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As an elementary OS contributor _and_ Fedora user, I guess this is my time to shine, hu?

It really depends on your use case. I've heard quite a bit positive feedback about elementary OS for "computer illiterate" (parents, old people, etc). It seems to "just work" for them after installation (bear with me I really can't judge about "ease of use" after years with Linux) and it's running on Ubuntu LTS versions. You're running apt-get to install security fixes, the current version of Firefox/Chrome and fixes provided by the elementary OS team, and that's basically it.

Fedora on the other hand is "the latest hot thing". It has by far the best GNOME3 integration and it previews technical features worked on by Red Hat and GNOME. It also features recent kernel versions which might be important for new-ish hardware. All that is quite awesome for technical-minded people like me. I'd like to say "it's unstable", but in my experience, it's not. I did not do the 22 -> 23 transition yet though. You have to do some additional work for the frequent new versions (backup everything in case it breaks, try the transition, etc). You also have to fiddle around with GNOME addons, font rendering and media codecs (RPMFusion as third-party provider) to make it usable as "personal computer" IMHO.

In the end it's up to you. I do believe your mom will be able to work with both (you'll need to tweak GNOME a bit IMHO, but that's up to discussion I guess), but you'll have to deal with different administrative workloads.

In my opinion the Ubuntu LTS basis of eOS can be annoying for someone needing the latest packages, but is quite a boon for someone who just wants the computer to function and be predictable.

With Fedora, a new version comes out every 6 months and you receive updates for around a year. Elementary seems to release a new version roughly every two years and at least the Ubuntu LTS basis receives updates for much longer (~4-5 years, depending on the release time of eOS).

So I think that unless you want to upgrade the installation regularly (which is something that an inexperienced user probably should not do on his/her own, since a lot of things can potentially go wrong), choosing something with a longer support window is a good idea.

I don't have eOS as a daily driver (I've got the Pantheon desktop on top of Ubuntu as a chroot environment on my Chromebook and a full Elementary VM on another laptop), but I've been playing with it for some time.

One thing that really irks me about the OS is the designers' reluctance to actually let you customize anything. For instance, the lack of a minimize button really bothered me, and I ended up having to install a third-party program called elementaryTweaks just to restore that functionality. The designers have outwardly refused to incorporate any of that and have repeatedly defended the decision to not give us a minimize button:

http://blog.elementary.io/post/131034577721/will-any-of-the-...

http://blog.elementary.io/post/130282384916/i-was-wondering-...

To me, that reeks of Apple's walled-garden "We know better than you do what you want" attitude.

Well to be honest, you're not completely wrong. elementary OS _is_ trying to make as much decisions as possible for the user - To make it "just work". I agree that this is annoying to people accustomed to tweaking their system or desktop. No doubt. elementary OS is - at least partially - targetted at people with minimal technical knowledge. And there _are_ some design decisions I might not really agree with. The minize button, well, uhh ... I didn't get it back via elementary-tweaks on my machines, but I understand people missing and re-activating it.

Now here's the thing though: There's a different between Apple's walled-garden and elementary OS. You are very much able to tweak your elementary OS setup in any way you want. It's Linux after all. It's your system. We try to discourage tweaking a newcomer's system via commands learned on a blog post because they're old, outdated or plain wrong / bad. elementary-tweaks was not maintained at all for a long time as well. And there are quite a bit customizability options out there hidden in dconf. That's what elementary-tweaks is a frontend to after all, basically.

I understand it's a bit frustrating to not see the customizability in a Linux distribution you're used to from others. You're not exactly the target audience for elementary OS and I'm sorry for that.

And to be honest, there's another spin to it: More customizability means more features maintained in the source code. And quite frankly, sometimes we're really short of developers (I'm not contributing anything at all currently as I'm kind of busy with my apprenticeship). If nobody is going to maintain a new feature, it's not going to be in the code because it will break one fine day and it's adding work to the "to-fix" list.

So who is the target audience, if you don't mind my asking? Because from my perspective, I am someone who likes the idea of Linux and is not afraid to get his hands dirty, but at the same time is generally disappointed with most Linux distros insofar as their GUIs usually feel like an afterthought. So something with a nice frontend but the ability to nonetheless tinker and throw up a terminal when I need to sounds ideal. That is the attractive element of ElementaryOS, to me: an attractive frontend and a Linux backend. I could always go for Cinnamon Mint, I guess, but eOS certainly did seem to buck the trend as far as distros go.

The idea of the easy-to-use "just works" setup for the non-tinkerers, on the other hand, starts to resemble Apple; unfortunately, I don't think you can out-Apple Apple. That's their thing. The "stunning," almost condescendingly simple GUI that people "not good with computers" flock to. It's almost as though your target audience is my mother, or the people on whose behalf I will install this OS onto their aging desktop/laptop because they found re-learning Windows 8.1/10 too confusing.

To me eOS looks like glossy crap. But then i sit here writing this using a minimal XFCE on Gobolinux, so what do i know? ;)

I've started vastly prefereing eOS for my family members not because of technology, but because the bundled eOS applications have greatly stripped down functionality and UI - I've noticed that the dock with essential apps coupled with simple interface of "Files" makes people more comfortable.

To be fair, GNOME is heading the same direction. And I love it! A lot of Linux users are unhappy with this trend because it takes away features they use. But it's great to click through very intuitive and easy-use applications to do common tasks and everyday use. I don't need any manuals for GUI applications because their UX is so great! If I need to do something more complex, I'm just switching to Terminal. It's a symbiosis I really enjoy, even as an "power user".

I am very disappointed with the way the GNOME UI has had features removed.

gedit was always very intuitive and easy to use, but then they decided that such ease of use and intuitiveness was too confusing/distracting, so reduced the GUI even further to be completely useless: https://blogs.gnome.org/nacho/2014/01/15/gedit-has-a-new-fac...

I am all for reducing complexity where necessary, but removing GUI elements to force additional clicks to get to any commonly used tools (where is the toolbar? where's the save button?) is foolish, particularly under the guise of "reducing distractions".

The speedometer in a car is not a distraction - it's a feature. As is the rev counter, the accelerator pedal and brake.

But if we apply the GNOME feature-cull approach to a car's cockpit, all we'd have is the glass in front of us, and possibly a steering wheel (debatable).

Nobody needed a manual for the toolbar in gedit - they knew what the save button did. It did not need reducing in complexity, as it wasn't complex in the first place.

Having said this, I will give this new F23 release a go, but you guys lost me as a GNOME3 user after the forced simplification and feature-removal since GNOME2. I hung on with GNOME2 for as long as I could. Of course, nobody cares what I carry on using so it's only a problem for me :-)

Now, this isn't meant nastily only a disappointment at the reduction in features/useful UI elements for no apparent reason.

Thanks for your opinion, I see that both have their advantages.

Switched my mum to Xubuntu over two years ago, so far I've had two support calls (down from about one/two per month plus totally breaking it fairly regulary with Windows).

9/10 - Would penguinise again.

Then I will check Xubuntu too. Thanks.

Xubuntu has been exceptionally stable for me, my mum is on 14.04 (which was the last LTS) since she doesn't do anything exotic, I'm on 15.04 and will likely move to 16.04, I tend to avoid the x.10 before a LTS as they shove lots of stuff in to make the LTS release so I'd suggest 14.04 or 15.04 with a view to upgrading to 16.04 at some point early next year.

Some have an infatuation with constantly trying out distributions that I don't understand. They are the ones who compile your software, so you need to trust them. On my personal PCs I've run Debian since almost 20 years (has it really been that long..?). It needs to work, all the time.

For parents and other relatives I've installed Ubuntu, though. Mostly because it's seen an incomparable amount of third party support. Spotify, Chrome, and some other tools publish Ubuntu repositories, so those things Just Work.

You can then set up them with whatever desktop you find useful, but the farther you stray from vanilla default the more you risk things to break on upgrading, and you're the one doing the support. How do you know something called "Elementary" can even be upgraded? That it'll be around in five years? I briefly look at Mint, as it was essentially Ubuntu, but they don't support upgrades at all.

So I'd say install Ubuntu or Fedora, and go with what you know and what has the most users. Do all the upgrades yourself when you have time for it. They're usually straightforward, but might inform the user of things or ask questions a casual user is not prepared to understand.

Thanks for your opinion, +1 to Ubuntu on my list :)

My parents use linux mint, which has a familiar feeling desktop (cinnamon) if you come from the windows world. It has a big enough user base in it's own right, and being an ubuntu (and derivatively debian) based distro, it's easy to find help on issues.

I will check Linux Mint too. OMG so many options to evaluate. Remembers me the Guardian's article Why too much choice is stressing us out http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/oct/21/choice-s...

aside: a useful accessory for a mixed OS environment where a not-overly-tech-savvy couple want the ability to transfer files between Linux Mint and Win machines via a router live is an app called Dukto

URL: http://www.msec.it/blog/

heaven forbid the neighbor typing a to-do list on a linux laptop by the pool would have to physically get up and show the list to her mate who's web surfing on Win8 in the air conditioned den :-) And a lite samba server would not have been a good solution in this setup. Dukto transfer rate appeared to hover around 25MB/s.

My mom moved from a Mac Mini (PPC) to an old Core2Duo with Fedora not too long ago, and I'm pretty happy with the result. As I got her to use Chrome before, anything browser based wasn't a big switch, but I was worried a bit about moving on from iPhoto. But shotwell is pretty great in that regard, being a bit of a clone in the first place...

I don't see a big advantage in Elementary when it comes to simplicity. GNOME itself ain't exactly overloaded with options, it's just that E tries very hard to appease the Mac folks. So it's mostly aimed at already computer literate minimalists, more than the computer semi-literate. I'm also not too excited about the support, even compared to other alternative desktops.

And with GNOME extensions & tweaks, it's quite easy to adapt to different usage patterns, e.g. if someone really wants desktop icons, a fixed dock or a taskbar.

I was really surprised about how easy it went. Definitely recommend it. And if something goes wrong that you don't know anything about (odd hardware probs, software you're not using yourself), it's always easier to find help for Fedora and Ubuntu distros and default desktops.

Someone should really make a distro spin intended for relatives and friends, where everything just comes ready with remote support, desktop sharing etc.

Thanks for your opinion, +1 to Fedora on my list :)

Upgrade the laptop with an SSD if you haven't already. If you do that at the same time when you switch to Linux, it will boost her experience and trust.

I'm thinking about this as well. My mother uses Windows 7 with Firefox, Thunderbird for mail, LibreOffice and Windows Photo Gallery. I think Ubuntu LTS with the Unity desktop is the best choice. Mint is an option.

In my experience Fedora/Centos is much more work installing applications. That may be my lack of experience with using Centos for desktop. If it's only about the browser, it won't matter much, and then your experience is leading.

I have a Lenovo laptop with 2GB RAM and Ubuntu 14.04 installed on SSD. It stalls many times. You need 4GB RAM. It will work on that laptop, but with issues, probably the same issues she has now. Better buy a new cheap laptop and make sure it has at least 4GB RAM.

Be careful with UEFI - it can cause many headaches when you want to install Linux. It took me more than a month to get it working.

Last tip: Try to find a laptop that has a proven record to work with Linux. Not all laptops qualify, have a modified motherboard or graphics card etc. The old laptop can be tested with a live stick.

Thanks for your opinion and tips.

Upgrade the PC (SSD or more RAM) I think is not an option, because if she/I spend any money/time on that is better to buy a new one, buy individual parts on my country is a little bit expensive.

+1 to Ubuntu on my list :) I will try with the Live CD/Stick if the PC qualifies.

Try each one!

I'm not sure if you are aware, but Linux allows you to run any desktop as a liveUSB. This means that you plug a specially created USB drive (that take 5 minutes) into your PC and boot from the USB drive. You get to try out the Desktop for as long as you like and it does not touch the OS that is installed on your hard disk. Its a great and addictive way to try out a lot of different Linux flavors!

I'd recommend Xubuntu LTS. It's has Ubuntu's big community, is fast and stable, and comes with a familiar interface.

Second person that recommends Xubuntu, I will check it ;) Many options to evaluate is stressing me out haha.

I gave up on fedora around 17 I think after it broke again for no obvious reason. (I'm not a expert sysadmin but I have been running Linux servers in production since 2009 and used Linux workstations on and off since 2003-ish.)

Happy to hear if anyone knows if stability has improved since then.

Fedora is a nice desktop distro, but the versions are supported for 18 months and that's really inconvenient. Upgrades to the next version have improved, but is not as smooth as Debian/Ubuntu (in my experience).

For my mom, I use an Ubuntu LTS :)

+1 to Ubuntu on my list :) Thanks!

Get her a Chromebook

She is fine with Windows 10. My intention is switch her to an nonproprietary OS that can match her current experience on Windows.

Why?

She does almost everything in the browser, user support is a breeze, automatic backup, updates, etc. Cheap.

elementary is awesome, but chromebook is what you should be using

Installed Ubuntu 11.10, had no tech calls since...

Now I would rather advice to go Debian w/ Mate desktop. Debian testing is stable and very reasonable, Mate seems golden middle between XFCE/GNOME/Cinnamon.

Take the one with the longest support period. Instead of Fedora, you might want to try CentOS.

CentOS, OMG other option to evaluate, this is getting crazy. Thanks for your suggestion.

I have to set priorities on each OS to test, I don't have too much time to install/test different distros. Also I don't want to make her try many distros and have to experience different learning curves, she will hate me and say "fuck off with your nonproprietary software and bring me back to Windows 10" hahah.