Linux Mint for mother

[ochadd]

My mother knows enough about computers and Windows XP to be a menace. She can even manage to reinstall and get back to a functional setup. Along the way she wipes out her important documents with the best of them. I want to stop her.

I've talked her into upgrading the machine from an 800mhz Athlon to a 2.5ghz AMD dual core. My intuition tells me that if the first thing she sees is Linux on this new hardware she is going to be instantly sold.

I switched to Linux Mint 6 for desktop duty three weeks ago and absolutely love it. Still have XP installed for gaming but my mother isn't known for fragging nooblets. She is used to Microsoft office using Outlook and Word mainly. OpenOffice shouldn't be too much of a stretch for her to learn to use.

What install/training/config tips can you guys give me for mom-proofing the OS? The apps planned to use for her setup:

VLC player : Movie/video of all types
Picasa : Picture handling
Brasero : DVD burning.
Firefox
Open Office
?? : Email. I'm thinking Evolution or Thunderbird. Recommendations?

Anything a guy should/can remove from Linux Mint? Any input from real life experience with this OS?

Cheers

 

[Viper GTS]

I'm of the opinion that setting up the (nearly) technically illiterate with linux is generally a bad idea. You're committing yourself to being the sole support contact for that machine. The first time she wants to run some piece of hardware or software that she bought at the store she is going to be SOL. You're essentially removing her ability to be self sufficient, and (more importantly) interact with the rest of the world that is nearly exclusively Windows & OSX. Every machine she is likely to encounter outside of her own is not going to be like hers, & if she's not a geek she's not going to enjoy the double-learning necessary to function in both environments.

My preferred route is a heavily locked down/protected Windows installation along with some basic training about backups. Give her a Ghost/Acronis/Whatever boot disc & tell her to use it periodically to backup to a dedicated drive. When you see her check to see that it is happening, & do it yourself to make sure of it.

Viper GTS

 

[lxskllr]

Viper may or may not be right in regards to Linux acceptance. The small details make a difference on whether the experience will be awesome or hellish. A test install certainly won't hurt. You could leave her with it for a couple of weeks or a month, and see how it works out.

Evolution is great. That's what I use in my Ubuntu installs.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: ochadd
?? : Email. I'm thinking Evolution or Thunderbird. Recommendations?

Evolution rawks!!!

I'm running it in both Gnome and KDE 4.2 - yeah, I know it's only supposed to work in Gnome...

Thunderbird is okay, I guess, but... enough with Firefox already!

Really, I don't think you have to worry about your mom wrecking Linux, et al. Just don't give her admin privileges, nor the root password...

 

[ochadd]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
I'm of the opinion that setting up the (nearly) technically illiterate with linux is generally a bad idea. You're committing yourself to being the sole support contact for that machine. The first time she wants to run some piece of hardware or software that she bought at the store she is going to be SOL. You're essentially removing her ability to be self sufficient, and (more importantly) interact with the rest of the world that is nearly exclusively Windows & OSX. Every machine she is likely to encounter outside of her own is not going to be like hers, & if she's not a geek she's not going to enjoy the double-learning necessary to function in both environments.

My preferred route is a heavily locked down/protected Windows installation along with some basic training about backups. Give her a Ghost/Acronis/Whatever boot disc & tell her to use it periodically to backup to a dedicated drive. When you see her check to see that it is happening, & do it yourself to make sure of it.

Viper GTS

I'm leaning towards a dual boot setup with Mint being the default. The idea that she can't take advice from other people is a positive one imho. That has been one of the contributing factors in nearly all her crashes.

If I lock Windows down to the point she can't break it I'm still taking away her ability to be self sufficient. I've never switched anyone but myself over so maybe it just won't click.

I can make Linux pretty much bullet proof where as I've never been successful in completely locking Windows down without using a rollback/imaging setup.

 

[Nothinman]

I'm of the opinion that setting up the (nearly) technically illiterate with linux is generally a bad idea. You're committing yourself to being the sole support contact for that machine.

Depending on the needs of that person it can be a great idea. You generally end up being the sole support contact for them anyway and them breaking Linux is much more difficult and you fixing it is generally easier.

You're essentially removing her ability to be self sufficient, and (more importantly) interact with the rest of the world that is nearly exclusively Windows & OSX.

IMO it's making her more self-sufficient since there's more free software available without googling and downloading things from shady websites. And what the rest of the world runs doesn't matter as much as people think. She's be able to watch the same movies, view the same pictures, read th same documents, etc as everyone else.

 

[MGMorden]

I'll agree that it's a pretty good idea depending on the situation. Example: my parents are on Linux Mint right now. Their previous computer ran Windows XP, and in the 5-6 years that they had that computer they never once bought a single piece of hardware or software from the store to use on it - nor did they even know how to download and install software off of the net. As long as it had a web browser and email access, they were fine. The downside though as that Every 3-4 months I was having to either clean up their Windows install or completely redo it because of malware infestations.

When the hard drive on that computer died, I gave them one of my old systems (since theirs was outdated anyways), and installed Mint on it. It automatically logs in and has Firefox and Evolution icons on the desktop - they already used Firefox on Windows so they know that one, and the Evolution icon I just labeled "E-Mail". Since I set that up right at a year ago they've not had a single issue. My mom uses eBay and he other sites just fine, and my dad can check NFL.com for fantasy football scores fine. That's all they want, and Linux lets them do that without all the malware hassles of Windows.

I actually did have an extra (older) Mac that I thought about sending over there, but I was just a bit afraid that they'd get confused by the close button behavior (ie, the red button on a Window normally doesn't actually exit an app - it just closes the window, and you have to either exit by accessing the menu or by right clicking and exiting from the dock).

 

[VinylxScratches]

Just stick to one OS. Dual booting is just going to complicate things for her.

 

[nerp]

If she's not the type of person to buy hardware and software and futz around with her computer, you can get away with mint, for sure. Does she use a computer for her job?

 

[soonerproud]

There is no harm in letting your mother try Linux Mint for a few weeks to see if she likes it and is willing to use it instead of Windows. If your mother does insist in the near future to use Windows, you should install Vista and set her up a limited user account for her daily use. By doing so you will solve the problem with your mother borking installs and she still gets the compatibility of Windows.

 

[VinDSL]

Well, for what it's worth...

I'm running Linux Mint 6 x64 on my Toshy laptop right now - so far, so good!

I wiped openSuSE x.64 Gnome and KDE 4.2 off my HD, and decided to give Mint 6 x.64 a whirl... that is, I'm triple-booting Vista HP, Windows 7, and Mint 6.

I've only been using Mint 6 for 24 hrs - give or take - but I already prefer it to Ubuntu - hands-down!

Setting up my WiFi was a typical PITA, but now that I compiled the driver and installed it, it seems to be stable, e.g. it's there every time I reboot - and it works fine, along with the WiFi Radar, so called.

I'll run Mint x.64 until it pisses me off, but so far I like it just fine...

Would I put it on my mom's machine?!?!? Heh! Not yet, but I'll let you know after I run it for a week or two.