Chaz Sliger wrote: > I need to set up a system for my 88 year old mother-in-law. > > I think it's really great that she is interested, but she is VERY > non-technical (has never driven a car).
FWIW, my experience with getting my Mom an iMac: -- She never installed security updates because she thought Apple would charge her, or that they were trying to sell her something. -- It took some practice, but she got reasonably good at using Apple Mail. I'm not sure if webmail would've been a better alternative for her. -- She could get to where she wanted to get online, but she wasn't good with the intricacies of organizing browser bookmarks or using browser history or anything much more complicated than typing in an address or clicking on a link. If you're going to be doing the updating, I would suggest turning off whatever update notifications the distro you pick might enable by default. In my limited experience with avowedly non-technical users, stuff like that just tends to confuse them or make them suspicious. I think that's why so many Windows users don't install security updates in a timely fashion, or at all. Either GNOME or KDE can be made to appear pretty simplified. Another nice choice, aside from the other suggestions others have offered, might be IceWM, which is a straightforward and simple WM. Epiphany, which is the GNOME browser, has a very simple, clean UI. It might be less intimidating than Firefox for someone who's never used a browser. Debian or Slackware might be really good choices for a distro. I know it sounds a bit counter-intuitive because they are both considered somewhat more appropriate for experienced users than for new users, but both of those distros are very stable and don't need much maintenance beyond security updates. (Obviously, I mean Debian stable, currently Lenny, not testing or unstable.) Your mother-in-law won't be concerned with the latest and greatest, or with new releases every six months. Debian, once you get it set up, will just work, won't change, and you won't have to deal with a new release for a long, long time (sigh!). It has such an enormous software repository it's doubtful you would ever have to install anything from source, especially since her software needs will probably be fairly minimal. Slackware has the advantage (IMO) of a simpler BSD-style init that might make remote administration easier for you. I guess it depends upon what you're used to. -- Michael M. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
