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Switching my parents over to Linux saved me a lot of headache and support calls

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Re: Switching my parents over to Linux saved me a lot of headache and support calls

#131

Post by turings_ego »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #117
rootoor wrote: post #114

My 97 year old grandpa has a MacBook Pro and a few years back he was constantly on the phone with my mom trying to fix issues. We installed a Remote Desktop server so my mom could fix things quickly. After a visit we diagnosed the problem. Because of his poor motorskills, he was clicking and clicking-and-dragging things by accident. To mitigate this, we installed some software that locked the applications in the dock…

You should get him an iPad or consider it. My grandpa who’s 94 won’t use anything else. That said he’s probably used to the setup now.

My family recently got my mother's parents (100 and 98 who live independently) a grandpad. It's a closed network social media, meaning people have to be invited to it. It is designed for old people. They figured out how to navigate it themselves in ten minutes. It can call, video call, and leave mass voicemails.

From the children/grandchildren perspective, nothing has changed as it has Facebook and instagram integration, so we dont have to post on it directly.

Re: Switching my parents over to Linux saved me a lot of headache and support calls

#132

Post by FPGAhacker »

rootoor wrote: post #114

My 97 year old grandpa has a MacBook Pro and a few years back he was constantly on the phone with my mom trying to fix issues. We installed a Remote Desktop server so my mom could fix things quickly. After a visit we diagnosed the problem. Because of his poor motorskills, he was clicking and clicking-and-dragging things by accident. To mitigate this, we installed some software that locked the applications in the dock…

That’s pretty interesting. Definitely something that should be addressed by accessibility.

On the iPhone they have some UI accommodations that might help with this sort of thing. I needed them for when I would try to do something with Waze while my wife is driving. There is nothing to brace your arm with i her Jeep from the passenger side and it’s quite a stretch, so my hand is bobbing all over the place. Those are times I wish Siri could do more UI interaction, like “press ok.”

I haven’t looked for that kind of equivalent mouse interaction motor control accommodation on macOS.

Re: Switching my parents over to Linux saved me a lot of headache and support calls

#133

Post by AsyncAwait »

ddebernardy wrote: post #100
gbil wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem you describe is mostly because of hardware. And you didn't switch to OSX, you switched them to Apple hardware with Apple software, not an OS switch. On well supported hardware for Linux I have my parents since many years on Fedora. I even just swapped the drive from an old Lenovo netbook to a newer Fujitsu laptop without any issues in between

> The problem you describe is mostly because of hardware. No, that would be a software problem; as in driver-related. And as others noted, it's still a problem either way.

I think the point is that if you buy Apple hardware, of course macOS is going to run well, because you bought hardware specific to that, so do the same for Linux, buy Linux specific/well tested hardware instead of just any old crap, because you weouldn't do the same with macOS.

Re: Switching my parents over to Linux saved me a lot of headache and support calls

#134

Post by sgt »

Many years ago I idealistically tried to switch my dad over to Linux but that was a nightmare, mostly due to hardware incompatibilities. My missus also ran Linux at some point but Ubuntu upgrades kept breaking and 3G modem drivers never worked properly. But that's years ago so I am sure the desktop Linux situation has improved slightly.

Since about 2010 my entire family is on Mac and support calls have also pretty much ended. When I read some of these other threads, it seems like it's accepted that parents/grandparents do nothing else than just open up a web browser.

That hasn't been my experience at all.

They buy printers, scanners, use apps from the app store, try to connect new and strange cameras, card readers, external screens (try simply connecting an external 4K screen to a random Linux computer, I guarantee you'll get a few surprises).

My dad's recently got into 3D printing (keep in mind he's a consumer, not an expert) and Fusion 360 would not even have run on Windows. He would not have been able to figure out FreeCAD either.

Re: Switching my parents over to Linux saved me a lot of headache and support calls

#135

Post by icebraining »

jcoffland wrote: post #123
mixmastamyk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu mate is great. What about the shitty release cycle? I find it easy to understand, unlike Debian.

Debian has a rolling release. Very easy to understand. Ubuntu has 6-month releases and LTS releases. In my experience, upgrading Ubuntu often fails and requires manual intervention whereas Debian upgrades just work. If you get a few years behind on Ubuntu upgrades you either have to reinstall or apply each upgrade in sequence.

Debian Stable, which is the default, is not rolling. Debian has 2-year releases (Stable), a rolling release that occasionally freezes (Testing) and an actual rolling release (Unstable/Sid).

Personally I've been using Unstable on my laptop for over a decade without any real issues, but then again I keep a very lean desktop (LXDM + awesome), so there is little to go wrong compared to a full DE.

Re: Switching my parents over to Linux saved me a lot of headache and support calls

#136

Post by oever »

williamdclt wrote: post #104
gtirloni wrote: post #80

I first tried to switch family to LibreOffice but existing Office documents kept getting corrupted (especially complex spreadsheets). That was a deal breaker. Last attempt was as recent as last year

What about Google docs? I find that it does a great job

Google Docs seriously mangles ODF documents.

Re: Switching my parents over to Linux saved me a lot of headache and support calls

#137

Post by opan »

jcoffland wrote: post #72

> Do yourself a favor and use standard Ubuntu. Do yourself a favor and use standard Debian. Honestly, I don't know why anyone bothers with Ubuntu anymore. It doesn't really add much over Debian except for it's shitty release cycle.

Ubuntu has non-free software enabled out of the box unlike Debian. To me this is a negative, but to some it could be the difference between their wifi working or not. It's not that this is hard to change, but if you're already planning to make changes right away, maybe it's not the best distro for your parents. I've taken a liking to some pretty niche distros in the last few years. GuixSD and Void in particular. I used Arch for a long time as well. I love these distros, but I'm not sure they're right for my parents. Maybe if I learned how to make a customized installer that would ship my configs and certain software out of the box I could go that route.

Re: Switching my parents over to Linux saved me a lot of headache and support calls

#138

Post by AsyncAwait »

williamdclt wrote: post #99

I really would like to do the same. My father is always complaining about Windows problems that just don't happen with Mint/Ubuntu, and my mom has an machine that's too weak and old to run windows properly. The one thing that prevent me to do that is that they use their computer for work. While I'm certain that I wouldn't have any problem doing their job with Linux, they ask me "can you absolutely guarantee that I'll…

I found SoftMaker Office 2018 to work well in terms of compatibility with MS Office.

Re: Switching my parents over to Linux saved me a lot of headache and support calls

#139

Post by simion314 »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #111
simion314 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly? Plugin an USB then opening Firefox on youtube and watching a video, then try to print something? Is this more work then reinstalling Windows, do all windows updates, reinstall all the apps, restore the data , each time something fishy starts happening and you are not sure if the computer was infected?

Installing Linux on your parents' computer and then having them give up and get support from a local store is less work for you than properly teaching them to use Linux before installing it on their computer and then providing support whenever they have issues.

It depends, i would not recommend this for all cases, as the article mentions it worked because this following things applied

1 you were already wasting your time when visiting the parents on fixing the computer

2 the parents were transitioned to the Linux cmpatible applications like Firefox,Chrome, VLC,

3 all the parents workflows were accounted for and were met by Linux

4 the switch is done to Ubuntu LTS and not some exotic distribution

5 training is done on how to accomplish the new workflows

If the conditions above do not apply then you should not attempt this, send them to a repair shop to format and reinstall their OS.

For some workflows that most parents do Linux is good enough, my parents only use the browser,FB and YT apps(on a tablet).

Re: Switching my parents over to Linux saved me a lot of headache and support calls

#140

Post by sgt »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #117
rootoor wrote: post #114

My 97 year old grandpa has a MacBook Pro and a few years back he was constantly on the phone with my mom trying to fix issues. We installed a Remote Desktop server so my mom could fix things quickly. After a visit we diagnosed the problem. Because of his poor motorskills, he was clicking and clicking-and-dragging things by accident. To mitigate this, we installed some software that locked the applications in the dock…

You should get him an iPad or consider it. My grandpa who’s 94 won’t use anything else. That said he’s probably used to the setup now.

My grandmother (100) just phoned me using FaceTime on her iPad. I find this insanely cool. She was born during World War 1, experienced World War 2 and is now able to enjoy modern technology to get in touch with her family. The only issue she has is accidentally touching the screen.
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