Recommend a Linux distro for your mammy?

Trojan

I'm looking for something very user-friendly, intuitive and just works for a non-technical Irish mammy who has only used Windows previously. What distro(s) would you recommend?

excollier

Mint Cinnamon

eezipc

Agreed. Mint is the most user friendly.

Johnboy1951

PCLinuxOS ...... KDE or Mate DE.
http://www.pclinuxos.com/

I should add that I do not share the view that a 'mammy' implies lack of competence in technical matters.

So maybe Gentoo would be more suitable for some 'mammies'.

excollier

Gentoo.....for Linux guru mammies!!

hooplah

Well it depends on what your mother uses her Windows machine for really.

I use Fedora with Gnome but the menu isn't similar to Windows so I'd avoid it. The Mate and Cinnamon desktops are similiar looking - i.e. have a 'start' button equivalent in the lower left hand side. I'd go for something with one of those.

Another thing to think about is codecs. AFAIK Mint loads those by default now but won't in the future. Depending on how technical your mother is it might be worth making sure everything is installed first.

What other apps does your mother use?

syklops

hooplah wrote: »

Well it depends on what your mother uses her Windows machine for really.

I use Fedora with Gnome but the menu isn't similar to Windows so I'd avoid it. The Mate and Cinnamon desktops are similiar looking - i.e. have a 'start' button equivalent in the lower left hand side. I'd go for something with one of those.

Another thing to think about is codecs. AFAIK Mint loads those by default now but won't in the future. Depending on how technical your mother is it might be worth making sure everything is installed first.

What other apps does your mother use?

I'd say the number one app his Ma uses is the browser, so literally any desktop environment will do if he puts a shortcut to it on the desktop, or on a taskbar somewhere. In my experience minor changes to a DE can confuse older people more than you would think(and not just older people). Moving an icon on the home PC caused my ma to not be able to find it, but we bought her an Amazon kindle fire and she was able to use it from day one because she got that it was a different system, and so wasn't looking in the wrong place for things. I'd say the Netbook edition of any modern Desktop Environment would be fine for her.

Tree

My mother used to be on mint but my brother moved her back to windows as he couldnt be arsed figuring out how to admin it (and I'm rarely home).
The mother was getting on grand with it, set open/libre office to default save in .doc/.xls formats and pop a firefox icon on the desktop. Set it to autoupdate patches.

Johnboy1951

Tree wrote: »

My mother used to be on mint but my brother moved her back to windows as he couldnt be arsed figuring out how to admin it (and I'm rarely home).
The mother was getting on grand with it, set open/libre office to default save in .doc/.xls formats and pop a firefox icon on the desktop. Set it to autoupdate patches.

What admin was required? ..... or is required by Mint that causes problems for the less technical users?

excollier

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

What admin was required? ..... or is required by Mint that causes problems for the less technical users?

I would ask the same question. Mint (in particular) is childishly simple to keep updated.
I use it as my main OS, along with Debian Testing for more advanced stuff.
I wiped Windows 7 from my sister's laptop, installed Mint XFCE and she keeps it updated herself, where she never bothered updating Windows for years.

Over a year later I visited her and found the computer running perfectly and fully updated, it's that simple.

Tree

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

What admin was required? ..... or is required by Mint that causes problems for the less technical users?

The brother wanted to install things for his own occasional use, and he had no interest even in clicking about in apt.

Johnboy1951

Tree wrote: »

The brother wanted to install things for his own occasional use, and he had no interest even in clicking about in apt.

Ah, so nothing at all to do with the Linux install

Tree

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Ah, so nothing at all to do with the Linux install

nope, just stubborn windows users

AnCatDubh

Mint & Cinnamon works really well for anyone who is moving from a windows environment.

Trojan

Cheers folks, I'll look at Mint/Cinnamon, appreciate the suggestions and feedback. And agreed that mammy should not imply non-technical - except when prefixed with "non-technical".

Worztron

Linux Mint MATE

L.Jenkins

Tree wrote: »

The brother wanted to install things for his own occasional use, and he had no interest even in clicking about in apt.

If he doesn't want to do the occasional update, run a cron job as root once a day or every few days.