned out to be because of a bad USB
cable), so go figure, I guess you just didn't know how to properly set up a
Windows system for basic users.

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redirectleft
I'm responsible for my sister, my mother, 6 coworkers and 13 friends running
Arch on their hardware, in various personalized configurations that took me
maybe 30 minutes each. I can push out updates and flag new software for
installation within seconds if they ask me for it and so far, I have not had
one serious complaint. Some use Libreoffice for their private stuff, some
appstream Office directly into a X window. Oh you don't like GNOME? Let me
install Xfce. It's perfect if certain use cases apply. My sister has had hers
for 6 years and counting, uses it for web browsing exclusively and only
complains when she cant execute nickelback.mp3.exe.

~~~
rgun
> I can push out updates and flag new software for installation within seconds
> if they ask me for it

This seems cool. Can you please tell me how you do it? Some links that I can
use to read up on it will do.

~~~
redirectleft
I'm sorry for not replying earlier :) Really, in theory this is very easy. You
need a command and control channel, but one that is secured and not abusable.
In the first years, I used a CRON job that would pull the configuration files
off a load balanced domain. Now, I've upgraded to a self made encrypted P2P
version which I really do not want to talk about. However, even if I were to
die in a horrible accident, all systems would remain like they are in good
condition. This is, like someone mentioned, due to custom repositories that
repond to each client uniquely, like someone here suggested. There's no magic
to be found here :)

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atmosx
That's a beautiful story congrats. The problems usually lie further down the
road. When she gets a new printer, will she be able to enable the scanner
without messing with the command line? If she's not able to get the printer
going, will the support, be it a friend's daughter/son or even professional
computer support in the neighbourhood, be able to help her or go like "I'm
sorry madam, this is an operating system we don't support" and so on and so
forth. That can get really tiresome after a while, so you end up fighting the
OS vs working with it.

That is the problem with Linux. Of course it's getting better and better but
it's not where OSX or Windows is by any means.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Actually you'll find that most printers and scanners work OOTB on Linux today
with minimal configuration using only GUIs. Do you actually use Linux?

~~~
akoster
My mother purchased a special all-in-one unit (brother MFC-8910DW) for the
purpose of printing very large PDF files with mixed legal and letter pages. On
windows, Adobe Reader + the printer driver handle selecting which paper tray
to pull from depending on the page dimensions in the PDF. But on MacOS and
Linux, I had no such luck (using both the built in PDF viewers and Adobe
Reader). I am unsure if this is a cups feature that is missing from the
driver, or some other limitation. Otherwise, the unit's basic functionality
worked fine(though I have the scanner set up so it emails a PDF file using the
printer's built in SMTP client). I was really hoping to get my parents on
Linux but between this issue and a program that my dad uses that doesn't run
on wine, I (for the time being) left them on Windows 7. (I had both of them go
out and buy new laptops in the last year or two since both prefer 17" screen
sizes, which seem to be going by the wayside and Windows 7, which was getting
harder to find computers with win7 oem licenses.)

------
digi_owl
In the end, complaints about Linux boils down to "i can't apply Windows (or
Mac) rote gestures on this". In particular with regards to "admin" tasks, that
from personal experience they rarely attempt on those platforms anyways.

Instead they grab the neighborhood geek (or should i say nerd, geeks seems to
be too cloud oriented these days) and pay with cookies or beer (depending on
age of said geek).

What seems to be going on is a mixed message of "hard to admin" and "don't
need to admin" (aka "just works" in Mac speak). Meaning that it is rarely if
ever about day to day "usage", but rather about being able to admin their own
system.

And frankly i think Linux have a leg up there, as things are actually
documented and in plain sight (at least until Freedesktop stuff and, their
fetish for using dbus for everything, gets their panties in a twist). With
Windows and Mac is it all too often some closed up blob going bad, involving
magic incantations found in some forum or blob somewhere.

~~~
blindluke
> In the end, complaints about Linux boils down to "i can't apply Windows (or
> Mac) rote gestures on this".

Would that it were so simple.

Unfortunately, there is also "I can't comfortably use my printer/scanner on
this". Some manufacturers still don't provide Linux drivers for their devices.

My mother uses Linux too, quite happy with it, but I had to buy her a new
printer.

EDIT: a thing I might add here is that I think that for the older generation,
a pre-configured Linux desktop can give them that Win95-98-XP experience they
want. Familiarity, as you said, is a key factor, and the Metro UI can be much
more difficult to get used to for people that put a lot of effort in getting
familiar with the 95-XP UI paradigm they used for the last 20 years.

~~~
u02sgb
Some, but not all. Also a new Printer/Scanner that is supported by Linux is a
lot cheaper than a new computer to run Windows 10 (and will always work with
Linux, unlike a printer/scanner that "currently" works on Windows). I use
Windows and Linux at home but I've moved my Mum to Ubuntu as I had less
worries about her getting taken over with Malware or RansomWare. Only issue
we've had is the photo management isn't as smooth but she's used to it now.

------
gargravarr
Much like others in here, I gave my mother an ultimatum. I was so sick of
maintaining Windows that I gave her the option of running Linux, or she could
have Windows but I wouldn't support it (ergo, she'd have to pay a technician).

After her old Acer Aspire One fell apart, I bought her a cheap Compaq 15"
laptop on Amazon for Xmas in 2014 and installed Mint on it. Since, as is
common these days, she uses a web browser more than anything, it was easy to
teach her how to connect it to wifi and launch Firefox. Since then, I've heard
zero complaints or requests for help. Linux JustWorks. I think she's come to
like the Cinnamon GUI as much as I do, too.

I also tried to get my sister to switch - she is a lot fussier, I got a huge
amount of resistance switching her to Win7 after XP went EOL since she prefers
the GUI. The difference here is that she uses a tablet PC (not a Surface, the
original spinning-screen + pen-based digitizer laptop style machine) which she
uses for drawing and artwork. To give her credit, she relented and gave Mint a
go for a week, with an XP skin on it (which was pretty accurate, all things
considered). Unfortunately she couldn't get used to GIMP and there were lots
of hardware issues, in addition to old Windows games that wouldn't run under
Wine, so reluctantly I put her back on Windows. Still, she at least tried it.

These days, Mint is my go-to. The Win7-inspired GUI is pretty easy to get
Windows-only people to learn, and it's up to date and reliable. As their
Windows PCs slow down and the OS degrades (I stil swear Windows has a built-in
timer for this purpose), I find that my family members are so keen to have
working PCs that they don't particularly care what OS it runs, so long as they
can find the web browser. I nearly Mint-ified my uncle's old well-abused Acer
laptop, until we discovered that nuking the Acer crapware made it usable
again.

Linux on laptops has come a long way, much further I think than any other OS.

------
sliken
Seems kinda silly, anyone literate can be taught the basics pretty easily.
Grandfathers and Grandmothers just require a bit of basics to get the basics
of web browsing. Before you know it they are attaching their cameras to send
out photos to friends and families.

My preferred setup is a dirt cheap chromebox, like the Asus for $150 or so.
Add 2 4GB dimms and install ubuntu LTS. Drag off all the crap icons for amazon
search, libreoffice, etc. Set it to automatically login. Make sure the browser
icon is easy to find.

I would spend some time saying that never give their credit card to anyone
without talking to you. Or print them out a whitelist with a red circle around
what to check for, like [https://www.amazon.com](https://www.amazon.com) or
whatever vendors you trust.

------
tianshuo
My grandpa,now 89, has been running Ubuntu on an old computer for more than
ten years(I remember it was 5.04 or something). No viruses, no malware. He
uses Picasa for photos, Firefox for online email and news browsing, with a
150% font. Many apps and websites are non-elderly-friendly -- they break when
using a larger font. His eyesight is getting poorer recently and uses Facetime
on his iPad instead. Maintenance is usually because he forgot to pay the
network bills, although these ten years I have upgraded both the hardware and
OS multiple times. My grandma sometimes complains that he is addicted to the
computer and tells me don't come to fix the computer. But grandpa will harass
me every day with phone calls until I come :)

------
Jan_jw
I don't know if it's just me or is everyone these days talking about dumping
their iMac and switching to Linux?

~~~
danieldk
It's just the HN bubble [1]. Apple's Mac sales actually increased in Q4 2016
compared to Q4 2015, amid further stagnation in the PC industry:

[http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3568420](http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3568420)

Since the MacBook with Touchbar has only been available since somewhere in
November, the new MacBooks are apparently selling quite well.

[1] Though it results in some nice threads that are so surreal that they must
be parody:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13379509](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13379509)

(I mean, no one can possibly suggest to a professional Photoshop user that the
solution to the lack of support for non-destructive editing is: 'make a copy
of a layer before you change it' or 'use git'? :))

------
wvh
I made a low-power system and installed Debian on it for my girlfriend's
mother some time in 2002-2003, who is in her seventies. She's mostly moved on
to a Macbook Air by now though. She's an intelligent person and really wants
to stay up-to-date on technology, to keep her brain occupied. It's having the
"will" to do something that matters, not the age or gender. I don't mind
stereotypes, there's usually some truth to most of them, but let us also keep
in mind people can break out of them at any time.

------
diegoperini
My mom and dad run Ubuntu too, without even knowing it is not Windows. It was
an easy transition since they never had the chance to fully adopt any OS out
there. Hence, they are able to manage all of them, when they are shown how to
launch the browser. I'm using a Macbook, there is another Windows notebook at
home. All feel the same to them, they say. They believe the UI differences are
due to my or my sister's choice of theme.

------
teekert
Nice, I'd like to do the same thing for my mother in law, she mostly browses
the web and import pictures and prints stuff from time to time. But then there
is this one thing, she used special software to print photo-albums which does
not run on Linux. As a result has a very slow Win 10 PC which frustrates more
than helps her. Maybe I can just buy her an ssd...

~~~
jbotz
Have you _tried_ running said softare under a recent version of wine or
crossover (a semi-commercial version of wine)? Rather a lot of stuff works
flawlessly.

------
aphextron
It seems more and more that the actual operating system is mattering less for
casual users, which is a big plus for Linux. Pretty much anything you need to
do on a computer can be done through the web browser now. As long as it can
run Firefox decently the hardware/OS doesn't matter much.

------
xracy
Here's a question. Currently I hate Macs (for the expense), and Windows (for a
number of reasons having to do with the OS).

But I have been questioning what the best flavor of linux to set up someone
who has little to no "technology skills", on. Does anyone have a good
recommendation?

~~~
glaberficken
I've been choosing Xubuntu for the following reasons:

\- It's based on Ubuntu

\- It runs better on old machines than Unity or Genome Ubuntu "flavors"

\- I can easily customize the TaskBar/Dock/"Start Menu" to feel like Windows
or Mac OS depending where the user is migrating from.

I've seen some friends go with Manjaro or Mint, but I think they both end up
raising more "support" questions than Xubuntu (I have no examples at mind now
to substantiate why though)

PS: If the user is migrating from Win XP also consider Lubuntu

~~~
theandrewbailey
Xubuntu is my distro of choice, for those reasons. One cannot understate the
usefulness of the Ubuntu base; it makes the whole ecosystem that much more
useful and maintainable. I even use it on newer machines, just for the speed.
I switched to Mint for a while, but when I tried Xubuntu again, they were
using wisker-menu by default. So I mapped the windows key to it, so I could
press it and start typing names of programs, just like Windows (a UI feature
they nailed).

------
meir_yanovich
My 9 old kid also using Ubuntu 16 on my old 10 years ibm laptop.

its magic , i carry USB disk with Ubuntu installation every where to save old
laptops ...

------
kalleboo
What does she use it for? Does she organize and print her photo collection,
edit some short home movies, write a blog? Or is it just a pure Netflix, email
and Facebook machine?

------
somecallitblues
But you should totally buy her a new computer for her next birthday. 10 year
laptop is a turd no matter what you put on it.

~~~
theandrewbailey
A 10 year old laptop probably has a Core 2 Duo. Put an SSD in it, maybe max
out the RAM, and its just as fast and useful as a new machine for a casual
user.

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pgt2art
that's a bold state, i mean it means linux is now equal to windows its even
safe to use by parents, thats an engineering achievement

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jenniferjoshwa
Nice. Technology has been improved alot

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mundanevoice
Great! Thanks for sharing.

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isolli
Here is why I can't recommend Linux (which I use happily) to my parents.

1) Every so often, WiFi will fail to detect and connect to my network, so I
need to type this command in a terminal:

    
    
      sudo iwlist scan
    

2) And every third or fourth time the kernel gets an update, I must manually
make space on the /boot partition by following the complex instructions here
[1].

So no, not for my parents, not yet.

[1] [http://askubuntu.com/questions/298487/not-enough-free-
disk-s...](http://askubuntu.com/questions/298487/not-enough-free-disk-space-
when-upgrading)

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Numberwang
Just don't expect wi-fi to work consistently

~~~
gtaylor
Anecdotally, I find the Linux wifi stack to be less of a hassle than Mac's for
decently supported hardware. I had all kinds of random wifi issues on my MBP.
Had to disable and reenable the interface or reboot.

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CyberFonic
Everybody who uses an Android phone or a ChromeBook is also using Linux. It
really is about the GUI that the average user interacts with.

~~~
gedrap
Technically yes. But then it's very obvious that this is not what this
discussion is about.

------
partycoder
Since Android devices, Roku and many other consumer products are based on
Linux, yes... everyone can run Linux, sometimes even unknowingly.

