A Linux for the totally maintenance free

[Bill Oliver]

On Mon, 27 Oct 2014, Tom H wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 2:24 PM, jd1008 <jd1008 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 10/23/2014 12:46 AM, Tim wrote:
>>> On Wed, 2014-10-22 at 19:11 -0600, jd1008 wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Any ideas what linux to use for such a person?
>>>
>>> Along with other suggestions, consider the support aspect. If they
>>> can't do it themselves, it's going to be you. Which distro can you put
>>> up with? Either working it for yourself, or finding a support forum
>>> that's useful for you.
>>
>> support from "me" is exactly what I want to minimize :) :)
>> Definitely, Fedora would not be suitable for this lady I am helping.
>> And neither would Ubuntu.
>
> You seem to be asking for the impossible. Whether you install Fedora,
> Ubuntu, OS X, or Windows, there are going to be regular updates.
>
> Why don't you install Fedora and put up with having to use an external
> repo for non-free stuff (if necessary) and upgrading every 6 months or
> so?
>


No matter what distro she chooses, there will be a learning curve, and
that will require help if she's not at least a little computer-oriented
already.  If you have taken on the role of helping her, you can't avoid
that.

But note that's no different than for Windows or MacOS.  I haven't tried
to do much with any Windows machine past Vista, but people still ask me
to help them with their problems now and then.  So I sit down and try to
puzzle it out. The last time I sat down at a new Windows machine
running, I think it was Windows 7, things were *not* intuitive.  The
same thing goes for finding your way around MacOS.  Once you get beyond
just clicking on apps, they both require some learning.

The *difference* is that people who use Windows and MacOS have spent a
*lot* of time learning it, but did it a little at a time over a period
of years. So they don't recognize how much time it was in aggregate.
Then, when they switch to linux, it is "hard" not because it's any more
difficult than Windows, but simply that much of the *years* of work they
spent learning Windows doesn't immediately transfer.  That's different
than being hard, and there's almost no way around it.  Either she'll
take to it or she won't.

I gotta say, as much as I bitch about stuff like systemd, there's a
reason I keep coming back to Fedora -- and one them is that
updating the system is so freaking pain-free.  And any distro without
frequent updates is a dangerous distro, including Windows and MacOS.

Er, notice I said "update" not "upgrade."

And, with respect to updates, you can't get much more simple than "sudo
yum update."   Personally, I think fedora shines in that area.  And,
fedora supports its older distros quite sufficiently.  If your friend
sticks with it for a year, she'll be just another old linux hand, and
won't be intimidated by either changing distros or performing a clean
upgrade via installation.  I don't know anybody who stuck with linux for
a year *and used it regularly for daily stuff* who wasn't well-prepared
for doing a clean installation.  And, it's my personal philosophy that,
for *personal* machines, a clean upgrade is the way to go -- it cuts
down tremendously on malware, leaks, misconfigurations, etc. that linger
with regular upgrades.  There may be good reasons to keep a production
machine chugging along, but wiping the disk on a personal maching every
few months is a smart thing to do IMHO.




billo