Operating system recommended for clueless users

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A week ago a friend asked me to recommend a new computer system. His thirteen year old Mac was ready for retirement, but he couldn’t justify the cost of a new Mac for internet surfing, email, and occasional work with word processor and spreadsheet files.

He is a nice guy, and very bright about many matters, but not about computers. If anything related to computers can be misunderstood or overlooked, he’ll do the misunderstanding and overlooking.

It was an interesting exercise for me, because I hadn’t been approached for years with a similar question and because I think there are many, many users – perhaps the majority – who are like him. They succeed with their smartphones because manufacturers seem to have made smartphones virtually idiot-proof.

I realized I couldn’t recommend Linux anything, unless I wanted to visit him three times a week to keep the computer working. I also wanted to bend over backwards to keep him away from Windows. I haven’t used Windows extensively outside of a virtual machine for nearly ten years, but genuinely think of the OS as unsafe, bloated, inadequately maintained, perhaps regarded with private contempt even by Microsoft developers.

I then remembered the Chromebook, and with this recommendation accompanied him to a computer retailer. The salesperson wore a “Windows 11” t-shirt and subtly tried to steer him to a Win 11 box, but my friend left with a vastly less expensive Chromebook, and it seems to be working out well for him.

I am not a fan of Google. I assume – would bet money – that he is sacrificing privacy to use the Chromebook, that Google wants to keep him locked in to the Chromebook operating system. But, the big, big plus: I think Google has come up with an OS that is as idiot-proof as a smartphone. He can simply turn on and use his computer without worries about messing something up or being infected with malware. He almost CAN’T break it, at least not without a hammer or a spin in the washing machine. And I think this foolproof factor matters far, far more than visitors to a Linux forum like this might easily appreciate.

Do any of the rest of you have thoughts about recommending operating systems to the oceans of folk out there who are not technically astute?

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I have introduced Mageia to different friends of mine. They had little experience on Win, so their knowledge was very thin.
After showing them that “Home” was the place where their documents etc… were stored and explain the use they made with LibreOffice Writer and Calc, instead of MS-Word and- Excell, they went on. Same for Thunderbird.

I installed Teamviewer (or Anydesk), so I could help them from distance if necessary. But all in all I had not much to do for them once they got rolling. Most helping/explanation I had to do was about printing, telling them what options to use and - most usefull - what not to bother about.

Most of those people know very little of Win, knowing as much of Mageia is no stumble block.

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honestly, idk what you’re talking about. there’s nothing these people you called clueless or not technically astute would ever want to do that messes things up in any way. the people who only need to browse the web, emails and word processing will… only do that, you answered yourself. in this respect kde plasma would be virtually the same as windows, indistinguishable for an unaware user.

i switched my mother, who’s kind of akin to your guy here, from w7 i think to manjaro kde many years ago. haven’t heard any complaints. granted, obviously i do some occasional admin work for her, but i used to do it on windows too, it’s not os specific, it’s user specific. but generally speaking she’s fine on her own.

so, to reiterate, i think it’s a huge misconception that linux is somehow inherently harder. when there’s hardware-, software- or workflow-/purpose-complexity involved, maybe, yes. but not for generic tasks.

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I would consider Linux Mint. Works straight out of the box with printer and network configured and connected. Simple and clean Cinnamon desktop.

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I was going to suggest Mageia also or a good Plasma 6 Distro. I ran Mandrake, Mandriva then Mageia since 2001, and was doing everything with Mandrake by 2003 or so. In about 2018 I finally went distro hopping looking for what I’d use if anything ever happened to Mageia. I switched to Tumbleweed in mid 2023 for the newest Intel ARC graphics drivers.

In 2011 I bought my wife a new laptop. I was always having to go figure out what was going on with it and I’m very familiar with Windows having used nearly every version from W3 to W7.

I finally put Mageia on her laptop (2012-2013?) and I didn’t have to go fix anything for her. She did have a problem with her NVIDIA GPU (upgraded to a desktop) so I put as RX580 in and that fixed that. Mageia just works, still today. I did do the major version upgrades for her. She could do it but I let her be lazy and just enjoy it.

To the OP, Mageia is very stable if you show them KDE System Settings and Mageia Control Center and the basic functions, they’d probably be ok. I’ve helped several people get started in Linux and I just explain that System Settings and Mageia Control Center (or Yast) are like Windows Control Panel.

If they’ve ever used Control Panel they’ll get it. Look around until you find what you want and the Search box in System Settings is a great help. And yes, some people do not know what Control Panel is and they have everything that they’ve ever installed-still installed. Of course, I’d get them on Plasma 6 so they don’t have to deal with a complete Plasma update for a long time.

I wouldn’t recommend a Chromebook except as a last resort which may be where you’re at. Still, I think if you’d have given them Linux with any stable KDE Distro) they’d find new stuff and explore it out of curiosity. They may enjoy the Linux games even though they’re not all arcade type games.

Also, Windows doesn’t have anything to compare to GIMP or Krita without tracking it down and installing it. They may find their creative side if they have the patience to learn about GIMP/Krita enough to actually use them. But it’ll never happen with limited software, and the girl is 13.

In late 2023 I put Tumbleweed on a friend’s new machine that I built so he could have all of the software Linux offers. It boots Windows 11, too, for gaming, but he wanted all of the things you get with Linux. His son, who visits (30 years old or so), can’t stand Linux. And their Tumbleweed is set up really nice for a Windows user. I told his dad that if his son learned Linux just a little, he’d love it, but…he doesn’t know anything about Windows either.

I’m sorry that’s so long and you know your friend better than any of us. But I do think Linux provides opportunities that basic computer users miss with Windows (and Chromebooks etc). This is especially true with young people who may develop a real interest in a computer/OS if it’s useful in areas that they become interested in.

That girl may be a future KDE developer…you never know, but we know that’s not likely to happen now. Computers will be boring to her and she can do it on her phone anyway, so she probably won’t look at other options, at least not for many years.

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I did switch my meanwhile 86 year old dad to KDE Opensuse/Leap ~15 years ago and apart from the major version updates which I do things have been running smoothly, there smaller updates he runs himself via the GUI. There were some initial problems with the switch from Excel to Openoffice Calc but that settled quite soon.

My dad does not do any administration via Yast as there is no need for that.

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I look back fondly on BeOS, and how easy it was to use. Peppermint was very easy when I was just starting with Linux. It’s changed a lot since the former main dev passed away, though. Parrot Home was easy, too, although I didn’t use it as much.

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Thanks very much everyone for sharing your thoughts.

I realized after posting that I didn’t admit to myself part of my reason for not recommending “Linux anything” – I felt generous enough to offer feedback and accompany him to the computer store, but not generous enough to do configuration work. He wanted to see whatever he bought before wanding his credit card, and the retailer sold nothing with Linux installed. I would have had to install any Linux distro, and would have been amazed if he’d been able to operate it without problems. He really is a nice guy, and very savvy about some things, but I once had to help him install Telegram through Google Play. He hadn’t figured out how to do it himself, genuinely didn’t know he could.

I’m out of my pew, understand that what I’m writing about now is the professional bread and butter of many, many folk in the computer biz, but still: I think that we who frequent Linux forums underestimate how many millions and millions of users there are like my friend. I remember casual conversations of decades past in which colleagues told me that their computers “had stopped working.” Something in a Windows update or application install had gone wrong, and they’d simply given up, relegated the computer to the role of a paperweight.

I’ll see if he manages to break the Chromebook. If he doesn’t, then I simply have to give Google credit, as little as I may want to: they built a machine that someone like my friend can use, that is far less expensive and less likely to be infected with malware than Windows.

I’ve played with Mageia in a VM, think I ought to give it another look. If it could be bought pre-installed and is as unbreakable as a Chromebook …

(Question: and if he couldn’t install Telegram through Google Play, how could he use a Chromebook?!?! Answer: I’m not sure, but he’s told me that he’s happy with it, that it does what he needs it to do.)

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OK, stepping in a bit. I still have ~20 private “customers” that all run either Leap or Tumbleweed.

No matter how “clueless” (don’t like the qualification at all) they are, it all depends on how you support them. For only 4 of them I have ssh-access. The TW users rarely contact me. And the rest just runs their systems without issues. When they have more application specific questions, I often offfer them an hour of real life contact.

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