Hacker News Reader

Comment by coned88 | Hacker News Reader

Weird argument. Because I have given Linux systems to the elderly before. People with little to no experience with computers. Guess what they were all fine.

My mother was a long time windows user. Kept getting viruses. She was converted to Ubuntu and has used it for over a decade now without issue.

Linux is far easier for people than you think. My mother is a senior citizen now and this is her second computer.

The UI concerns you bring up are just silly, They are about the same as you buying a new hammer and it having an inconsistent wood grain or a metal burr.

View on HN

What you call silly others might call "fit and finish". Or simply "doing an adequate job".

With a kitchen if there were a few mm difference in height between wall unit cupboards, or wall sockets, it would not affect your use of the kitchen one iota. Yet everyone would likely notice such an amateur and slapdash job and employ a different contractor for their own home. Same with the difference between a table made by assembling a flat pack and something craftsman made.

There's a reason Apple put so much score into the user interface guides and specifications for icons, interface and such.

Yeah I notice the little touches such as Bluetooth on/off toggling. On the Mac when I reboot it’s in the same state as I left it. On Ubuntu it resets to on unless I edit a text file.

Over all that may not be a big thing but it does illustrate one of the rough edges.

(macOS has its own warts too of course. Such as not having keyboard shortcuts for split view or weird little pop up windows you can’t close without a mouse.)

> People with little to no experience with computers. Guess what they were all fine.

I think the original comment was talking about ugly UI rather than "Linux works just fine".

The key point I believe was, if Linux came with better UX design like what Elementary OS did, then it will be "Good" instead of "Just fine".

It's about an upgrade, bring Linux to a better level, not "Linux UI looks ugly, it's bad and unusable".

I find Ubuntus and for that matter most DE font system superior to OSX's. Apple touts accessibility but on OSX you can't even change the font size system wide. You literally have to go into each and every app and change it specifically. Let's hope that the app supports it. Many don't.

On Ubuntu you can just change the font size and it changes everywhere without having to decrease your resolution so you take advantage of what your hardware provides.

Give them iPads (or Android tablets) + a wireless keyboard.

Yeah same experience here. Installed gentoo on our home computer for my mom and dad and once i showed them how to open Firefox, they were happy as clams. The only issue was when my dad wanted to install tax software

Basically, they'll be okay as long as they only use the browser.

When they need to edit a MS Excel file, or use their digital signature (mandatory for companies in my country), or use some accounting software... or anything like this, you understand that Linux isn't as ready for the mainstream desktop as we think it is.

Your country mandate digital signature that aren't cross platform?

"Cross platform" is in the eye of the beholder.

How easy is it to use for someone that thinks their browser IS the internet to install and use?

Browser extensions?

Some are compatible, some aren't. And even if yours is technically compatible, if you run into problems with the website or program where you need to use it -- and you will -- you're on your own.

My dad was happy with OpenOffice.org Calc (now LibreOffice), and he loved excel. But, yeah, obviously Linux doesn't run accounting or signature software that is not built for it. That's not a technical issue with Linux of course (see Android), but a lack of proprietary software that runs on GNU/Linux.

If you are a medium-advanced user with Excel it's not gonna be good with calc.

Linux is only going to be smooth for very basic stuff or if you have de knowledge to troubleshoot it.

You mean your parents can use your gentoo computer, or that you installed gentoo for them ? The latter sounds quite unorthodox.

I installed it for them. It was more than a decade ago, and I chose gentoo because it was one of the first distributions to support amd64. Chose gentoo over debian because it had newer kernel versions that I needed for that particular computer.

Similar history here with another distro.

We just finished a project in rural communities in Panama and gave laptops (ThinkPad 13) with Mint 19 Cinnamon to people with very little experience with computers. However, we kept Windows 10 in one of the computers and guess what, that's the only one that gave us trouble, when the user got all scared and confused with the Office trial version telling them they needed to pay. All the other users had no major problems at all with the user experience.

Oh, so the same reason people are paying for iPhones, BMWs and haircuts? Look, you wanted less hair, you got it! Ppppppplease... people pay for details and the products and brands that deliver them are obviously doing something right.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com