Hello there. Was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for a Linux distro for grandparents? They are over 70 years old, with an old HP desktop and laptop running Windows 10. All they need is a Web browser, so no need for special software or wine to run Windows programs. Would preferably like something that is low maintenance so I don’t have to be constant tech support for them (apart from the initial install and setup). Thanks for any suggestions.

    • PetulantBandicoot@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
      2·
      4 months ago

      Thanks, I will put Mint on a USB, along side some others as well. I have fond memories of Mint, as it was my first distro.

      • Diplomjodler@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        4 months ago

        Mint is definitely the right choice here. I’ve had it in my main machine for about two years now and I’ve had zero issues. If I had to set up something for family, I’d 100% choose Mint.

  • AliOski@feddit.nlEnglish
    3·
    4 months ago

    Mint is the way to go. Easy UI, stupidly stable, relatively up-to-date, easy to fix problems.

  • ubinull@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2·
    4 months ago

    I installed hacky ChromeOS to my grandma’s laptop a few years ago. She never had issues with the OS itself, rather hardware issues. It’s easy to learn and ChromeOS is literally just a web browser, it’s not even useful for anything else. Though I would recommend you install something like Fedora Silverblue, Kinoite, or a distro from UniversalBlue instead. Container based distros are secure and hard to break.

  • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.eeEnglish
    2·
    4 months ago

    I know how this sounds, but (rolling) openSUSE.

    I have my parents and granparents on Tumbleweed, but I update it manually when I visit.

    I set them with a big macos style dock at the bottom of the screen and that’s all they need tbh (Firefox, Kmail, Office, Signal, photo gallery … that’s it).
    Never had any issues, but can’t complain much about Debian & Fedora either (I had them on Debian for like a decade, less than a year on Fedora, I think now 4 years on Tumbleweed), it’s just that it was a pain for me to upgrade them when the time came, so I wanted a rolling distro.

    However, if I ever have to set them up with a new PC (instead of constantly upgrading their rigs with old parts from my PCs), I’ll try opensuse.org/Aeon. Seems low maintenance & low extra config for my usecase.