Any recommendations for a linux distro that i can set up and be reasonably sure my non techy SO won’t break accidentally? The set up doesn’t have to be easy it just has to not break once I leave her alone with it. My first thought was popOS.
My plan is to have 2 profiles and not give her access to sudo. I just don’t want to have to go into it unless she needs a new program.
Does she want this?
If so then just set her up exactly what you have so you can easily help when there’s a problem.
If not then get her the computer she actually wants.
It’s a no money and cant run windows 11 situation.
Consider 0patch before you give up on windows. They do good work and it’s real affordable.
No matter what you do, in this circumstance it’s worth keeping that windows partition around.
I do think whatever you use is the right choice though.
Aren’t there ways to patch the whatever-it-is that is “required” by W11 that older PCs don’t have so that you can bypass the check and have W11 on older machines? I feel like that’s a better solution than paying for Microsoft’s garbage, if one was bent on not moving to Linux
Consider 0patch before you give up on windows
Unless there’s a very specific application need, I think the most sensible thing would be to ditch Windows. Better for security, better for privacy, better for the world to increase the mainstreaming of Linux.
Yeah wouldn’t it be nice…
But the most considerate thing for the user is to help them use what they want to use. There’s also a real benefit to keeping ahold of that windows because people often have their own ways of doing things and it may be more expedient to boot back into 10 than to figure out how to complete some task in Linux.
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Any of them. Just don’t give the root password.
Set up Tailscale and an SSH key for remote tech support
Or just wireguard and ssh?
If you already have a public facing server for them to connect to then sure.
Might end up in dumb annoying situations like setting up wifi requiring root and such
That is not a thing in userspace. No idea what you’re even alluding to here.
Surprising amount of stuff requires root (or used to). It reminds me of this glorious rant from Linus from his less domesticated times (that he made on Google Plus hah). https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/linus-to-opensuse-devs-kill-yourself-now.30414/
The highlight:
So here’s a plea: if you have anything to do with security in a distro, and think that my kids (replace “my kids” with “sales people on the road” if you think your main customers are businesses) need to have the root password to access some wireless network, or to be able to print out a paper, or to change the date-and-time settings, please just kill yourself now. The world will be a better place.
Oof.
This is old as hell, and on a locked down account. You don’t need restrictions like this for a personal use machine, and a base install of any distro wouldn’t have this type of issue whatsoever. It is not a modern concern.
Friend, this is from my own system I’m running right now lol.
Oh wild, I thought “No way!”, but apparently yes way as I (Tumbleweed/KDE/Standard User) get all of this which I imagine would be disorienting to non-Linux users. Just going to Wi-Fi & Networking, not attempting to make any changes even.
Don’t have this issue on archlinux. I think there is a group, which if you are part of, you can change networking settings.
[moonpie@cachyos-x8664 ~]$ groups moonpie sys network wheel audio kvm lp storage video users rfkill libvirt docker moonpie
Then your account is not part of the proper groups to control NetworkManager as integrated in Gnome. That’s on you.
Friend, that’s KDE lol.
This is what I do with my mom and her boyfriend. I’ve had them on Linux for a few years now and neither have managed to break anything.
Fedora Silverblue.
Or really any immutable OS; they would have to go way out of their way to even edit system files, much less break the system. I just recommend Silverblue because gnome is really hard for an inexperienced user to break.
Debian is good at being basic, generic, stable AND has an automatic security-update-in-the-background feature
The whole amount of instruction to give to Dear SO is just to reboot the machine if it ever seems to misbehave
“Hello IT have you tried turning it on and off again?”
An immutable distro would be a good choice. They are distros designed to be more resilient against failure. For a gamer, bazzite is a solid choice; otherwise, silverblue.
Use btrfs snapshots. Bring the PC to a state that you like, make a snapshot. Then on shutdown set the profile to reload to the specific snapshot.
Any issues? Just restart. Might take a minute, but it ensures the exact same environment every time.
Doesn’t this mean that the system is never up to date? If so, please don’t.
Grub-btrfs is what broke my setup. Btrfs is what broke my backup. This was last week. Come again with btrfs if it gets stable.
I would like to avoid BTRFS at all costs if possible. But snapshots are definitely part of my plan.
Why? I have used btrfs for years and haven’t had any issues with it, it functionally works about the same as ext4.
Because ZFS exists.
Most distros don’t offer it as an option when installing afaik due to licensing, while btrfs is usually an option along side ext4
I’ve heard enough horror stories of BTRFS to just use ext4
Thinly-veiled bazzite shill thread
Why don’t you try to be useful instead? Is there anything wrong with Bazzite? Are there other distros that are better suited for what OP needs?
Honestly I’m not expecting much from ya. Though, I hope you can surprise me.
I honestly had never heard of it till I posted this. To be fair there are a billion linux distros at this point.
I honestly was expecting everyone to say mint.
till
Plough? Cash-drawer?
Explain how you can shill for a free product which makes no money?
I don’t use Bazzite, but I’m glad to see immutable distros being mentioned as they’re the only sensible option for OP’s use-case
Zorin OS is trending
Zorin is a good shout, but it’s definitely not “trending”, it’s been a staple recommendation for over 5 years now.
Linux mint is a good, “click first” distro that won’t break without root + will be easy for her to use. For something with a more modern desktop and more recent updates, Bazzite is really good at just working and (in my experience) has never broken
Bazzite might be what i go for the more i look at it. Thanks
I like bazzite!
Here’s the bazzite attempt at viral marketing, everyone.
Remember when we saw it for MX Linux?
Be careful about what you install on your computers.
You know the build scripts which turn Fedora Kinoite into Bazzite are all open on GitHub, right… 🤦
I mean it’s not perfect but what is?
I tried MX Linux for a while, it was okay. did I miss something?
I never mentioned perfection.
I hope people reading this can start to recognize shilling when they see it.
Dude you might be paranoid…
Nah. I just wasn’t born yesterday.
“Someone mentions a distro they like” ≠ shilling. I use Bazzite and have been for months. Before that, used Nobara, EndeavourOS, and vanilla Fedora, along with a number of others I tried when I was distro-hopping. Wholeheartedly believe that Bazzite is currently the best generally-available Linux distro for gaming and is up there for general use. It’s not perfect, but nothing is - it gets close for the use-cases I mentioned, though.
I tried mx for 7 minutes. it installed nvidia drivers and that killed it. off to the next distro I hopped, knowing the problem could have been easy to fix. shame, it seemed interesting.
Bro I’m the lead developer and I’m just now seeing this, just accept you called the viral marketing wrong.
We’ve grown to the point that when I market something, I tell people not to listen to me because I’m biased.
Its popular rnow because of all the handhelds I think
I have tried most known distros but not bazzite, yet. might be the next one on my distrohop journey since everyone recommends it. hope it works better than fedora kde, it does not get along with my hardware AT ALL
Semi-serious suggestion: Guix or NixOS. They’re not break-safe per se, but if they do break something, you can use the OS’ previous generations to go back to an operational state. Just… don’t let them use the commands that delete older generations.
(Semi-serious because they’re both not exactly mainstream and not eactly conventional in their setup.)
Yep, NixOS as a base + some Flatpak store for installing apps. In fact, use impermanence to just drop all OS state apart from logs, network settings and flatpaks. That way, “turn it off and then on again” will almost always work to fix the OS.
I’ve installed popOS to a couple of relatives, haven’t had anty issues for a year so far. Can definately recommend!
Any of the ostree variants of Fedora, be they Fedora Official or downstream ones like the Universal Blue family
Mint.
I have my mum (67) and my partner using it.
Libre office and Firefox cover 99.9% of all the things mum actually does.
My partner uses blender, krita and audacity also.
Auto updates… Almost no tech support.
Linux mint makes sense. Auto updates and its hastle free for non techy person like me.
Even if I’m doing something crazy , chatgpt to the rescue.
I prefer Manjaro, super easy.
