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Basic Linux Systems for the Home User?
Michael J. Kitchin asks: "I'm trying to configure a machine for my 89-year old grandfather, who's never even turned on a computer. His living situation led me to a little slimtop (a Gateway Profile) that I could probably slide another OS into if necessary. Trouble is, the entire pointer-window-desktop metaphor is proving hard to get used to, even though the trackball he settled on is easy to maipulate. His needs are few: writing some, maybe surfing the web, and reading eBooks. Has anybody written some kind of basic GUI that would meet his needs? Any tips/references for how I should lay out such a thing, if I had to? " This should be easy using a fairly simple X11 desktop with buttons to launch the small set of applications mentioned. What suggestions do you folks have?
Why bother with Linux for your grandfather? Is it some techie pride that you must install Linux
everywhere possible?
I cannot answer for the original person who answered the question, but as one who has given Linux to his own mother, his sister, and numerous non-computer literate friends, I can tell you that, yes, technical pride plays a role. I want my family and friends to have systems they can use and enjoy, as opposed to something which is crash prone, difficult to maintain, and suffers notorious "bit-rot" over time, ultimately resulting in a required reinstall. In addition, I do not want to be fielding tech support calls on how to fix this or that misfeature of Windows, especially on my time off. With Linux, I almost never get calls at all, and when I do, they are questions like "how do I do xxx?" which takes about two seconds to answer, vs. "My Windows system is broken, how do I fix it" which takes anywhere from a few minutes to a trip to reinstall the once-again corrupted OS because dll blah was overwritten by the new version of MS Office).
As an example of someone like the original poster's grandfather, I have a friend (another pilot) who was sick of Windows crashing nearly every time he tried to access the net or do serious work with his IFR flight simulator. I told him about Linux (and the free software philosophy in general) and he was very excited to try it. So one Saturday evening, before going out to Exit to party the night away, we installed Debian Linux on his system. He was on the internet in no time, at which point we downloaded Star Office and FlightGear. The Flight Simulator isn't yet usable for serious IFR work (no panel), but as a toy it is fantastic. Star Office and Netscape fulfill his other needs, and his system has never crashed on him (it's been several months now). He has said on several occasions that he will never go back to windows -- and this is despite the fact that he knows little to nothing about Linux and how to administer it, and despite the fact that his favorite flight simulator does not run under Linux (he won't even dual boot anymore to run the simulator, as he gets too angry when, inevitably, Windows decides to head south during a particularly challenging approach procedure).
and I can bet that the performance will not suffer regardless of the OS on the
machine
I would take that bet in a second. If you are using Windows, your performance will suffer with systems crashes (occasional if you never install new software, more frequent if you do) and slower overall speed, to name two. Under FreeBSD or Linux, this will not be the case. Install any one of several friendly X GUI's and the user won't care, except in as much as their system will be both faster and much, much more stable. Where on earth have you been, to believe that the OS makes no difference in a computer's performance (or did I completely misunderstand what you were saying)?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
This doesn't have much to do with software config, but
one thing to keep in mind is that your visual acuity drops with
age. I'm not talking about the focus problems that necessitate reading glasses,
but rather the effective resolution of your retinas. Take a piece of paper and draw some parallel lines 1mm apart on it. How far away can you distinguish
those lines, even with perfect focus? Whatever answer you got, it will decrease with age.
The conclusion I draw from this is that a laptop is not a very good solution
for older folks. You want a BIG monitor set to 800x600, so as to make those pixels nice and big.
I noticed this when I was helping my grandfather surf the web on my mom's laptop. His eyes had a lot of trouble distinguishing a lot of the tiny user interface elements that I take for granted. (Anybody remember the old single-pixel HFS indicator on the Mac Finder?)
OK, folks, reality check! Linux is probably NOT the best choice here for some pretty good reasons. Let's forget the advocacy and stick to facts.
Several pretty good reasons to stick with Win98 in this situation:
1. It's already there. This is probably the best reason. Sure, you could show us all your nerdly prowess and turn your Grandfather's really cool new flatscreen PC into a Frankenstein's monster, but would that be better? Everything you need is there now, and there's little to be gained by a move as drastic as ripping out and replacing the OS.
2. Hardware Issues. The Gateway Profile, while not a laptop, uses laptop-ish hardware, and would present similar challenges to Linux on a new laptop. Linux is very good, but it still has a ways to go before it's ready for serious laptop use. Keep in mind that things like ACPI and USB won't work, and things like sound may not work for a long time, if ever. He might really enjoy a USB camera for Christmas!
3. Win98 can do what you need. Win98 can actually be made quite simple and consistent, particularly if you turn on active desktop and point it at a nicely built custom HTML page that contains launchers for the things he'll need. Although it's seldom used well, this is a really powerful feature that offers a lot of power to reside behind the scenes. Another feature of the IE/Win98 desktop can also be quite beneficial here: set it up so that it uses single-click to open things. That way there's no difference between the way the browser and the desktop work, eliminating one of the most confusing and frustrating issues for new users.
4. Suppport. If the other arguments haven't clinched it, this one should. He will actually be able to get the Gateway folks to help him so long as the software bears some resemblance to what they shipped. While quite confident of my skills in setting up a Linux box for this (and there are some benefits to that approach although they're outweighed by the point above), I would leave my own grandfather (if any were left) with the factory config. The OEMs put a LOT of work into making things work as they should (I know, I used to do it for a living), even in the Windows environment. (Why do you think VA Research has a good reason to exist? Sure you can do everythign they do, but it's hard, and it's worth something to have it done by those that know how. Generally, Gateway builds a pretty solid machine. Leverage that.
5. Software availability. This may not be an issue, but the fact is that today, I can go down to CompUSA or the like and buy a gazillion Windows apps for every Linux equivalent. Free (beer) software is nice, but we pay a knowledge tax to use it. Sometimes cheap commercial software is cheaper - autorun of setup.exe is a whole lot easier than even installing RPMs or tarballs. Also, don't forget games - my wife's grandfather, who passed away last year at nealy 102, spent all afternoon a few years back playing my brother-in law's new sub warfare game. Windows has the edge in this regard for the time being.
In general, don't change things unless there's a *good* reason, and figure out how *he* would like it to work before you start the serious twiddling.
Sure, you can do this with Linux, but unless you're trying to make a statement, where's the payback? Now if Gateway *sold* the Profile with Linux, then I might change my tune...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Sorry to disagree, but... :-), there is not much reason for his grandfather to prefer the windows GUI to one of the the X GUIs, either. Some observation I made when letting my now 4 years old daughter use her PC for the first times: she did find it _very_ hard to get used to the double click for starting applications, which I think is still the default in Win 98, but did have no trouble whatsoever starting KDE apps. Yes, there is a double- and even a triple click in X as well, for marking text, but I wouldnt expect a beginner to use this, whereas one has to have a way to start applications. If the prospective user had any experience in using windows, that would be something different, and I would try to build on that.
while Linux certainly is not the answer to every computing need (yet
So, for my 4 year old daughter, the environment of choice is KDE, with only a few preselected icons, and I could imagine that to work for elderly people as well.