61–70 of 299 posts
I have sent my father (who I no longer interact with) and my mother, a laptop with ubuntu installed. I have not had to support that thing for 5 years. it just runs. no updates, no virus scan ads. Its been amazing. i installed VLC player and firefox. They are living the life being "connected"
I run Ubuntu on three machines and never in a million years would I set it up for my parents. I still struggle with lots of little gotchas and annoying issues like sometimes it just doesn't want to suspend. Or sometimes after resuming, the keyboard doesn't work so gotta unplug it and plug it back in. Sometimes my wifi just conks out for no apparent reason. On and on, just lots of little paper cuts. I switched my pare…
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
Which does not change the fact that they are still problems - no matter how unfair it is and how little the Linux-Community is to blame for it.
I used Linux on many different machines - and sadly I can confirm lots of problems with hardware. Standby/Resume, etc.
This part is critical: 1) Sit down with your folks and talk trough their daily usage of their computer (Please be not so arrogant to think you already know it all) As technologists this all comes easy to us and it is easy to forget what everyday computer usage means.
I'm curious how it actually saved you headache and support calls? Your general process of switching them over was well thought out, but I can't see how this really helps either of you. In my experience Linux requires a lot more command-line tweaking and such to get basic things working, but then again that could be for my more advanced use cases. So the only benefit I can see is that it is more privacy focused and sa…
I don't think that true if you just need a browser, email and an office suite. One key element could be hardware, I still feel like desktops are a better choice than a laptop, in terms of getting everything working correctly.
It seems that for every Linux discussion on HN there's always user spreading some kind of FUD based on personal experiences from 2011. Glad to read so many success comments on this discussion BTW.
Dissent and sharing opinions and experience is not a campaign of ‘FUD’. There is no cabal ganging up to share misinformation on Linux. Please give more credit to those you disagree with and assume their intentions are like, I presume yours are: to share your opinion and experiences.
And You are right, giving Your opinion does not mean it's FUD.
But if You pay attention, you'll see that for some folks here Linux it's never an option or solution they will take and are pretty vocal about it.
I run Ubuntu on three machines and never in a million years would I set it up for my parents. I still struggle with lots of little gotchas and annoying issues like sometimes it just doesn't want to suspend. Or sometimes after resuming, the keyboard doesn't work so gotta unplug it and plug it back in. Sometimes my wifi just conks out for no apparent reason. On and on, just lots of little paper cuts. I switched my pare…
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
I run Ubuntu on a 2015 and 2017 Lenovo ThinkPad (T450 and T470s) and a desktop I built myself. Interestingly it runs the best on my custom desktop.
I use Ubuntu due to i3. The advantages a solid tiling window manager give me outweigh the drawbacks. But if OSX had a tiling window manager on par with i3 I'd drop Ubuntu in a heartbeat.
EDIT: and just to add, when I run Windows on these machines I don't have any of these problems: suspend works, USB and wifi work, etc. In my experience Windows's main problem is that it still crashes pretty regularly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And even if they still think it's Windows by the time they get to the 'download this remote access client' stage they won't be able to run the exe and the scammer will probably give up on them.
Unless you've installed Wine....
And an easier solution, don't install WINE!
My father was willing to switch, my mother was not. So: my father is now on his third Linux machine in 16 years (two laptops and now a NUC hiding behind a 24" monitor). Normal updates are handled automatically; I do a major upgrade once a year. rsnapshot backs up to an external disk three times a day. Every so often he tells me that he wants to do something new, and asks if it's possible; the answer is always yes. My…
That’s the biggest problem I see to Linux adoption in these scenarios. Unless it is something super geeky, nobody makes client softwares for desktop Linux.
My dad is a tech savvy, but now that he travels 80% a year for retirement, he prefers an ipad as well (even gave me his macbook pro).