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!!!)
Elderly people in my family use Ubuntu (LTS) for over a decade. In one particular case, all LTS updates are performed remotely, without issues.
Auto update only critical and likely attack vectors (the kernel, network stack) and have them applied when shutting down, have visual hints that explain to them what each thing is and make it immutable.
Wallpaper?
Stolas from Helluva Boss
Yes
It’s actually a really fun cartoon.
OH BLITZY
Pls send me ur wallpaper (I fucking love stolas)
Those newfangled immutable distros might benefit them, since they’re unlikely to want to or care about modification, and it’s extra security.
Set up the web browser with a strong ad-blocker, maybe whitelisting YouTube since non-techy people are unlikely to know what to do if youtube throws up a stink about the adblocker.
Set up auto-updates maybe. For safety and such.
Otherwise make sure it looks like a dead ringer for whatever they are already used to (usually Windows) – Same background, icons in the same places and looking similar if not the same, panels set up the same way, etc. – This is easier with Cinnamon or KDE Plasma. Gnome… Even if you like it, it’s too different, yanno? Unless they’re coming from Mac, and even then it’s not the same.
P.S.: Lovely background of a gay bird prince. <3
I have both my parents on KDE with essentially the defaults. They came from Windows 7, so many things were familiar to them, like the systray in the bottom-right, the start-menu in the bottom-left and so on.
I mostly decided to go with KDE, because I use it myself. My dad can be extremely negative, so being able to tell him, nope, it works on my machine, often defuses the situation. But I also expected my parents to potentially want lots of little tweaks, which well, it didn’t happen.
They use a browser and a printer, that’s basically it. I have considered setting up an E-Mail client for my dad, and thought about setting up tiling window management for my mum, but done nothing so far. The OS could boot straight into Firefox and they would hardly notice.As such, I’m definitely fine with how little problems they’ve had using KDE.
One time, I noticed my dad had a million tabs open in the file manager, because that got updated to remember open tabs, and something he did, would always open a new tab in there. Another time, he had managed to create a second panel, which sat at the top of the screen wasting space.
So, it would be somewhat nicer, if he couldn’t do that stuff, but at the same time, it’s not really a problem and I learned computers by dicking around, too, so I really don’t feel like I want to lock that down somehow.A dumb thing he did one time, which he could do independent of the desktop environment, is that he deleted all the folders in his home-directory. Intentionally. He has this habit of cleaning everything up, completely disregarding that he has like 99% free storage space. Again, he doesn’t really use much beyond a web browser, and he didn’t find out about hidden folders, so the only real effect was that his wallpaper disappeared.
I don’t think that’s the answer you wanted, but yeah, I would not want to lock them down to prevent this stuff from happening, unless it really becomes a problem.
For elderly people, an interface with options to have big icons and accessibility options would be very helpful; and accessing a program should take no longer than 4 clicks via mouse, or 6 keyboard keys.
GNOME interface succeeds well in that, as you can click Super key and be able to search between all the existing apps. Or the top left Applications menu could be used to browse through all programs.
For beginners in tech; GUIs for installing programs would be a big help. New people might see writing console commands for installing programs complicated, compared to other OS’s show their app stores in a visible location. Also do not make users search for graphics drivers.
Most of my family run Linux.
My parents run Linux Mint. It’s simple and looks like Windows. The only thing they need is a browser and LibreOffice.
Some other family members are using ElementaryOS.
The majority of PC users are IT illiterate. They have no idea what the difference between Windows and Linux is or the difference between Chrome and Firefox is.
“This icon is your browser. You know, where you can access the bank. And this icon lets you write documents”.
There was always issues when family members was running Windows. Haven’t had to fix anything after installing Linux instead. Some doesn’t even know they are using Linux. I just said I updated their PC 😅
I ran eOS for years. Something about it just seems…slow? Or maybe just behind. I found over time I was fighting the operating system just as much as I was Windows. But that may have been my own fault, as it was my first serious long term flirt with Linux
A wallpaper with Stolas incentivizes me for sure, but unlikely for beginners or elderlies, unless they like Stolas also.
yes it does incentivize me but that’s just a proof of concept, well not really it’s just vanilla linux mint which is user friendly lol!!! lol that’s my favorite show btw, but if i had to make the distro usable for older people, i would put a landscape picture as a wallpaper
I stopped liking gnome. Let’s say you try to launch a wine game and it just doesn’t launch. There’s no icon to right click on to find out which wine profile it’s launching from. The quick launch icon is just there, teasing you and not doing anything useful.
I can right click on a desktop icon in KDE and do something useful with it. KDE has gotten better. It’s no longer super buggy on Wayland with Nvidia.
I agree.
I used to love GNOME in the v 2.0 era, but after 3.0 it’s been a whole shit show.
Linux Mint, just ensure the hardware is 100% supported.
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.
Adopt windows file system with letterer partitions as the root. Plus most people who use computers are used to this paradigm already. Who ever came up with Linux’s file system has poor organization skills
MOST people use smartphones before they use PCs and none of them have drive letters. All use a unix-style structure internally and just hide this fact through abstraction layers. Not one chose to show drive letters.
I don’t agree. It’s just because you’re used to drive letters.
I think Linux filesystem is better organised. Everything is (almost) well organised in the right folder.
It might be nicely organized but coming from windows the abbreviations can be downright confusing. For example:
- /bin; recycle bin?
- /etc; other files (etcetera)?
- /home; okay, this is where I can find my own files
- /media; music and pictures? USB drives and CD’s?
- /mnt; no idea but also USBs apparently?
- /root; wait system admin has his own files?
- /sbin; super recycle bin?
- /usr; wait, also where I can find my own files?
Sure, this might be hyperbole and Windows has its own problems, the two different program files folders coming to mind first. But when you come from an OS where system folders are words instead of abbreviations Linux can be really confusing, especially if you are not that tech-savy.
I agree with you and the confusion which may arise with linux file system’s nomenclature if one isn’t used to it. However how many non tech-savy people would venture outside of /home? In my experience, a lot of people I know have no idea of what C: is and usually browse trough the usual documents, music, downloads and so on; in this case a user’s home folder would virtually give them the same experience. If someone wants to go a little bit deeper, at one point has to understand that we are talking about different OSes and cannot expect everything to be 100% the same and should start learning what those differences are.
Also, nowadays the situation is even worse because young people don’t even know what a file is. They just open the apps.
No, no, there’s /home and stuff you need not worry about
…wait. You forgot /dev
This would fundamentally break the Unix/Posix functionality of layering file systems. All containerization would break. You would lose the ability to map in one filesystem’s content within another’s. I don’t think the right way to get people used to Linux is to fundamentally break it.
File managers - even the dogshit one you get with Gnome - already register external storage devices in a list that’s shown no matter where in the file system you are. Assigning a drive letter doesn’t clarify anything. What beginner/grandpa is even looking at the contents of the FS root?
Mint/elementary are good if on windows 10/Mac respectively
What I would say is what is your reason for converting people, because you’re going to end up as permanent tech support this way when they’d have probably been fine with a Mac or something
Something that automatically updates. Despite my best efforts my mom still has me update her Mint install.
Pop!_OS has an option to enable automatic updates.
Then I gotta teach my mom to use modern GNOME. That sounds like hell. It’s fine for younger people but for old people who are familiar with Windows it’s a nightmare.
That is true. The upcoming Cosmic DE, however, can be customised to look more Windows-like I believe.
