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.

  • JASN_DE@lemmy.world
    321·
    2 months 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·
      2 months 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·
    2 months 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·
    2 months 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·
          2 months 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.

  • warmaster@lemmy.world
    15·
    2 months ago

    Aurora by Universal Blue. She will be unable to break it, and it’s so freaking easy to use and install.

    • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
      1·
      2 months ago

      While I enjoy using Aurora, there were a bunch of issues popping up over the last few months (e.g. display freezes). I guess that’s the danger of a rolling release cycle, but I’m not sure it’s 100% as foolproof as it needs to be right now.

        • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
          11·
          2 months ago

          Okay, let’s call it a semi-rolling release. Having breaking changes every 6 months is still very often for a set-and-forget system.

  • enumerator4829@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    12·
    2 months 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·
      2 months 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·
        2 months 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·
          2 months 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. :)

  • pH3ra@lemmy.ml
    11·
    2 months 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

  • maplebar@lemmy.world
    9·
    2 months ago

    Use Bluefin or some other immutable/atomic distro.

    The upside is that it’s rock solid and will likely never fail in a way that cant be easily rolled back. The downside being that it’s slightly more complex to administer than a traditional distro model (which probably isn’t a big problem if you are going to be administering your SO’s PC for the most part.)

    Bluefin is basically a more general desktop, less gaming-focused version of Bazzite. Bluefin uses Gnome, but there’s also a KDE Plasma version called Aurora.

  • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nzEnglish
    9·
    2 months 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.

  • inzen@lemmy.world
    7·
    2 months ago

    I guess it depends what she does on her pc.

    But ignoring that, Mint without sudo. Throw in flatpaks and appimages.

    Immutable distros are probably fine too but in my experience they tend to be a bit fussy if you need to change something in the system config.

    Ubuntu, always a solid choice for beginners but Gnome shell is a bigger change from windows conpared to Cinamon.

    P.S. I have Mint on our TV PC and my SO handdles it without issues.

  • Gayhitler@lemmy.mlEnglish
    61·
    2 months ago

    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.

      • Gayhitler@lemmy.mlEnglish
        32·
        2 months ago

        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.

        E: I looked up the 0patch pricing and you get a year of patches for a bunch of eol versions of windows like 7 and 10 for $25 a year. It’s a good deal I think for people who don’t want to or can’t upgrade to 11, and they beat Microsoft to a bunch of zero day exploits.

        I know you said it’s a no money kind of situation but I really think when ten is still a possibility theres two bucks and some change a month in the budget.

        • asap@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          2 months ago

          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.

          • Gayhitler@lemmy.mlEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            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.

        • mumei@lemmy.world
          1·
          2 months ago

          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

          • Gayhitler@lemmy.mlEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            I suggested 0patch not to bypass some arbitrary check, for which there are many options, but to provide access to security patches and updates after Microsoft stops publishing them for 10.

  • SpatchyIsOnline@lemmy.world
    4·
    2 months 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)

  • rescue_toaster@lemm.ee
    41·
    2 months ago

    I switched from ubuntu to debian when 12 was released and it’s been fine. Only thing i was worried about was running WoW via lutris but had no issues.

    So when my SO windows pc died we bought some newish parts and i installed debian on it as well. Also installed chrome since that’s her browser of choice. She’s still getting used to gnome, but all she needs is browser, WoW, and libreoffice, which is close enough that it hasnt been an issue. She doesn’t even know how to update the system.