I’m trying to set up a Linux laptop for a friend who lives in another city. They have only ever used Windows, and likely won’t have easy access to fix issues (not that I’m an expert).

First off, is it a good idea to give them a Linux PC at all? Have others had good/bad experiences giving technophobes Linux?

Secondly, if I go ahead with it, what’s a good, stable, “safe” OS for a beginner? I’m shy of anything that’s a rolling release (e.g. Arch, Manjaro etc) as “bleeding edge” can break things more often than not. I’m leaning towards Debian or something Debian based. But I’ve also heard good things about Fedora.

If I was the one using the PC, I’d have installed Fedora, as I’ve heard it’s well-maintained. Then again there’s been some good buzz about Debian 12. What would your advice be? Thanks!

  • zemonofdrako@sopuli.xyz
    4·
    1 year ago

    1, It’s a good idea to give them Linux if they agreed to it and have a general understanding of what is different.

    2, I installed Debian on my 81 years old friend’s shitty old laptop (it was out of curiousity), he never called me back to fix his OS. For your friend though, I’d recommend Linux Mint Debian Edition, as it feels faster than regular Mint.

    • piezoelectron@sopuli.xyzOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      Cheers! Yep, I’m gonna give them the down low on Linux. I might even modify the DE to imitate the Windows 11 UX so the transition is easier.

      I’m basically boiling it down to Debian/Debian-based OR Fedora…

      • zemonofdrako@sopuli.xyz
        1·
        1 year ago

        I have no experience with Fedora, as far as I can tell mostly tech enthusiasts use it. I wouldn’t install a rolling distro on a newbie’s machine, though.

  • coldredlight@beehaw.org
    4·
    1 year ago

    I run Pop on my laptop and have been really happy with it. I’m not really a Linux person and it’s been totally straight forward for me, it seems very user friendly.

    • piezoelectron@sopuli.xyzOP
      3·
      1 year ago

      Perfect! Honestly, my greatest fear is that something breaks and they need to look up fixes by themselves. For a technophobe, StackOverflow and other forums can be pretty intimidating or downright hostile.

      Ideally I’d like to opt for a distro that firstly works well on old machines (I’m going for a ThinkPad T400, i.e. an ancient one), and secondly, if it does break, can be fixed with a GUI hopefully.

  • Andy@programming.dev
    3·
    1 year ago

    For a no-nonsense working system familiar to Windows users, it’s hard to go wrong with Linux Mint, Cinnamon edition. If it really feels sluggish under that weight, maybe try out the Mate and XFCE editions, in turn.

  • humdrumgentleman@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    I would suggest Linux Mint. It is aimed at beginners, has a desktop environment that is relatively similar to Windows, and is based on Ubuntu (and therefore Debian).

  • highspire@sopuli.xyz
    1·
    1 year ago

    openSUSE is more my thing, but ElementaryOS might be a nice one. I believe it’s a Debian fork. When I started, I used Ubuntu MATE and found it fairly intuitive, but it depends on for friend. Ironically, I’ve had more issues with Fedora breaking itself than Arch or Tumbleweed, so I don’t recommend or use it myself. That said, it’s pretty popular anyway, so I’m probably just special

  • ananas@sopuli.xyz
    1·
    1 year ago

    I wouldn’t go with Debian unless he plans to use that ThinkPad as a server. Distribution version upgrades are not easy for beginners, and with Debian you are stuck with ancient software versions unless they know how to get access to newer software repositories. And at that point it would be better to just run a rolling release. It’s setting them up for a bad experience.

    Fedora is fine, Zorin and Pop! OS aren’t bad for beginners either.

    • piezoelectron@sopuli.xyzOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      Thanks for the heads up. My main concern with Zorin and Pop (out of ignorance, more than anything) is that they’re built with more modern devices, and will make the ThinkPad experience extremely slow? You think this should be a concern or it’ll be fine?

      • ananas@sopuli.xyz
        1·
        1 year ago

        Depends on how old it is. T420 should be able to handle at least Zorin (especially the lite variant). I’m not sure about Pop’s system requirements, I’ve only ran it in a virtual machine.

  • papertowels@lemmy.one
    1·
    1 year ago

    Honestly, if you’re breathing new life into an old laptop for a technophobe, I’d consider installing chrome os on it. Easy to use, difficult to screw up.

  • AmoldyBuffalo@sopuli.xyz
    1·
    1 year ago

    Mint is always a good bet. Fedora is great, but some things about it aren’t as new user friendly. In also hear good things about Pop!_OS.