Welp… My mom is apparently done with windows (yay!) Anf wants me to move her laptop to Linux (oh nooo). I personally use Ubuntu studios but im not sure what to get for her. She is getting her masters in nursing online so it def needs to be able to accommodate that. Do y’all have any suggestions on where to start? TIA

  • anon5621@lemmy.ml
    18·
    23 days ago

    Depends from her hardware but generally Linux mint I install for everyone who is not familiar at all with linux.

  • MyNameIsRichard@lemmy.ml
    13·
    23 days ago

    She is getting her masters in nursing online so it def needs to be able to accommodate that

    Is there any specialist software she needs, or is it browser based?

    • freeman@feddit.org
      5·
      23 days ago

      Most important question.

      Also try to transition her slowly from outlook -> Thunderbird and chrome -> firefox and so on. Then after a few weeks at least do the switch to linux mint. Then the shock of all the new things is smaller

      • sylvieslayer@lemmy.worldOP
        3·
        22 days ago

        I got 2 weeks for her break to change it, get it fine tuned and teach her enough to not fail instantly. Thankfully shes pretty good with computers but has never changed an OS like this.

        • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
          1·
          21 days ago

          Are you able to make sure the course doesn’t have any weird specific browser things? I hope nobody uses IE stuff anymore and Edge is Chromium based now so maybe that’s not a concern like it used to be.

  • zemon@lemmy.ml
    4·
    23 days ago

    1, Find out whether she needs any specific piece of software that is hard to replace. 2, Regarding distro, you should install her what you use, so it is easier for you to help. Ubuntu is well hated for a reason though (Canonical doing big tech things). I’d recommend either Linux Mint or Debian (if you are not a beginner in Linux and comfortable in the termunal) for both of you, but I’d wait until she passes her exams and may consider setting up a dual-boot on a spare SSD first, so she is able to try Linux and go back to Windows when needed. 3, Desktop environment: GNOME is considered best for ones coming from Apple and KDE from Windows. Both are resource hungry in my opinion, so I use MATE, which looks like GNOME 2 out of the box and uses a bit more resources than Xfce, well configurable though. Note that Ubuntu MATE is its flagship edition, many options are there out of the box (like MATE tweak).

  • monovergent 🛠️@lemmy.ml
    4·
    23 days ago

    Linux Mint, as many have suggested, but Fedora would also be a good choice if there’s any bleeding-edge hardware not supported otherwise.

  • LeFantome@programming.dev
    3·
    22 days ago

    I moved my mother to Mint a few months ago. I have not had a single tech support call. She uses it daily. About a week in I asked her how it was going. She liked that printing worked more reliably and wished the scroll bars in Facebook were a bit thicker. Her printer used to show as offline sometimes in Windows but that issue has gone away under Mint. I was going to look for a theme with thicker scroll bars but she told me not to bother.

    Granted she was a Firefox and Thunderbird user already so that helped with the transition.

  • inzen@lemmy.world
    3·
    21 days ago

    I put my mom on Linux Mint Cinnamon (Ubuntu based) looks a lot like windows with minimal bells and whistles. Mostly just works unless you have bleeding edge hardware. Most Ubuntu flavours should also work. I’m suggesting Ubuntu based distros due to the fact that most media codecs, fonts and drivers are installed or easy to install.

  • ratatouille@feddit.org
    41·
    22 days ago

    My mom was not interested in the surface cause she only need Mail, Browser, Whatsapp web and here Background image. So she used Ubuntu with the side bar as good as with Mint. Same goes for gmy Granny. I propose, Ask what possibilities are important for here - Do not ask about Application - and show here afther that where to do things.

    For showing the new PC. Do it with some work she has to do. Learning curve is way better thatway.

  • Tenderizer78@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    23 days ago

    Though I’m disappointed at how ugly Cinnamon and all it’s themes are, Linux Mint (with Cinnamon).

    But as someone else said, probably ought to dual-boot or have a Windows VM just to be safe.

  • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
    2·
    21 days ago

    Get her the same one you have so you can see what she sees and help her. Or standard Ubuntu. For real. Don’t overthink it. She’s gonna be interested in your help.