Technology
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As much as I love Linux, I can't really suggest it to casual users because I would end up being tech support for every issue. I'd suggest it to slightly more advanced users who know the basics of troubleshooting.
I do tech support for a living. I once had a neighbor that is handicapped and she kept asking me why her computer was always asking her stuff and was rebooting 'by itself'.
Turns out she had a very old computer that was using a very basic version of Windows Home (she couldn't even change the background) and it was constantly choking and rebooting because of updates.
I installed Linux Mint on her computer and requests for support have dropped by 90%.
In fact, I have done this for a few unexperienced computer users and because they mainly just use a browser, it's much simpler for them.
When you think about all the notifications Windows is showing to its users about everything, from antivirus to OneDrive, and all the actions its prompting, it's easy to see how some very basic users may find that extremely confusing. For people like that, a stable Linux distribution will be bliss (and for the people helping them).
and the computer performed faster right?
I would guess so. I'm running Mint on 15yo hardware. Chunky laptop, and DDR3 desktop. Between Mint and a SSD, the devices perform as well as current hardware on Windows 11.
Yes but it was still a P4 running Windows 7 Home Starter so whatever modern OS would choke on that anyway. I eventually gave her an old Phenom with a triple core but with the condition that it was running Linux Mint instead of Windows.
I moved a few years ago but I'm still going to help her a few times a year to do the updates. It's very low maintenance compared to Windows.
I'm not sure requests for help with Linux would be that much more frequent than the ones I get now asking for help with Windows. The Windows UX is getting worse while the Linux UX has been getting better for a while now.
In my humble opinion I tend to disagree. I have installed Linux (Fedora 38) on a system of an absolute computer noob and up until now (2 months in) I haven't heard a single complaint or question. It's faster than Win 10 and surprisingly even more stable.
It just depends on the person. I wouldn't put my mom on Linux for example, but I would consider her a casual user.
Is that because nothing works on the computer anymore, and they are unable to contact you because of it? 🤔
If that would be the case he'd still have my cellphone number and a landline which i (pinky promise!) haven't touched!