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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

#211

Post by cptskippy »

andrepd wrote: post #204
gambiting wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So my personal anecdote also involves mint - I've set one up for someone years ago(probably around 2013-2014) and you're right, it had no issues. However, when I came over to visit last year I wanted to do some maintenance, so "apt-get update" and "apt-get upgrade" would be the start. Nope, turns out that the update servers for that version of Mint have been switched off long time ago and none of the links resolve an…

You might have had that problem in 2013, since Mint editions were based on the latest Ubuntu release. But since May 2014, all releases of Mint are based instead on Ubuntu LTS release. This means they get support for five years, rather than 9 months. For example Mint 17 (May 2014) has support and updates that will only cease this April. The latest release, 19.1, is supported for 10 years, until 2028.

That's pretty much true of everything Linux related. It has or will get better. The state of WiFi on Linux around 2009 was horrid. It would break with every update. It got better.

I've been using Linux for almost 2 decades and I've abandoned numerous projects over the years because the community was so unhelpful. The most recent was an Asterisk box for a home VoIP server back around 2012, before that it was a MythTV box in 2008.

The main problem is that until it gets better it ends up alienating a lot of people because the standard support from the community is "did you RTFM?"

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

#212

Post by ekianjo »

bigbugbag wrote: post #157
gambiting wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So my personal anecdote also involves mint - I've set one up for someone years ago(probably around 2013-2014) and you're right, it had no issues. However, when I came over to visit last year I wanted to do some maintenance, so "apt-get update" and "apt-get upgrade" would be the start. Nope, turns out that the update servers for that version of Mint have been switched off long time ago and none of the links resolve an…

Similar story, also grandmother's computer. I ditched ubuntu in the deepest hole I could find because every 6 months was a nightmare, and I replaced it with linux mint which seemed to actually work. Then I had to deal with such system upgrade and this was a real pain, so instead I replaced linux mint with linux mint debian edition and things went well for a while. Then came the system upgrade time again, it was not a…

Careful　with Manjaro you are close to bleeding edge packages, and updates may break things. Not Manjaro but on Arch I lost bluetooth after an update last week - I had to downgrade packages for a day to fix it. You don't want this to happen to normal users.

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

#213

Post by simion314 »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #208
simion314 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends, if they only use a browser,solitaire,image viewer and video player then the Linux equivalent are very similar or better. If they use some exotic software then I agree with you. But keep in mind that there are people that will have no idea that you changed the software, I was called by a neighbor to check why his laptop has no longer sound, somehow he muted Windows without knowing(maybe he hit some keyboar…

If it's not always more work to retrain people with no tech skills than to not do it, will you retrain every such person in the country? You're already not doing it, so this won't increase your workload at all.

I am not a person that converts people to Linux, the entire thread was about when it is right to help a family member by installing Linux on their broken system, see above the conditions i think are the right one. The fact I could convert a random person to free software is not valuable enough to me to was 1 hour of my free time(yeah I am selfish).

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

#214

Post by flukus »

rabidrat wrote: post #150
rhizome wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's a pain to have to locate and reinstall from scratch all the packages I need. dpkg --get-selections | cut -f1 > ~/installed_pkgs.log cat installed_pkgs.log | xargs sudo apt install

Tell that to your grandmother over the phone and see how much of a pain it is :)

This isn't a great example (or maybe it is considering how non-trivial the operation is), but running stuff from the command line can often be great for tech support. There is a reason support normally asks people to open things from the run dialog instead of asking them to go through the start menu.

This might be a bit too much to expect grandma to perfectly type, but "sudo apt-get update" and "sudo apt-get upgrade" to update her system is certainly easier then trying to describe what to click on a graphical UI.

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

#216

Post by jammygit »

bigbugbag wrote: post #172
bor0 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly why I switched from Xubuntu to Mac 5 years ago. I just want to do my work, not fix my system after every minor upgrade.

The reccurring issue people seem to have with linux is that they use ubuntu. Just use a decent distro instead and see if that fixes your issues.

I always found Ubuntu to be easiest to use. No fighting to get GPU drivers to work, or other weird issues. Easy to install things when I was first learning too.

Edit: I meant to ask what people are using that's more stable. Fedora you need to reinstall every few months, Debian has some 'rules to not break Debian' that seem to make it special purpose, centos hates my GPU, trisquel gets very rare updates. I know that all of this is solvable, but Ubuntu seems simpler to set and forget.

Gnome is buggy though. I love it but I sure wish it ran better

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

#217

Post by takinola »

taylodl wrote: post #2

I was going to comment why not get them an iPad, but that would be a big change all at once. I like your approach of slowly introducing them to the new software they'd be running on Ubuntu on their Windows 10 system. That way they get used to all the new programs and the final switch to Ubuntu is pretty much a non-event. Smart! So smart that I don't think transitioning them to an iPad would be that easy.

Seems to be the simplest solution. I did this several years ago and my parents (almost) never have any issues. If your needs are simple (email + web) then an iPad will do it all without any of the downsides.

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

#218

Post by daveFNbuck »

simion314 wrote: post #213
daveFNbuck wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not always more work to retrain people with no tech skills than to not do it, will you retrain every such person in the country? You're already not doing it, so this won't increase your workload at all.

I am not a person that converts people to Linux, the entire thread was about when it is right to help a family member by installing Linux on their broken system, see above the conditions i think are the right one. The fact I could convert a random person to free software is not valuable enough to me to was 1 hour of my free time(yeah I am selfish).

That's my point. It takes an hour of time to convert someone to Linux. It takes 0 time to let them get their tech support from the local store. 1 hour is more than 0 work, even for a family member.

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

#219

Post by Theodores »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #130
city41 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which NUC model is it? I looked into NUCs a couple years ago but at the time they had a reputation of not being great with Linux.

I run Linux on the Skull Canyon NUC and it works great.

But do you have the skull lid/cover or the boring black one?
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