Welp… My mom is apparently done with windows (yay!) Anf wants me to move her laptop to Linux (oh nooo). I personally use Ubuntu studios but im not sure what to get for her. She is getting her masters in nursing online so it def needs to be able to accommodate that. Do y’all have any suggestions on where to start? TIA
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If not Ubuntu, I’d at least stay in the Debian realm.
i recommend version 6 😄
Depends from her hardware but generally Linux mint I install for everyone who is not familiar at all with linux.
She is getting her masters in nursing online so it def needs to be able to accommodate that
Is there any specialist software she needs, or is it browser based?
Most important question.
Also try to transition her slowly from outlook -> Thunderbird and chrome -> firefox and so on. Then after a few weeks at least do the switch to linux mint. Then the shock of all the new things is smaller
I got 2 weeks for her break to change it, get it fine tuned and teach her enough to not fail instantly. Thankfully shes pretty good with computers but has never changed an OS like this.
Are you able to make sure the course doesn’t have any weird specific browser things? I hope nobody uses IE stuff anymore and Edge is Chromium based now so maybe that’s not a concern like it used to be.
Though I’m disappointed at how ugly Cinnamon and all it’s themes are, Linux Mint (with Cinnamon).
But as someone else said, probably ought to dual-boot or have a Windows VM just to be safe.
Linux Mint Debian!
Something immutable with VNC for tech support
I installed Debian on my dad’s laptop recently,
Ubuntu all the way
I moved my mother to Mint a few months ago. I have not had a single tech support call. She uses it daily. About a week in I asked her how it was going. She liked that printing worked more reliably and wished the scroll bars in Facebook were a bit thicker. Her printer used to show as offline sometimes in Windows but that issue has gone away under Mint. I was going to look for a theme with thicker scroll bars but she told me not to bother.
Granted she was a Firefox and Thunderbird user already so that helped with the transition.
My grandma got along with Mint for Facebook browsing and KPatience.
If your mom is more into using real apps, plus the Windows UI, and you’re comfortable with some setup, I’d highly recommend Debian 13 with KDE Plasma and Flatpak, with the Flatpak-Discover integration. That’ll allow her to use lightweight, stable apps from apt, or more recent, but larger apps from Flathub, and install it all herself through Discover. Honestly, there should be a distro for that.
I’d be using that myself if it weren’t for some very specific software I need from the AUR.
Have you heard of Distrobox?
You can run Debian and still get access to the AUR. I moved from Arch to Chimera Linux and but I still get a few things out of the AUR.
With Distrobox export, you can even add them into the app menu in KDE. So you do not even have to manually launch Distrobox to use them.
Seconding (or third-ing, or twelfth-ing) the recommendation for Linux Mint, but also gonna throw one in for MX Linux if the hardware is older.
It uses X and not Wayland
My mom was not interested in the surface cause she only need Mail, Browser, Whatsapp web and here Background image. So she used Ubuntu with the side bar as good as with Mint. Same goes for gmy Granny. I propose, Ask what possibilities are important for here - Do not ask about Application - and show here afther that where to do things.
For showing the new PC. Do it with some work she has to do. Learning curve is way better thatway.
