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.
Fedora kinoite for windows-minded users. Fedora silverblue for everyone else.
That’s what I’ve used for the old people I do tech work for and except for one who thinks Microsoft invented everything and nothing without MS branding is legit, they are all happy.
I would go for mint.
I want to suggest something immutable, but even when I use it, I have just had some issues occasionally or when trying to get the one off software here and there.
Of all the people in my family, even elderly, mint has been the easiest transition and I have very rarely needed to perform any additional maintenance outside of doing updates for them here and there.
These days I just install Aurora Linux for this kind of situations. It’s exactly how you described it. Haven’t heard complains about it yet and their tech service needs from me almost dropped to zero.
FWIW, you can install Win11 on unsupported hardware with a pretty easy registry edit to bypass the TPM check. I did it for my mom’s PC that lives 600 miles away from me, thus far with no issues.
If it has to be Linux, I’d recommend something that’s immutable and atomic on a platform you’re familiar with so as to prevent careless mistakes by technophobes.
Ubuntu Core, Fedora Silverblue, MicroOS from openSUSE are all pretty stable and have rollback if something gets borked. Unfortunately, nothing is guaranteed to ‘just work’. Good luck!
Windows 10 will still be usable after support ends. Security is the only concern, and not that big of one if you regularly back up. It may be a good idea dual boot with Linux on a separate drive while you hammer out the issues with whatever distro.
I personally think anything with plasma 6 will fit for interface coming from windows. Some sort of distro like Ubuntu or Debian that commonly has pre-packages in the wild would make sense.
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
Maybe SpiralLinux? It’s basically just Debian with a few twealks, but the btrfs+Snapper might come in handy if/when you need to do tech support.
If Mint is misbehaving that badly on that hardware I’d be far more inclined to blame the hardware. What is it?
Biebian
You didn’t even declare the hardware specs…
Regardless, Mint…
Any one of the uBlue projects is perfect for this use case.
KDE: https://getaurora.dev/ Gnome: https://projectbluefin.io/ Gaming: https://bazzite.gg/
Install and setup once, run forever. Immutable so impossible to break for a tech illiterate user, no package upgrades fuck-ups because updates are atomic and don’t touch the currently running system, are done in the background and are completely invisible for the user, great hardware support, based on Fedora. Users can only install Flatpaks through the App Store.
The only “maintenance” needed is a weekly reboot to move to the latest OS image.
As a personal feedback, I moved my gadget enthusiast but tech illiterate father on Bluefin. He can ruin a Mac in less than a few months. He can generate undocumented bugs on iOS by his mere presence. But somehow, Bluefin is still running perfectly after a year. That’s how robust it is.
thanks, I’m moving my mom’s laptop from regular fedora to aurora right now
Just go with Aurora (or Bluefin), that’s the way to go for tech illiterates. Most of these recommendations are 5 years out of date, like why recommend Ubuntu or Zorin, when those are almost the same as Mint.
I’ve had several things break in the process of getting Mint installed and updated on this machine
Like what? That doesn’t inspire confidence in the PC itself.
There were some broken package dependencies which I had to fix manually (a non-issue on my own device; a major red flag for this device). And after one set of updates, it needed about three tries to boot successfully (requiring hopping into recovery mode to smooth out the wrinkle - again, a non-issue if it were my own device, but…).
As best I can tell at the moment, it’s working fine with Mint installed. My concern is what happens next time something is updated or installed and I’m not there to resolve an issue.
Maybe something immutable, then. Solid updates, easy rollback.
What do you do when Windows crashes and you’re not there?
98% of the time when they’ve had a problem with Windows, they just needed to restart the computer. (It has been impossible to convince them that computers need a full shutdown periodically, and Windows doesn’t cope with ‘always on’.)
When it’s something more than that, they either have to find someone closer to help or wait until we visit. Doing tech support long-distance for people who can’t adequately describe the problem is a losing game.
Whatever you setup, also do a reverse ssh connection back to a PC of yours and forward ports for SSH and VNC-or-similar to local ports on your PC.
That way if it still boots you’ve got a way to fix it remotely and with reverse ssh they don’t have to do anything with port forwarding on their end.
TBH once Mint’s up & running and all those updates / dependencies are sorted.out, I’ve not had a problem with it.
I’m supporting a couple of people that don’t do updates, so it just stays static until I get there… when we arrive (ie for a weekend) I’ll do a full backup whilst we’re all catching up and then at some point I’ll do a full update and make sure it’s working again well before we leave.
Agree with the other point on enabling remote access - and also setup something (ie syncthing) to get their data somewhere else.
Debian Stable. Get it installed, get everything working right and configured the way this person likes it on a reasonable DE with default themes, and more likely than not, you won’t have to touch this thing for years.
The setup’s not necessarily for noobs, but if you’re the one doing the setup, you should be able to get it into a place where it will pretty much never break for them.
You should probably give them KDE or GNOME (probably KDE, as it’s more Windows-like and less my way or the highway than Gnome). As much as I love XFCE, it’s probably a good idea to give a layman a feature-heavy DE so that nothing is likely to be missing; also, it’s way too easy to accidentally delete panel items or entire panels on accident and a little annoying to restore things back to the way they were. KDE’s panels implementation mitigates these issues.
I’m currently playing around with Debian on an old laptop of mine. If I can get the setup to a place where it feels sufficient for me to take my hands off, it could be the answer for this other computer.
(Thanks for DE recommendations. It does my head in trying to keep straight which ones are suited to which uses.)
Linux Mint
Mint is the easy and safe choice and works fine for anyone who just wants to use their computer with minimal fuss.
Since tech illiterate people don’t really care what’s under the hood as long as it works, I would choose anything with Cinnamon desktop: Gnome is a little alien for newcomers, KDE and XFCE are far too easy to screw up if you don’t know what you’re doing.
If Mint doesn’t work well with you I would suggest either LMDE, stock Debian or the Fedora Cinnamon spin (in this order of priority)I would love if there was an atomic Cinnamon spin. Fedoras Atomic Budgie version gets close but I think I still prefer god old Mint Cinnamon. There is hardly stuff to simply break anyhow.
Yeah I have zero experience with atomic distros so I don’t feel like suggesting those, but I have seen good comments in this thread about those as well
