191–200 of 226 posts
Anybody else find this too cute and patronizing? Its the guy saying "You're an idiot and I'm too smart and busy to be bothered by family. Your problems don't matter."
No, not really. Deal with a handful of end users and all of sudden this makes a heap of sense.
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I moved three relatives who's computing skill vary between "What is a file, again? Help me, my Internet is gone?!!" and "How do I use this scanner to get that document into a PDF file and send it via Thunderbird?" over to Xubuntu (Ubuntu with XFCE, 14.04). They all dutifully do the upgrades and it's very rare that I have to intervene.
> They all dutifully do the upgrades and it's very rare that I have to intervene. If you don't want to even worry about that, include a sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade as a cron job and everything will be up to date without them doing anything.
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For folks who mostly just need a browser and for whom malware is a risk, you really can't do better than an iPad. I love Linux, but there really is no beating an iPad if you need a PC-approximate that is absurdly low maintenance.
An iPad is an expensive solution if they've already got a PC, and Linux is a great free way to resurrect computers that the commercial operating systems have left behind.
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How do you install TurboTax on Linux? None of the software they have, none of the software anyone they know uses will install on their Linux machine. Very quickly most will get the idea that the computer is broken and you need to come and fix it because you were the one that broke it.
Then you charge them money and do as they ask. Or they can go ask someone else to do it for free, maybe that friend who recommended the software that doesn't run on Linux, given that they know better than you...
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How do you install TurboTax on Linux? None of the software they have, none of the software anyone they know uses will install on their Linux machine. Very quickly most will get the idea that the computer is broken and you need to come and fix it because you were the one that broke it.
>How do you install TurboTax on Linux? FYI, since a few years, TurboTax has an online version that I use on Linux.
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What do you think makes it better? It's not unusual to see non-technical users of all ages using an iPad. You never see them using a chromebook.
- Built-in keyboard, - many times desktop browser will be more compatible, - you can install additional safety browser extensions beyond adblocker, - Chrome Remote Desktop for remote service, - updates on ChromeOS are entirely seamless - just reboot the machine every once in a while.
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What do you think makes it better? It's not unusual to see non-technical users of all ages using an iPad. You never see them using a chromebook.
Did you mean to imply there was a logical connection? I'm not sure how 'perceived usage' relates to 'quality'? Surely the two questions are orthogonal? i.e. the less used solution might still be 'better'.
The last step should be replaced by some sort of autogenerated https://lmgtfy.com link. :)
[0]https://www.grammable.me/blogs/news/grammable-it-support-too...
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All of my computer science friends who have moved their parents to Linux (myself included) report that they are happily doing with their computers what they used to (sans downloading and running random malware) with much reduced "tech support". Hell, when I introduced my mom to ubuntu ten years ago, Linux wasn't even as desktop friendly as it is now. Not to say that it's the best choice, but it's plenty usable and us…
Too late for me, my mom is already using apps from the Appstore.
Having said that, if she wanted a new computer right now, I'd probably recommend an iPad with a keyboard case (assuming that she can do what she wants with it, which I think she can -- most of her computer use nowadays is web browsing, email and the occasional word processing/spreadsheet. I use mine for everything except coding)
At the end of the day, its down to cost analysis: is it cheaper (in terms of time spent, for both of you) to leave things as they are and deal with support issues as they arise; or to retrain your mom to use something which has lower support overhead?
It may not make sense to get her to switch.
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- Built-in keyboard, - many times desktop browser will be more compatible, - you can install additional safety browser extensions beyond adblocker, - Chrome Remote Desktop for remote service, - updates on ChromeOS are entirely seamless - just reboot the machine every once in a while.
Almost all of this is of no practical importance to 'many users'. They're nice-to-haves for technical users.
Desktop browser compatibility have high practical importance. There are many sites that are important (i.e. government sites), but either are hard to navigate or can't be displayed properly. Users may use 20% of sites 80% of time. It does not matter then when they stumble upon a site that is important, but does not work. This sounds like a classic argument of FOSS proponents - everything works except: this game or that printer. In many cases it will be unacceptable.
Additional safety browser extensions and Chrome Remote Desktop are indeed for technical users. However it is meant to cut needed service time - that is of value to the normal users.
Seamless updates are important in a sense that the device is not bugging them and device is always ready to use. That also ensures that device is safe to use. It may be not of high importance to users, but it certainly is of practical importance.
I did not include price previously, but it was mentioned here above. The price is not practical importance per se, but it often overrides everything.
[1] http://web.ist.utl.pt/hugo.nicolau/publications/2012/assets1... - it's a small study, but nice place to start