Easiest version of Linux for seniors ?



Yup... What he said. ^

There you will find lots of folks who love the terminal, and probably some that spend most of their time in the terminal.
 
I have come to the conclusion there are people coming to Linux now who are not your typical computer hobbyist/power user but just someone who uses a computer for every day tasks like surfing the web, watching video content who are looking for an alternative to their Windows system. They have no interest in doing command line stuff and are used point and click. Definately a paradigm shift from when I first started out in the Linux world. It was operating system for power users and computer enthusiasts. The system requirements of win11 would have left many behind. We will see more requests like this. Just my opinion.
 
That's a fair call, Darren.

We get new Members in waves when a Windoze version reaches EOL - the next occurrence is in next January coming, with 8.1

Chris
 
I cannot disagree with @darry1966 or @wizardfromoz, It is the same thing we see with Youngsters and Kali every time a new hacking film comes out
 
I cannot disagree with @darry1966 or @wizardfromoz, It is the same thing we see with Youngsters and Kali every time a new hacking film comes out
Kali questions should just be ignored, the people that know enough about Linux will find their own way of how to get something to work and if they have a question about one of the tools in Kali they are better off going to the official Kali forums.
 
I do not feel that I fall into the non-hobbyist / non-power-user category, but I did definitely take the plunge to switch to Linux as a nearly-direct result of the release of Windows 11.

Getting used to using the terminal was a paradigm change for me at first, I used Windows pretty much exclusively for 26 years.

My formal journey into Linux begun with Fedora, but now my adventure has taken me to EndeavourOS in an effort to learn more about the Linux Terminal and to experience the latest software as it comes out.
 
Kali questions should just be ignored, the people that know enough about Linux will find their own way of how to get something to work and if they have a question about one of the tools in Kali they are better off going to the official Kali forums.
That's the attitude of the Kali forums, I usually reply [as you will have seen many times] usualy asking if the poster has the necessary knowledge and experience of Linux.
I will, if I can, point them in the direction, if it's just a matter of the right wi-fi/graphic drivers, But I do not go into the how-to as much as I would with old Fred who wants to swap from his current system to what I call everyday Linux.
 
I love the fact Linux can keep their machines running and that they gain the ability to have choices in their desktop environment to suit the capabilities of their computer - also run their older printers etc - which Windows drops after a release or 2. That is empowering for the user. Updates when the user wants to not the Windows model of forced crud when they deem it necessary to force it on the user.
 
That's the attitude of the Kali forums.
Before I used to help now and then in the Kali section of the forums, sometimes I would just say something that would make them give a pissed off reaction but now days I just ignore the Kali section. I only laugh when I see a new wanna be hacker use Kali who doesn't know how to something basic in Linux or how to deal with a not working wireless driver.
 
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I cannot disagree with @darry1966 or @wizardfromoz, It is the same thing we see with Youngsters and Kali every time a new hacking film comes out
a new hacking film comes out ? only one I can think of vaguely hacking is "the imitation game" . Im in the market for suggested films . whats a good movie about hacking ? I don't think they have done the life story of Richard Stallman yet in Hollywood
 
I only laugh when I see a new wanna be hacker user Kali who doesn't know how to something basic in Linux or how to deal with a not working wireless driver.
I would think that any user who would even be considering using Kali for what it's used for would be very Linux savvy.
 
@TotallyPuzzled

Sorry your thread has somewhat gone astray and will be totally confusing to newbies, if you stick to page 1 all the relevant post are on that page
 
The advice here is what I'd give too, Debian Stable, Ubuntu long term support (LTS), Mint. For one main reason, my overly extensive experience with what makes people leave Linux is upgrade failures, so don't use a rolling release distribution, and don't use a version of a frozen pool distribution that has to be upgraded every 6 months or so, that's the point releases of Ubuntu, Debian testing and sid/unstable. Don't use LMDE, it kind of will offer the worst of both worlds, only for people who need that type of rolling release mint.

GUI package managers and system upgrade tools have gotten WAY better than they used to be, and now are pretty viable options for long term use.

If you use say, Ubuntu LTS, that's got a 5 year support cycle, but it releases every 2 years, and the upgrades now tend to run well and clean, though there are issues with their attempt to use snap packages too much, abuse would be the better term.

Mint seems to follow a pretty steady path.

Note that for long time happiness and relaxation, do NOT use nvidia cards, the free nouveau driver has never been fully stable due to closed specifications, use AMD or Intel, and you will have a totally relaxing experience as a rule. That really matters.

Some wifi types of chips also create on and off issues, I think broadcom has issues, but I don't remember, LAN/wired networking will almost always have no issues.

Printers have never been wonderful on Linux, and are still not wonderful, same with scanners. Make SURE to buy ones that are listed as supported natively in Linux before selecting either, or you will be sad. Once native support is added, it will probably keep working for a long time.

Some laptop brands are not good for Linux, like Toshiba, it varies. Higher end Dell and Lenovo tend to be good. Cheap consumer laptops are hit and miss, though most of their stuff will work, but not necessarily all of it.

It's hard to get around the fact that the biggest user base of Linux is engineers, who tend to want things to work in a certain way, and to be controllable, unlike in windows or osx, but that creates a certain bias in how things work best (which is often using a command line, but not always), vs how normal consumers want things to work.

It's also very very very important to realize that the reason that Linux is 'free' is that it's free, as in freedom, open source software, not because someone pays all these developers, like me, to do all this work, so Linux desktops largely are the way they are because that's how developers who make the software want it, and some corporations that pay for some things, like Gnome desktop (Redhat Linux corporation).

So the trick is to realize, you can't have your cake and eat it too, each operating system is good at certain things, and not very good at others, and none are good at everything.

Windows is really good as a platform for a massive ecosystem of often really great commercial software, but is awful when it comes to core security, configuration, robustness, etc.

The Linux kernel runs most of the world's advanced servers, and a huge chunk of the smartphones in the world, but a tiny fraction of the consumer type desktops (1-2% year in and year out), so it's strongest when it comes to rock solid system stability, the loads I put on my Linux desktops and servers would bring OSX or Windows to their knees, which is why every time I try to use windows or osx I think they are totally broken, literally.

OSX caters to those who fear computers and want their choices restricted, and let apple restrict them by creating a huge for profit walled garden, and if you stay inside of that, everything works seamlessly, but the second, moment, you try to leave it, everything fails, and the terrible quality of their actual software is exposed.

It's important for new users to understand that Linux is a not a free version of windows, microsoft hires literally 10s of thousands of programmers to do all kinds of horrifically boring tasks, and they have no choice, they do it, or get fired, Linux does not have that luxury, so not everything works perfectly all the time, but once you figure it out, it works better in general than anything else. As Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux kernel, noted famously: All operating systems suck, Linux just sucks less. I agree with this, though I'd say OpenBSD sucks even less in several key ways.

But that's the biggest mistake new linux users make, by far, expecting linux to be a free drop in replacement for windows, when it isn't. Just like windows is not a non free as in cost replacement for Linux, windows is a truly awful linux, really really bad. But quite good at being windows, much better than linux.

Common errors are: having a few key bits of software you depend on, like say, a fedex shipping program, which you can't run on Linux. Or photoshop, stuff like that. There are no true drop in replacements that are feature complete for these, there are free versions of software that do some of the things commercial software does, but they have limited developers, and often are run by far fewer people than you might imagine.

To me, if free as in freedom, and open as in open source are not primary motivators for switching, the odds of long term happiness are not nearly as high, Mint will never be a good windows, but it is a decent attempt to make a reasonably easy to use linux desktop for new users of linux.

It's also useful to understand that although convention has people calling the large collection of software running ontop of the Linux kernel 'Linux', the only thing on a Linux desktop or server or android phone that is Linux is the kernel, everything else is done by someone else, except for a small handful of command line utilities. So there is never a 'they' as in, oh, 'they should fix this thing', there is a person or group or company that makes that specific bit of software, that your desktop uses, including the desktop itself.

Note also that unlike in osx or windows, the parts of the system are largely independent, so the core stuff runs fine without the gui top layer, and you can swap the desktops and window managers, even now the display server, to find something you like and that fits your preferred workflow. This type of choice confuses some users who are used to having only 1 single option for their desktops, the one the corporation decided they should have in the case of apple or microsoft.
 
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I have good results and minimal issues using Debian base distos on my old desktops.

Antix Linux, MX-Linux, Peppermint 11 Linux, Sparky Linux are all rock solid and stable distros.

Biggest obstacle I see with new to Linux users is their unwillingness to learn some basic Linux how to prior to installing Linux.

An unwillingness to learn some basic Linux how to prior to installing Linux will most always result in a bad first Linux experience.
 
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I have come to the conclusion there are people coming to Linux now who are not your typical computer hobbyist/power user but just someone who uses a computer for every day tasks like surfing the web, watching video content who are looking for an alternative to their Windows system. They have no interest in doing command line stuff and are used point and click. Definately a paradigm shift from when I first started out in the Linux world. It was operating system for power users and computer enthusiasts.
When I first started using Linux I was one of them people and I'm still one of them people.

You're right not everyone has an interest in doing command line stuff or becoming a Linux guru I never did and still don't.

I use the terminal because it's handy and how hard is it to copy and paste commands into the terminal.

I learn what I need to learn to use my computers and keep my computers working nothing more nothing less.


My 2 bits.
 
a new hacking film comes out ? only one I can think of vaguely hacking is "the imitation game" . Im in the market for suggested films . whats a good movie about hacking ? I don't think they have done the life story of Richard Stallman yet in Hollywood
I want to see a UFC match between Richard Stallman and a vim enthusiast!! That would be funny.
I'd just repeat what I said here at another Thread 10 days ago

https://www.linux.org/threads/begin...t-distribution-i-should-use.41580/post-168045

Also, the OP has this from 2 years and 9 months ago:

https://www.linux.org/threads/suggestions-needed.26039/

It looks like he has not advanced since.

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
Overall, installing Linux doesn't have much to do with using Linux (latter will pretty much always involve command line...) there's always virtual box but a serious enthusiast will probably opt to just wipe their machine or dual boot since virtual box has worse performance, I think there's major confusion over these basics and Linux desktop is probably going to stay an enthusiast thing...part of the reason I stopped distro stopping is I realized I learn less overall. My interest in linux has always partially been a coding interest, there's also the "politics", as I see open source being a form of anti-copyright or anti-intellectual property.
 
Once a beginner starts learning Linux...the next step is using the Terminal...you can't have one without the other.
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Beginners hear the word "Terminal" and they shake with fear but it shouldn't be. I have a list of useful Terminal commands I have collected that come in very handy for Installing Software...System Info...commands for Virtualbox...Optimising SSDs and the list goes on.
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