It’s a good thing that new and unexperienced users who want to learn 😃 on the internet get recommendations such as “use rm -fr / to remove the french language pack and fix your localization issues” and then ending up with an expensive, broken hardware (/s)
Just to be clear, the person answering Flatpaks isn’t being flippant. Any tools, editors or games that Mom wants, she can safely install by searching and clicking ‘intall’, all without enough permissions to harm her computer.
Linux, for less technical parents, is genuinely really nice, now.
The big thing that changed side 2010 is that most distros are perfectly usable on most hardware.
I keep tossing Linux onto random stupid hardware I have lying around, and lately it just goes spectacularly well.
I should be ashamed of even asking if Linux will run on it, but Linux ends up running well on it.
Around 2010, I used to tell people that if they did their research and used Mint, for simple web stuff, they’re going to be fine.
Lately I end up telling people “I don’t know how to do that advanced thing you’re debating which Windows product to pay for, because, of the last three random Linux distros I tried, all thee provided it for free and pre-configured with sensible defaults”.
I’m sure there’s still plenty of interesting reasons to need a paid operating system. But for the simple practical stuff, I find Linux so much easier, even on my random poorly researched distros and hardware combinations.
I might well have just had an incredibly lucky streak, of course.
you can add sudo permissions for individual users for certain commands only; and i recommend you would do that; i.e. give her sudo permission for installing/uninstalling applications, but nothing else.
Linux: I can’t stop you.
It could. It just doesn’t want to. Why would it? Its your computer.
If you want to delete / including the EFI partition turning your machine into a paperweight you should be allowed to do so.
It’s a good thing that new and unexperienced users who want to learn 😃 on the internet get recommendations such as “use
rm -fr /to remove the french language pack and fix your localization issues” and then ending up with an expensive, broken hardware (/s)I don’t want my mom to be able to turn her computer into a paperweight…
Don’t give her sudo permission then.
How she will install anything then
Just to be clear, the person answering Flatpaks isn’t being flippant. Any tools, editors or games that Mom wants, she can safely install by searching and clicking ‘intall’, all without enough permissions to harm her computer.
Linux, for less technical parents, is genuinely really nice, now.
Awesome
If you wanna put your qualitative hat on: how much better is today’s easiest distro than Mint was circa 2010?
The big thing that changed side 2010 is that most distros are perfectly usable on most hardware.
I keep tossing Linux onto random stupid hardware I have lying around, and lately it just goes spectacularly well.
I should be ashamed of even asking if Linux will run on it, but Linux ends up running well on it.
Around 2010, I used to tell people that if they did their research and used Mint, for simple web stuff, they’re going to be fine.
Lately I end up telling people “I don’t know how to do that advanced thing you’re debating which Windows product to pay for, because, of the last three random Linux distros I tried, all thee provided it for free and pre-configured with sensible defaults”.
I’m sure there’s still plenty of interesting reasons to need a paid operating system. But for the simple practical stuff, I find Linux so much easier, even on my random poorly researched distros and hardware combinations.
I might well have just had an incredibly lucky streak, of course.
you can add
sudopermissions for individual users for certain commands only; and i recommend you would do that; i.e. give hersudopermission for installing/uninstalling applications, but nothing else.uninstalls the kernel package