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I'm not going to try to explain how to use Linux to my wife unless I get a salary for it.
In an effort to relieve her PC of constantly deluge of virus and malware, I switched my Mom over to Ubuntu in the 2000’s. She lasted a month.
The experiment ended when she called me in tears because of her silent 4 week struggle with the OS.
She couldn’t get her scanner to work reliably, and none of her “print shop” software was compatible.
I know more now than I did then, and the distros have come a long way since, but I don’t have the time to retrain her and at 70 years old, I just want her to use what she’s comfortable with, even if that means I have to occasionally scrub her PC.
An oldie but still relevant
https://www.theonion.com/getting-mom-onto-internet-a-sisyphean-ordeal-1819566480
Wow this article perfectly captures the early 2000s experience of trying to teach parents how to use the internet. Internet access wasn't very widespread in Australia yet, and my parents weren't really interested in it and thought it was too difficult to use.
Things from that article that really stuck out to me:
- Not being able to type searches directly into the address bar. This confused me as a child, and I was really excited when browsers started to incorporate the feature
- Mentioning the use of a pager
- Knowing that all the photos in the article are of real people and not AI because it's from 2002
A good read, thanks!
What concept is so foreign on mint or ubuntu that it would need explanation?
My parents didn't notice a difference (early 60s). Firefox, Spotify, and vlc, done.