I'm telling you, installing Ubuntu is the way to go for ~70+ yr old parents. Put firefox and chrome on there, throw some bookmarks in the bookmark toolbar (local weather, some news, facebook, amazon, whatever else they like), connect thunderbird to their ISP email address that they've had for 25 years, install zoom, and life is great! I've had roughly zero problems in the past ~5 years with non-techy parents going this route.
If there is a problem or question (usually just operating some website) I can hop on via remmina remote desktop and help out easily.
Brother laser printer/sacnner also recommended for good reliability without drying out ink.
Ubuntu comes out unbaked for many years. So many bugs on the surface and no one cares. Why? Because no bonus or career advancement for bugfix.
And Thunderbird recent top menu disaster ux (it's under top toolbar now, at least on linux) made me switch from it. Great UX, they said, such a shit in reality. I used it for almost 20 years.
Maybe, Software is eating the world [1]. But now clearly the enterprise mindset is eating the software. And transforming it to shit.
10 years ago I would've agreed that Ubuntu is the most reliable option.
For me now it comes across as a bit clunky, unpolished and less coherent compared to Fedora Silverblue — Ubuntu has more visible seams where it's been built from separate projects.
A major upgrade of Silverblue is literally 3 clicks plus the time it takes to do a normal restart. It doesn't ask questions a non-techy doesn't care about, and they can't break it.
(I'm not saying your choice of Ubuntu is “wrong” or anything, but if you haven't yet done so, it's worth installing a previous version of Silverblue and role-playing how it would work for a non-techy audience long-term.)
My experience is that Ubuntu is past its prime for the elderly.
My mum was on various versions of Ubuntu for about 15 years. Updates started to be a problem and the network manager caused a lot of trouble for her, and by extension me and her neighbours who would "help" from time to time.
I gave up and went to win 11 and haven't had trouble other than the ads and non consistent popups. If it gets worse I'll have to try something else but I'm not looking forward to it.
There are so many stupid decisions that were made with Windows 11 that it's probably good that most people can't use it without creating tons of ewaste replacing perfectly functional HW.
This is a feature.
I bought a new PC, checked some reviews about Win 11, decided to stay with 10 (wife and child are still believing in MS propaganda).
"User friendlier" and "used to" are 2 different things. An OS that will always show you your desktop after login is way more user friendlier then an OS that will potentially show you "lets setup few things" dialog after installing an update.
What's unfriendly / unfamiliar about Linux? There's icons on your desktop, and you click on them to launch applications - exactly the same as on Windows. The browser works the same, and LibreOffice isn't terribly different from the old Office UI.
All my computers run Windows, but I've never had any issues switching over to use my husband's Linux gaming system on the TV - I click on the big "Steam" icon and then launch the games same as I do on Windows.
I get how a power-user like myself might struggle to switch (if anything goes wrong with the Linux box, it will be dear husband who has to deal with it!), but what's wrong with Linux for a super-casual user who basically just needs a browser?
> I get how a power-user like myself might struggle to switch (if anything goes wrong with the Linux box, it will be dear husband who has to deal with it!), but what's wrong with Linux for a super-casual user who basically just needs a browser?
Pretty much this.
I originally installed Ubuntu for my parents when I first got them a computer separate from mine. All they needed were things like the browser, preconfigured email, instant messaging, possibly a word processor, and a way to look at their photos. They didn't need to know how to configure or install anything new. As a bit of a caveat, I think I always did the importing of photos from their camera for them. But I don't think the difficulty of that is necessarily very OS-dependent.
I later switched them over to Windows at my father's request when replacing the (by then) ancient hardware with a new laptop that had Windows preinstalled. But I don't think it really made any difference because they still didn't do anything requiring more than opening existing apps.
But if you're used to knowing how to install new stuff and how to configure things to your liking, yet don't want to learn how to do those things on Linux for the sake of it, I can imagine it being hard.
With that said, of course a different desktop can also be and look unfamiliar even if there's little practical difference. And for some people near-exact familiarity can be rather important.
You should try it! I gave my mom, previously a windows user since 1993, an Ubuntu box with all the regular icons right there and as far as I can tell she doesn't know the difference. Been ~5 years now and going strong. She buys books, checks weather, reads news, emails, facebooks, prints things, scans things, video conferences, checks for ISS flybys, watches church, looks up vids explaining how to restring a weed whacker, all without any trouble at all.
A Linux feature called "Unattended upgrades" checks for os and app updates every day and applies them silently in the background. Because of how good the Ubuntu package management is, all os and app components can be upgraded without intervention. This is a big advantage.
Last time I installed Windows 11, I found that I could not skip the 'use a Microsoft account as your local account' that Microsoft really encourages. In anger I spammed the back and forward button ~5 times.
Suddenly, the option to setup Windows 11 with a local account appeared.
Microsoft has lost whatever initial magic helped them make a good OS, it's all corporatism now.
I know quite a few people that genuinely like MacOS or desktop linux. Yet, for Windows 11 at best I hear "it runs my software and is mostly okay (except for the ads, shitty updates,..)" or "I don't like macs".
Still are. I can't believe how everyone complains about MS's setup flow but gives apple an easy ok to their iCloud nagging for which you need to edit globalPreferences to disable it. Or the messed up mouse acceleration, or scroll wheel acceleration, or the forced impossible to disable animations, or the terrible handling of full screen applications in combination with three screens(though ig this isn't an issue for modern Mac users, you can't even have three screens anymore).
Windows in turn has superior tiling, you can disable animations and you can disable OneDrive very easily. Borderless full-screen applications let you drag others across them and there's a lot more you can customize
Classic MacOS was terrible, no protected memory no access controls and no virtual memory until 7. Windows NT already had that. A good "personal" system at that time was NeXTSTEP. And for workstation let's not forget OpenVMS and all the other Unix's like Irix, Solaris etc.
I think you can also just put in a fake Microsoft account (or a valid account but incorrect password), and after checking that the credentials are no good, the setup wizard will give you the option to create a local account.
I bought an expensive PC just to play my stupid my 3D Steam games. Windows 11 is barely even fit for that now. Even installing it wants my email. Why?? Can’t get a vertical task bar like I used to (have they even seen monitor screen dimensions since 2000?)
Then that dude from Microsoft comes out on HN and says they don’t even care to improve it/can’t improve it because of project manager career aspirations. Makes total sense. I guess they’re gonna profit from Teams or some shit instead of windows.
I suspect it’s just a matter of time before they just rebase on top of Linux. Never thought it’d see that.
> Then that dude from Microsoft comes out on HN and says they don’t even care to improve it/can’t improve it because of project manager career aspirations.
> I bought an expensive PC just to play my stupid my 3D Steam games.
Depending on which games those are, you might able to get by on Linux just fine if you have them on Steam. I'm gaming on Linux multiple times a week and it's been a few years since the last major compatibility problem with the stuff I play. Maybe check out the compatibility database: https://protondb.com - If the stuff you want is all Gold and Platinum (like for me), you should be good.
I've had good experiences playing a lot of my games but sadly some of them just don't run at all because of anti-cheat BS. It makes me really angry that some companies go out of their way to make sure their games don't run on Linux. I'm glad that at least all of my favorites still run perfectly.
To install Windows with only a local account, you have to disable Internet access (unplug cable or disable WiFi), then that option magically appears. Once done, reactivate access and continue. For most other cruft like games and such there exists a intimidating command line one-liner which gets rid of it.
This article is a bit overblown. I was initially looking forward to a juicy article about the UI inconsistencies...probably should be flagged.
Context: I manage Windows 11 laptops for my family...5 machines.
Windows 11 has its issues but this is not it. Create a Microsoft Account, a dummy one, and use the store to disable S-mode. Remove the MS Account and done. It would of been a lot easier and take less time than writing that blog post.
Your real mistake is not installing Windows 11 Pro. Which you can get for $24 from stacksocial. [1] With PowerShell and Group Policy Editor you can clean up a lot of the stuff quickly. It's all well documented on various websites with a quick google search. Treat configuring Windows just like you would configuring your favorite Linux distro...which you are advocating for:
> This post is a reminder to myself that, next time someone needs to be introduced to the world of digital bureaucracy, I should instead install a Linux distribution.
> Your real mistake is not installing Windows 11 Pro. Which you can get for $24 from stacksocial. [1] With PowerShell and Group Policy Editor you can clean up a lot of the stuff quickly.
Why bother installing a crappy/inferior OS in the first place? I personallt like nothing about W11
Because no matter how great linux now is for gaming, mac for graphic design or whatever there is still a plethora of professional apps that need windows and some that need windows 11. This just don't do X attitude is so small minded.
> Your real mistake is not installing Windows 11 Pro. Which you can get for $24 from stacksocial. [1] With PowerShell and Group Policy Editor you can clean ... just like you would configuring your favorite Linux distro...which you are advocating for:
I don't know man, this sounds like Stockholm syndrome. Aside from the extra money and the Linux fanboyisms... why not just install a configurable OS that isn't user hostile?
Windows is just too unstable for my computer illiterate grandparents. They are slowly loosing their vision, they can't handle the spastic updates to UI, the tabloid headlines, random games that are automatically installed and other visual garbage... the list could go on. I setup their desktop environment to be incredibly simple, just enough for their needs, with remote access, and no spontaneous updates.
I'm not advocating against Windows because FOSS reasons. I have no time for bullshit, I need something that works and Windows does not.
I don't know. Compared to Linux and even MacOS, Windows feels seriously bloated. I honestly don't understand how non-techy people okay with the copious amount of BS it throws at you. Small things like opening a folder with a few hundred files on it, and it can't simply show the content of the folder - you have to wait, and wait and wait. I catch myself talking to it: "da heck are you doing Windozze? Tis a darn friggin' folder, just open it, d'you really have to be like Bush, desperately tryin' to find WMD or some shit in there?"
Snap windows - I hate it when someone decides that the computer knows better than I do, what I want to do with desktop layout. I don't recall this problem in W10, so it must have been retro fitted.
Good luck trying to figure out what's going on when it's disabled but still rearranging things.
I also feel like the start menu now is totally busted. In older versions of Windows I could find applications I installed via the start menu. Now it’s seemingly random whether it wants to find my application or whether it shows me an internet article about the application.
First interaction with a new Windows 11 laptop, setup screen, it wanted me to pick my country from a list. I tried typing in the first letter of the country's name. The list didn't do anything. Aah, it felt like it was one of those "Code your own UI" that people used to do with HTML/Flash that forgets about accessibility...
If you want an easy system to give to something with little/no experience with computers, these days to me is better to install to them something easy like Ubuntu or Fedora, or Zorin OS if they are familiar with the Windows UI, and they probably wouldn't event notice the difference.
And you get: no crap with Microsoft accounts, no viruses (yes, they still exists!), no automatic updates to major versions that break everything, no unwanted data collection to Microsoft, no computer that slows down without any reason after some years of usage.
If a person has to only use a PC for internet, documents, emails, etc and doesn't require any Windows specific software, there is no reason to use Windows. When people asks me to fix they computer because they got a virus or the computer simply did become so slow to be unusable or it updated automatically to the next major version and nothing works I offer the Linux option, and to this day everyone was happy about it (against my interest, since then they no longer call me to fix their problems, it would be better to put Windows and have them come to me and pay me 50$ to format their crap every 2 years).
53 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 52.1 ms ] threadIf there is a problem or question (usually just operating some website) I can hop on via remmina remote desktop and help out easily.
Brother laser printer/sacnner also recommended for good reliability without drying out ink.
I didn't get remote desktop working, but I have it running tailscale, so I can at least ssh in whenever there's a non-network problem.
I taught my mum to just trust the 'install updates' prompts and it's been fine.
Of course I took care in buying a computer with complete driver coverage. It's a Beelink mini PC with Ryzen 7 processor and graphics.
Ubuntu comes out unbaked for many years. So many bugs on the surface and no one cares. Why? Because no bonus or career advancement for bugfix.
And Thunderbird recent top menu disaster ux (it's under top toolbar now, at least on linux) made me switch from it. Great UX, they said, such a shit in reality. I used it for almost 20 years.
Maybe, Software is eating the world [1]. But now clearly the enterprise mindset is eating the software. And transforming it to shit.
1 - https://a16z.com/why-software-is-eating-the-world/
For me now it comes across as a bit clunky, unpolished and less coherent compared to Fedora Silverblue — Ubuntu has more visible seams where it's been built from separate projects.
A major upgrade of Silverblue is literally 3 clicks plus the time it takes to do a normal restart. It doesn't ask questions a non-techy doesn't care about, and they can't break it.
(I'm not saying your choice of Ubuntu is “wrong” or anything, but if you haven't yet done so, it's worth installing a previous version of Silverblue and role-playing how it would work for a non-techy audience long-term.)
My mum was on various versions of Ubuntu for about 15 years. Updates started to be a problem and the network manager caused a lot of trouble for her, and by extension me and her neighbours who would "help" from time to time.
I gave up and went to win 11 and haven't had trouble other than the ads and non consistent popups. If it gets worse I'll have to try something else but I'm not looking forward to it.
All my computers run Windows, but I've never had any issues switching over to use my husband's Linux gaming system on the TV - I click on the big "Steam" icon and then launch the games same as I do on Windows.
I get how a power-user like myself might struggle to switch (if anything goes wrong with the Linux box, it will be dear husband who has to deal with it!), but what's wrong with Linux for a super-casual user who basically just needs a browser?
Pretty much this.
I originally installed Ubuntu for my parents when I first got them a computer separate from mine. All they needed were things like the browser, preconfigured email, instant messaging, possibly a word processor, and a way to look at their photos. They didn't need to know how to configure or install anything new. As a bit of a caveat, I think I always did the importing of photos from their camera for them. But I don't think the difficulty of that is necessarily very OS-dependent.
I later switched them over to Windows at my father's request when replacing the (by then) ancient hardware with a new laptop that had Windows preinstalled. But I don't think it really made any difference because they still didn't do anything requiring more than opening existing apps.
But if you're used to knowing how to install new stuff and how to configure things to your liking, yet don't want to learn how to do those things on Linux for the sake of it, I can imagine it being hard.
With that said, of course a different desktop can also be and look unfamiliar even if there's little practical difference. And for some people near-exact familiarity can be rather important.
Suddenly, the option to setup Windows 11 with a local account appeared.
Microsoft has lost whatever initial magic helped them make a good OS, it's all corporatism now.
I never heard anyone that described Windows as a good OS. It was always a Platform for Microsoft Office or Games. MacOS was always the good OS.
Okay, but not really relevant?
I know quite a few people that genuinely like MacOS or desktop linux. Yet, for Windows 11 at best I hear "it runs my software and is mostly okay (except for the ads, shitty updates,..)" or "I don't like macs".
Windows in turn has superior tiling, you can disable animations and you can disable OneDrive very easily. Borderless full-screen applications let you drag others across them and there's a lot more you can customize
Emphasis, unfortunately, on _was_. From 2019 (and I have seen no improvement since, au contraire):
https://tidbits.com/2019/10/21/six-reasons-why-ios-13-and-ca...
Classic MacOS was terrible, no protected memory no access controls and no virtual memory until 7. Windows NT already had that. A good "personal" system at that time was NeXTSTEP. And for workstation let's not forget OpenVMS and all the other Unix's like Irix, Solaris etc.
I understand you might have a different view if you are embedded in the apple ecosystem
Then that dude from Microsoft comes out on HN and says they don’t even care to improve it/can’t improve it because of project manager career aspirations. Makes total sense. I guess they’re gonna profit from Teams or some shit instead of windows.
I suspect it’s just a matter of time before they just rebase on top of Linux. Never thought it’d see that.
Can you share a link? Very curious to read.
Depending on which games those are, you might able to get by on Linux just fine if you have them on Steam. I'm gaming on Linux multiple times a week and it's been a few years since the last major compatibility problem with the stuff I play. Maybe check out the compatibility database: https://protondb.com - If the stuff you want is all Gold and Platinum (like for me), you should be good.
Context: I manage Windows 11 laptops for my family...5 machines.
Windows 11 has its issues but this is not it. Create a Microsoft Account, a dummy one, and use the store to disable S-mode. Remove the MS Account and done. It would of been a lot easier and take less time than writing that blog post.
Your real mistake is not installing Windows 11 Pro. Which you can get for $24 from stacksocial. [1] With PowerShell and Group Policy Editor you can clean up a lot of the stuff quickly. It's all well documented on various websites with a quick google search. Treat configuring Windows just like you would configuring your favorite Linux distro...which you are advocating for:
> This post is a reminder to myself that, next time someone needs to be introduced to the world of digital bureaucracy, I should instead install a Linux distribution.
[1] https://www.stacksocial.com/sales/microsoft-windows-11-pro-6
Why bother installing a crappy/inferior OS in the first place? I personallt like nothing about W11
I don't know man, this sounds like Stockholm syndrome. Aside from the extra money and the Linux fanboyisms... why not just install a configurable OS that isn't user hostile?
Windows is just too unstable for my computer illiterate grandparents. They are slowly loosing their vision, they can't handle the spastic updates to UI, the tabloid headlines, random games that are automatically installed and other visual garbage... the list could go on. I setup their desktop environment to be incredibly simple, just enough for their needs, with remote access, and no spontaneous updates.
I'm not advocating against Windows because FOSS reasons. I have no time for bullshit, I need something that works and Windows does not.
I don't know. Compared to Linux and even MacOS, Windows feels seriously bloated. I honestly don't understand how non-techy people okay with the copious amount of BS it throws at you. Small things like opening a folder with a few hundred files on it, and it can't simply show the content of the folder - you have to wait, and wait and wait. I catch myself talking to it: "da heck are you doing Windozze? Tis a darn friggin' folder, just open it, d'you really have to be like Bush, desperately tryin' to find WMD or some shit in there?"
Good luck trying to figure out what's going on when it's disabled but still rearranging things.
And you get: no crap with Microsoft accounts, no viruses (yes, they still exists!), no automatic updates to major versions that break everything, no unwanted data collection to Microsoft, no computer that slows down without any reason after some years of usage.
If a person has to only use a PC for internet, documents, emails, etc and doesn't require any Windows specific software, there is no reason to use Windows. When people asks me to fix they computer because they got a virus or the computer simply did become so slow to be unusable or it updated automatically to the next major version and nothing works I offer the Linux option, and to this day everyone was happy about it (against my interest, since then they no longer call me to fix their problems, it would be better to put Windows and have them come to me and pay me 50$ to format their crap every 2 years).