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.

  • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nzEnglish
    9·
    6 days ago

    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.

  • pH3ra@lemmy.ml
    11·
    7 days ago

    Since less techy people tend to use more the mouse/touchpad anyways, I would pick a hard-to-mess-with desktop environment like Cinnamon or Gnome. With KDE, XFCE and such you can screw panels really easily if you don’t know what you’re doing.
    Slap Debian under it and there you go

  • enumerator4829@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    12·
    7 days ago

    I’m gonna be the boring guy.

    RedHat Enterprise Linux. (Or Rocky)

    Most boring distro ever. Install it, turn on all the auto updates and be happy. Install something to take backups. Ignore any new major-releases, that laptop will die before the OS hits EOL.

    Benefits:

    • Boring. It’s their tool, not your plaything.
    • Actually works
    • Will be reasonably secure over time with minimal effort and manual intervention.
    • If any commercial Linux software is required, it will most likely only be supported on RHEL or Ubuntu.
    • Provides web browser and word-processing. And we don’t need anything else.

    Drawbacks:

    • Boring (for you)
    • Not ideal for gaming

    If you install anything else than RHEL-derivatives or possibly Ubuntu on a machine that someone else will use, you are both in for a world of pain. It has to ”just work” without intervention by you, and it needs to keep working that way for the next 5 years.

    Source: Professionally deploying and supporting multiuser desktop Linux to a few thousand users other than myself.

    • LeFantome@programming.dev
      2·
      7 days ago

      In the era of Flatpak, I kind of agree with you.

      The primary drawback is the complete lack of packages. A home user is going to want something not included and then things fall apart. Flatpaks and Distrobox have made that a lot better.

      If you could get away with a RHEL core and Flatpak for apps, you would have a pretty solid setup for a “normal” person.

      • enumerator4829@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        7 days ago

        I both agree with you, and kinda disagree.

        If you venture into installing Flatpaks on such a system, just keep in mind that:

        • Auto updates must be on
        • The Maintainer of the Flatpak in question must be expected to provide security updates for the next five years or so. Personally, I’d only use it for packages provided directly by project maintainers (i.e. Dropbox from Dropbox Inc. as packaged by Dropbox Inc.).

        Keep in mind, like 95% of normal people (we are not normal) don’t know what a package manager is and only use

        • ”The internet”
        • Webmail
        • Google Docs
        • Spotify

        For that, we need the default desktop install and the Spotify app (probably a Flatpak). That’s about it. It’s a glorified web browser with batteries. Treat it that way and keep it that way, unless your SO has any specific needs and requirements.

        The limited and dated package set is kind of a feature. Only packages that should work until the laptop breaks, and only packages that won’t change randomly when you update (mostly).

        • LeFantome@programming.dev
          3·
          6 days ago

          Really seems like we are agreeing. I get that the limited package set is a feature. I also get that it is both too small and too enterprise to satisfy most people you would describe as a “SO” precisely because they are probably normal people.

          You gave the excellent example of Spotify and suggested a Flatpak for that. Honestly, I am not sure where we are in disagreement. Especially since I started by “mostly agreeing” myself. We even agree on that. :)

  • dogsoahC@lemm.ee
    2·
    6 days ago

    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.)

    • balsoft@lemmy.ml
      2·
      5 days ago

      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.

  • SpatchyIsOnline@lemmy.world
    4·
    7 days ago

    I recently set up Fedora Kinoite on my dad’s laptop for him and he seems very happy with it. Kinoite is the atomic/immutable version with KDE Plasma by default. Once I’d set up a couple of things everything else he needs can be installed with flatpak (just make sure to set Flathub as the default and disable the Fedora flatpaks repo that ships broken packages all the time)

  • Duckytoast@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    6 days ago

    I’ve installed popOS to a couple of relatives, haven’t had anty issues for a year so far. Can definately recommend!

  • Anna@lemmy.ml
    2·
    6 days ago

    If you’re not going to give her sudo access then I’d say it’ll be really hard maybe even impossible to screw up. Also maybe setup a cron job that’ll do auto updates and if needed add in a check to make sure it isn’t uninstalling anything. Also how about immutable distro.

  • thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world
    13·
    7 days ago

    Nixos with whatever defaults you don’t want her touching, then she can use nix profiles to install extra software if she wants

      • thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world
        11·
        7 days ago

        You can install imperatively using nice profiles. So you the OP can set up the base distro in a way their SO can’t break. Then any extra software can be installed imperatively using nix profiles. Any installed software will work as normals. Checking the normal places for configurations if their SO even needs to go that far

  • JASN_DE@lemmy.world
    321·
    8 days ago

    Fedora Atomic desktops, specifically Kinoite with KDE6 works well for me, and is basically unbreakable due to the way it works.

    • oaklandnative@lemmy.world
      5·
      7 days ago

      I vote the same, but I’d suggest a uBlue spin of the Fedora Atomic desktops. They have better defaults (all batteries included, as they say) and are easier to use overall IMHO. Bluefin and Bazzite are both great options, and both offer KDE and Gnome variants.

      https://universal-blue.org/

      Edit: TIL the KDE version of Bluefin is called Aurora.

      BTW, uBlue is getting some big recognition lately. They have been on the Fedora Podcast (official) and Framework Laptops has official instructions on their website for installing Bluefin and Bazzite.

  • penquin@lemm.ee
    23·
    8 days ago

    I’ve set up Linux mint for my sister in law and didn’t hear from her the whole two years she was in college. But nowadays we have immutable distros. They’re fantastic for a set it and forget it kinda thing. They’re solid for those who don’t want things to break.

  • lilith267@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    20·
    8 days ago

    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

        • commander@lemmings.worldEnglish
          48·
          7 days ago

          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.

          Edit: The incessant, vehement backlash against calling out shilling is always a telltale sign of shilling. Shills are not allowed to let people accuse them of shilling without going through their playbook of what to say next.