I’m looking for recommendations.

I have run Linux on my own computers off and on for the last 10 years. I’m not an advanced user, but I’m comfortable enough playing around with different distros and settings to find a good fit for myself and my own devices, and problem-solve as needed.

But now with the end of Windows 10 looming, I need to upgrade a family member’s computer to Linux. This device is only used by people whose attitude toward computers is “if it doesn’t just work, it’s too hard and I can’t engage”. So this needs to be something that both is not going to break on its own (e.g. while doing automatic updates) and also won’t be accidentally broken by the users. As well as not being too steep of a learning curve for Windows users. (Their needs are uncomplicated - mostly just LibreOffice and Firefox, both of which they already use.)

Mint is often recommended for inexperienced Windows refugees. But I’ve had several things break in the process of getting Mint installed and updated on this machine. That wouldn’t be an issue if it were my own computer, but it’s not filling me with confidence that this is going to meet the ongoing “just works” requirement for this device. There’s no way I’m going to be able to handle long-distance tech support if things break more than once in a blue moon.

Which other distros would you recommend for this use case?

Thanks in advance.

  • boomzilla@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    17 hours ago

    Better install Windows 10 IoT and get support till Jan 2032. As a Bonus the, so I heard, best version of Windows 10 will probably phone home minimally to never, won’t rearrange your startmenu, won’t install Candy Crush again and maybe not reset settings so aggressively after updates. Can imagine stuff like news, wallpaper of the day or the graphics in the search bar is left out too.

    Find installation instructions here. Seems they’re inofficially tolerated by Microsoft, because it’s hosted on Github and the iso’s come from MS, AFAIK. I want to try it on Proxmox where I installed 10 with GPU pass-through recently. Using Linux for 8 years now after being a long time Windows user.

    IIRC they offer a way to install 11 without the hardware restrictions too on above site. I don’t know how the gaming situation on 10 (IoT) is and and how much Nvidia, AMD and Intel will still support 10 from now on.

    Edit: corrected send too early cut off sentence