He wasn't a hugely skilled computer user to start with, just knowing a few patterns of clicks to open a web browser or a word document. I made him a little laminated card next to his screen explaining how to do the few things he needed to do.
It's been 2 years, and not a support call.
My only regret is checking his history to figure out where the viruses were coming from.
So I suggested Ubuntu with Unity, configured for automatic updating of software in background. I first gave him a new computer with a fresh installation, so he could try it for a few weeks first. Surprisingly it went very well (I usually have a few minor problems myself). He learned to use Unity within just a few minutes. He could use it with the Norwegian language(as he don't know english), and it worked great with increased DPI for less strain on his eyes.
Now it's been a few months, and he has not complained once! In fact, he tells me only good things about it! About how much faster it is, how much easier it is to read and how much easier it is to use the computer now.
While Unity is not a very useful desktop environment for myself, it is certainly great for people who mostly need easy access to a few applications.
Oh this sounds painfully familiar. Every time I assist my father I notice Ask toolbar. I occasionally uninstall it, but of course it reappears with the updates. Well, at least I know that he is installing the updates so that's a good thing. But seriously Oracle, do you really need those couple of bucks from Ask?
Not with Skandiabanken. Their only special requirement is a phone for doing two-factor authentication by SMS.
If you wanna use the horridly flawed BankID, which they do also offer, you probably need Java as you say.
Rant to foreigners about BankID: The conversation must have gone like this at a meeting of Noreay's major banks:
- Public key crypto is good.
- Yes!
- But users are too stupid/lazy to safeguard their private keys...
- Good point. How 'bout some trusted party taking care of those for the users?
- Yes! And you know who you can trust? Banks!
- Agreed then, we'll sit on the private keys, and when the customer wants so sign for say a mortgage, they just authorize us to do so for them.
- That last step sounds cumbersome...
- Nah, we'll just do it over the Internet.
- But won't that put us back where we started?
- Hush! I can't hear you over the sound of future income!
I'm an expert and I still haven't figured out how to use Unity. If I have so much trouble that every time I've tried it, within a few hours I give up and install traditional Gnome, LXDE, or Mint with Cinnamon, I can scarcely imagine how bad it would be for a novice.
First of all, it crashes a lot.
Secondly, you have to use some magical key combination to start multiple instances of an application.
Thirdly, Unity has no easy discoverability of apps. If I want to see what I have installed on my system using a traditional desktop, I can just read through the Start menu [1] and its submenu. Unity has no way to do this that I can figure out.
Yes, you can type an app name, but a novice user might not know their Internet browser is called "Firefox" or their email client is called "Thunderbird." (Heck, when I started using Ubuntu, it took me a while to figure out that Totem was a media player, Nautilus was a file manager, and Vinagre was a remote desktop client.) The point is that typing "video" or "file" or "vnc" won't point you in the right direction.
In short, Unity sucks and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
[1] I heard Windows 8 is ditching it too, at least by default.
You may say substance not style, but I prefer style & substance.
An article written by someone with more than 2 brain cells can be found here: http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/564250/0a106d6379c0d741/
However I encountered the new installer when trying to download FileZilla only. I had to download a couple of different software since then, but those did download directly, no installer.