Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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I really wanna use Linux but I don't know if my family could tolerate the alternative software! (reddthat.com)

submitted 10 hours ago by MisterFred@reddthat.com to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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What happened?

So 2 days ago I was getting back on my family desktop, but I noticed that Windows was slow, like VERY slow. I hear the hardware making decently loud noises all the time

Ok, then it's a great opportunity to switch to Linux!

No! You see, it's a family desktop and it's been there for 10+ years, which means if I install another operating system, 10 years of familiarity will be vanished! Even if I choose a distro with a Windows-like UI, the apps supported there aren't garenteed to be recognized by my parents! Maybe they could tolerate Firefox and mayyyybe Ungoogled Chromium, but that's about it

Ok, did you asked your parents?

I told them I thought about it. My mom doesn't use it for personal stuff at all and my dsd uses it for YouTube, word, excel, etc, so nothing too crazy. OnlyOffice (and LibreOffice from what I heard of) does support Microsoft's file types. I asked them if they could toleratebthe alternative software. My dad said he would think about it. Currently, he said that we don't have a USB with big enough storage space to fit all the data in to backup and restore on the new OS. But my parents are surprisngly open when it comes to my personal discsions. So, hope isn't yet lost

Conclusion and solutions

It's a gray area for now. Idk if my parents could tolerate Linux Mint, but if they could, that's a massive win. If I could figure out how to dual-boot, then it's a possible middle ground. Another possible middle ground is running Windows within Virtual Box for my parents. Best case scenario: The open-source alternatives are good enough for my parents' use cases

Lemmy know about your opinions down in the comments

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[–] Fondots@lemmy.world 19 points 8 hours ago*

Based on your posts and responses here, I really don't think you have enough knowledge/experience with Linux to be making this move and call for your parents. I'm not trying to be mean or discourage you in this, I'm just being real. You're going to end up being tech support for this machine and nothing you're saying makes me think you're up to that.
Backups. Now. Loud noises on an aging machine are a bad sign. The hardware might be on its last legs, and you're not gonna fix that by installing Linux. Get flash drives, get a DVD burner, get stuff onto the cloud somehow, do whatever backup solution makes sense for your situation. That really should be your first priority here whether or not you can get them to switch. Unless you know for an absolute fact that they don't have anything important on their computer that they wouldn't want to lose, you should still be making backups of some kind before making a big change to their computer like installing Linux just in case something goes wrong and you lose everything.
Have a plan to repair or replace that computer. Figure out what's making those loud noises, and fix it if possible. Again, you're not going to fix a hardware issue with software. Maybe you're lucky and you just have some fans choked with dust and need to be cleaned out, or maybe the hard drive is failing. Pretty much the only loud noise you're going to fix with Linux is if the computer is just that bogged down with windows crap that the fans have to be going full speed to keep the computer from cooking itself, but even then you still have to ask whether that machine has enough oomph in it to give them an enjoyable experience on Linux (and it very well might, but at 10 years it's probably time to start thinking about a replacement, not that I'd want to be shopping for computers right now)
If you're going to disregard those warnings, make a live USB, set it up their computer to boot from it first. Stick that in their computer and let them play with it for a week or two. Show them how to get to their windows files from there. Show them what programs are alternatives to the ones they use the most in windows. Tell/show them that if they don't like it they just need to turn the computer off and pull the flash drive out and everything will be just as they left it. This is basically what I did to switch my parents over to Linux mint. For me it helped that their computing needs are basically just office applications and a web browser, so there wasn't much to teach them. Give them a heads-up that it will probably run a little slower from the USB than it would once it's actually installed on the computer (on my parents computer it was still faster than windows 11, but was noticeably slow and laggy to me, but is pretty responsive now that I have it installed.)

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