Hello there. Was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for a Linux distro for grandparents? They are over 70 years old, with an old HP desktop and laptop running Windows 10. All they need is a Web browser, so no need for special software or wine to run Windows programs. Would preferably like something that is low maintenance so I don’t have to be constant tech support for them (apart from the initial install and setup). Thanks for any suggestions.

  • PlzGivHugsEnglish
    2•24 days ago

    What are the other alternatives?

      • @[email protected]English
        0•24 days ago

        Silverblue/Kinoite

        Those are not immutable, especially on the file system. I’m glad the fedora team switched the term to “atomic”, because “immutable” set all the wrong expectations.

        • @[email protected]English
          0•23 days ago

          So you’re saying that most directories in /usr and (also) some other directories in / are not read-only during runtime (under regular system maintenance/management) on Fedora Atomic?

            • @[email protected]English
              1•23 days ago

              Thank you for clarifying what you didn’t write nor mean. Could you be so kind to explain what you did mean with what’s quoted below?

              Those are not immutable, especially on the file system.

              • @[email protected]English
                1•23 days ago

                Sure. Not all directories are protected and the ones that are, are just protected from immediate write access. A malicious app or a user who copies the wrong snippets can create overlays and apply them immediately without a reboot. Having atomic distros is awesome but it has nothing to do with immutability and it someone needed that for example for PCs that are in random control at least some of the time, then they need a different solution on top, that gives actual immutability.

                • @[email protected]English
                  1•23 days ago

                  So, you referred to immutable in the absolute sense? If not, would you be so kind to mention distros/systems that you actually refer to as immutable?

                  • @[email protected]English
                    1•22 days ago

                    I never needed it. I know from my school days that windows supports that use case. You get a full system and can do with it as you please but on reboot you get a completely fresh file system. The only thing that persisted were the user profiles that roamed through active directory. Seemingly there was no way of tampering with the file system, that would persist a reboot. And as school kids we tried hard 😅

                    I would be surprised if Linux didn’t have utilities for that, that were better designed and safer - but again, not my expertise.