Today at the grocery store a sweet older lady approached me and asked if I knew anything about computers. I said yes I do, and she produced a mouse saying that her son set up Linux mint for her and she was wondering if the mouse was compatible. It needed kernel version 2.6 or newer so I said that the mouse should work, guessing mint itself was probably newer than that kernel. Happy with my answer, we chatted a little, then she thanked me and left.
It was a nice experience, so I thought I should share!
Assuming this story is true, Linux is going to be a nightmare for that woman. It’s come a long way, but it’s still not as dead simple as it needs to be for non-technical elderly people.
tbh: she probably clicks on the thing that says “INTERNET” and thats it. I’ve been setting up a few computers in my family for people 50+ and they mostly don’t even know the name of the program they use and mix it all up. I then just install a program and prefix the shortcut with the service. Like “MAIL Outlook”, “INTERNET Firefox” so they know where to go.
Couldn’t disagree more. Do non-techies need anything more than a browser nowadays? Maybe a word processor? The process of turning on and opening a web browser on Mint are practically no different from Windows. Hardware will plug and play just the same. Using printers is equally intuitive (ie, not very). In fact, I can find firefox on GNOME by just pressing the Win key and typing “internet” or “browser”.
Both are probably equally likely to run into incomprehensible tech problems that require techie intervention.
Just connecting to the internet on various networks can be confusing. And they’re going to need to periodically upgrade system packages, or they’ll be vulnerable to various exploits. Even if you set up auto-upgrades, occasionally some things will need manual intervention.
I still don’t see how it’s any more confusing than Windows. Cinnamon does it almost exactly the same way as windows, and typically detects network sign-in requirements better. Auto-updates work absolutely fine, and again I’ve not seen them need manual intervention with any more frequency than Windows.
Today at the grocery store a sweet older lady approached me and asked if I knew anything about computers.
Next on things that totally happened today…
i worked in sales long enough to know that No, No sweet older lady ever spoke those words to you “setup on linux mint” and include the capacity for understanding hardware compliances? did everyone in the store clap too? but…it would be a nice fantasy ngl
Uh my grandparents have Linux on their machine (set up a decade or more ago after I got sick of cleaning out malware/incredimail installs). They know enough to ask if stuff works on Linux though might not know to ask about Mint/Ubuntu specifically.
TBF they usually ask me first but they’ll also ask the salesperson.
With what I’ve been through, I’m beginning to wonder if OP is telling the truth 😂
About 7 years ago I got a call from some random lady in her 70s. Turns out her husband passed away not long ago and every computer in the house had Linux Mint installed. She needed someone to help her with some various simple techy things that her husband used to handle.
I couldn’t help but wonder how this random lady got my phone number. Turns out that one day, my Grandfather went on a walk down the road and this lady was outside tending to her garden. I have no clue how the conversation shifted to the topic of Linux, but it did. And my Grandpa knew I was in college for Computer Science, so he just volunteered me for this task.
Fast forward to today and I still help her out once or twice a year with whatever random questions pop up.
That was really nice but I think the lady was lucky that she met you. Can you imagine if she had met Linux Torvalds himself? He would have told her off for not knowing that the 2.6 kernel was many years old, the whole Linux world had moved on with strides beyond this old piece of software and reached 6.5 and there was no reason wasting everyone’s time with this kind of question. Plus: “we never, ever break the user experience and hence the mouse should work without questions!”
So you’re the nice boy from the store? Good to see you here. I got my mouse connected and can now browse fediverse using my Linux Mint. BTW I’ve checked and I’m running Linux kernel version 6.2.9. Should I update?
