this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2024

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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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how would you make a linux distro for extreme beginners in tech and elderly people?? (lemmy.today)

submitted 4 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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this is a topic i've been heavily involved with because i still consider myself to be someone who prefers using technology at a very beginner friendly level, plus it's very good when a linux operating system makes you feel right at home when it has a modern desktop environment. this is why i really like gnome, its simplicity and usability is something available for everyone, for beginners and for a lot of other people, but if you had to, say, rearrange xfce or kde for someone who was an elderly person or an absolute beginner so that they wouldn't have any trouble using linux, how would you do it? (screenshot is my current linux mint desktop, very simple and extremely user friendly!!!!)

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I would try to copy the usability of macOS/Windows as much as possible without being different for the sake of being different. They should never have to look at the command line if they don't want to.

These are solved problems.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Mint and Fedora based distros already do it good

Any more simpler and it would be an atomic distro that focuses mainly on flatpak and chromium

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Linux Mint, just ensure the hardware is 100% supported.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Isn't that Ubuntu?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 weeks ago

definitely yes but there has to be no snaps because otherwise the computer would be very slow!!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Wallpaper?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Mint

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

You have to remember older people grew up with computers that are pretty similar to how most of us use Linux. Mint, bluefin would be my choices for someone with lower tech experience.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

@[email protected] most of the issues elderly or someone not familiar with tech might face is installing something. pop os is the answer i think.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 weeks ago

@[email protected] it even has a app store.

[+] [email protected] -6 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Adopt windows file system with letterer partitions as the root. Plus most people who use computers are used to this paradigm already. Who ever came up with Linux's file system has poor organization skills

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

I don't agree. It's just because you're used to drive letters.

I think Linux filesystem is better organised. Everything is (almost) well organised in the right folder.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

MOST people use smartphones before they use PCs and none of them have drive letters. All use a unix-style structure internally and just hide this fact through abstraction layers. Not one chose to show drive letters.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

This would fundamentally break the Unix/Posix functionality of layering file systems. All containerization would break. You would lose the ability to map in one filesystem's content within another's. I don't think the right way to get people used to Linux is to fundamentally break it.

File managers - even the dogshit one you get with Gnome - already register external storage devices in a list that's shown no matter where in the file system you are. Assigning a drive letter doesn't clarify anything. What beginner/grandpa is even looking at the contents of the FS root?

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