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adrianhooves @lemmy.today

how would you make a linux distro for extreme beginners in tech and elderly people??

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!!!!)

92 comments

  • As someone who used to sell computers to elderly and people who are generally non tech literate, as well as ran computer literacy courses;

    ChromeOS + something like flatpak. I don't think anything else will really work in the current linux world. Holding on hope for Cosmic based DE.

    A Distro must have

    • Easy AND reliable DE. KDE has been way too buggy and gnome has been way too hard for my parents to use. Old people often have an extremely hard time learning, it needs to replicate what they already know which is either going to be Windows or OSX most likely. Cosmic should be able to do both nicely when ready.

    Reliability is so fucking key here I can not understate it. The computer glitching out is entirely unacceptable. They will not be able to do any debugging nor will you likely be on call 24/7 to fix their issues. They also need security so you can't just "set and forget" either with no updates in a false sense of stability. Older folk copy and paste shit. Permissions and stability is key here. Flatpak has a lot of potential but it's not there yet.

    No real time AV really hurts here.

    • Extremely strong app selection with either android or wine app support. Wine is the most preferable. A lot of people are reliant on windows programs for things like tax filing and all sorts of stuff like crochet software and what not. Android apps however can often be good enough and are extremely simple so with a little help, and you will need to help, they can get by with android app support.
    • A11y, screenreaders, OSKs, maginifers etc. We need all of it if we want to fit the "generic elderly support"
    • Good performance. Elderly people do NOT like updating systems, Their systems will likely be old. And well they are old too. If a system is slower then what they are used to, and generally non responsive, they may think the bloody thing is broken. cough cough gnome cough cough

    I genuinely do not that that any DE let alone distro is an acceptable daily driver for "general people" because general people have such a wide variety of use cases and needs. Some folk need crochet and tax software, some folk need CNC software like stitchfiddle, Some need magnifier glasses and speech to text. and man, this is only the more common of things i've seen.

    Remeber folk, a PC that does 99% of what people generally need, does not mean that it will fit the needs of 99% of people. Here is hoping to a bright future, but I don't think it will be a close one.

    • No real time AV really hurts here.

      Nowadays, simply having a browser with ublockOrigin is enough to have them avoid nearly all of those dangers. Also set the browser to always block notifications, I've had 3 different family members asking me to remove a virus, which was just Chrome notifications from sketchy sites showing up nonstop on windows.

      • I also see a lot of people that come in to have their PC's fixed because of "viruses" that I am able to make go away by just turning off browser notifications. Which I also just install uBO or uBO Lite on almost 100% of browsers on PCs I work on (even if not related to the task at hand). Also I disable lots of the notifications for browsers and other programs in the Windows 10 and 11 notification settings.

        Though I have been seeing an uptick of fucked up malware browser extensions that set themselves as "Your organization" policies that are getting harder to remove. In most of those cases I have found that they replace the shortcuts for the browsers to first launch shit from a self-reinstalling location in the root of C drive and/or in AppData. Shit is very frustrating. Mac OS also has some motherfuckers of hijackers that are even worse to get rid of.

        Aside from those, the really fucked notifications come from the AV programs that can't stop themselves from freaking out users. Like even if the user has for some reason paid for every single up-sell because of those notifications. They still show them shit like "You MIGHT be infected." Though seeing those things have been great for me to point out how the user should actually cancel their subs since at that point it is just scare tactics and adware (which slows shit down).

      • this is not true. SO many people will download and install whatever. I still get my old customers calling me up for help because they installed some registry cleaners promising to increase their performance by 5x

    • Even as a (tech literate) teacher who wants to employ Linux, the lack of compatibility (using wine) with a lot of enterprise type programs and the general hodgepodge that Libre Office is, and the memory leak mess that Only Office is, I just can't stick to Linux for long. I end up using tiny10 to use a reliable unbloated windows that can run my office 2016 and enterprise apps. Microsoft is just so entrenched and heavily serviced by thousands of people that it's a slow climb for Linux distros to get anywhere.

      The idea of elderly people using windows only programs on Linux using the compatibility layer just seems liable to multiple potential failures.

  • 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.

  • 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

  • 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.

  • 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

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

92 comments