this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2024

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how would you make a linux distro for extreme beginners in tech and elderly people?? (lemmy.today)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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this is a topic i've been heavily involved with because i still consider myself to be someone who prefers using technology at a very beginner friendly level, plus it's very good when a linux operating system makes you feel right at home when it has a modern desktop environment. this is why i really like gnome, its simplicity and usability is something available for everyone, for beginners and for a lot of other people, but if you had to, say, rearrange xfce or kde for someone who was an elderly person or an absolute beginner so that they wouldn't have any trouble using linux, how would you do it? (screenshot is my current linux mint desktop, very simple and extremely user friendly!!!!)

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I’d made the default desktop wallpaper just some text that says “try typing man man in the terminal”

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Is that a practical question looking for a real solution right now or is more of a philosophical question?

If the latter:

Tech should be approachable by teaching users and add safeguards, not by dumbing things down to a degree users stay dumb. Options should be easy to find, preview what they do, and always offer to restore defaults. A desktop for extreme beginners may even adopt an idea from gaming and have them do a tutorial section first. It may even double as a wizard of which accessibility features to enable for elderly users.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Linux Mint, just ensure the hardware is 100% supported.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Wallpaper?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

@[email protected] most of the issues elderly or someone not familiar with tech might face is installing something. pop os is the answer i think.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

@[email protected] it even has a app store.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Why would it have to be KDE or XFCE? GNOME as it exists today is probably the closest to macOS' design language, and whatever you do designing any kind of operating system UI, macOS needs to be the benchmark. GNOME 2 in the olden days was my favorite DE so today I have to go for things like KDE or MATE but I'm not a novice and I can fully acknowledge that what works for me isn't what works for everyone. GNOME probably made the right decisions to lower the entry barrier towards Linux.

XFCE to me is purely a choice for outdated hardware so unless your extreme beginner has an extremely old PC XFCE is a non-starter. Whether KDE can be made more accessible to the non-initiated I can't say. Anything that has a Windows-esque taskbar is probably ill-equipped from the start as well. Again, macOS is as easy to use in a keyboard and mouse sense as tablets and smartphones are with our fingers. This is the way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

well i meant those two specific desktop environments because those two seem to be extremely customizable, which means icons, windows, etc can be rearranged to be more friendly

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Mint

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

You have to remember older people grew up with computers that are pretty similar to how most of us use Linux. Mint, bluefin would be my choices for someone with lower tech experience.

[+] [email protected] -6 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Adopt windows file system with letterer partitions as the root. Plus most people who use computers are used to this paradigm already. Who ever came up with Linux's file system has poor organization skills

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

I don't agree. It's just because you're used to drive letters.

I think Linux filesystem is better organised. Everything is (almost) well organised in the right folder.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

MOST people use smartphones before they use PCs and none of them have drive letters. All use a unix-style structure internally and just hide this fact through abstraction layers. Not one chose to show drive letters.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

This would fundamentally break the Unix/Posix functionality of layering file systems. All containerization would break. You would lose the ability to map in one filesystem's content within another's. I don't think the right way to get people used to Linux is to fundamentally break it.

File managers - even the dogshit one you get with Gnome - already register external storage devices in a list that's shown no matter where in the file system you are. Assigning a drive letter doesn't clarify anything. What beginner/grandpa is even looking at the contents of the FS root?

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