I need a distro that is stable with a particular need to set up zero input automatic updates. If an update asks for a password or needs user interaction in basically any way it simply won’t get done. All he needs is a reliable platform for browsing the web. I am replacing an Ubuntu system that has apparently just stopped working (I have not had a chance to examine it yet) after years and years of not getting proper updates after he forgot his password.
Something like Bazzite is intriguing because of it’s locked down environment although he is very much not a gamer. Is there something locked down like Bazzite but with long term LTS release cycle?
You must log in or # to comment.
Debian and install the “unattended-upgrades” package.
You set it up with an email address to complain to when something fucks up and it just works.
E: no matter what you end up going with, some kind of reverse proxy or vpn will be helpful for when you need to remote in and fix something.
If you end up needing Remote Desktop and can do it, stay away from Wayland. The screen sharing situation there is confusing and annoying for seasoned users, let alone in a tech support situation.
What might be a better bet is either a windows (robust screen sharing setup) or mac (simpler interface and reliability) computer. You’re gonna be on the other end of it, so make sure to pick what you know the most deeply when it comes to remote support.
E2: another note in the vein of hated non linux oses: Those might be good because other people in the users life may be familiar with them and it won’t be such a pain when they wanna open a file or something.
I currently have an older relative using Debian/KDE with unattended-updates and few issues over the past year. Laptop was previously Windows 10, has had replacement battery and HDD->SSD swap, wouldn’t be supported by Windows 11, but is totally capable of running most modern apps.
Browsers can just be flatpak/snap/ppa and auto-update whenever, as Debian’s packaged (ESR) versions might get a bit dated.
From my own experiences with Ubuntu variants, I’ve always had some kind of issue when doing a release update, so I’ve personally stopped using it, but maybe thats just me.
Only significant issues I’ve encountered are with some flatpaks needing permission tweaks to (re-)enable printing, webcam, or filesystem access, and potentially over-doing the ad-block extensions/settings leading some sites to break - its worth setting up multiple browsers to pre-empt and work around those problems.
For remote access, it’s not a problem in my case, but you could potentially just setup a VPN with something like tailscale and just ssh over that. Once connected, I’d explore systems like VNC or KDE’s built-in remote access system. In the short/medium term, it would be easier to stick with X11 for that, but at some point, Wayland and those supporting tools are going to reach parity and distributions/desktop environments will drop X11 entirely - best to future-proof as much as you can.
For regular maintenance, it’s worth checking-in regularly to make sure the system and user is happy, and maybe setting a cron-job for house-keeping tasks (removing old kernel files and temp files, checking disk-usage/health), and having that notify you. But that probably depends how physically hands-on you’ll be.
Don’t think in terms of easy to use and unbreakable. You won’t get that because something as simple as losing icons on the desktop is the kinda thing that’ll confuse someone that’s bad with computers. Instead, think in terms of what’s going to be easy for you to fix when you inevitably have to play tech support.
I’ll second this. I’ve setup an Kubuntu PC for my parents. It’s worked really well for the past 5+ years. One thing I wish I had done was Setup remote access they can easily turn it on when they need help.
The other thing that has come up is the monitor resolution changing (ex: if they’re using a UHD TV as a monitor but I set it to 1080p to make things legible for them).
For the second, I added a bright and easily visible icon to their desktop that will run a quick script to reset their monitor resolution to 1080p.
Op should have a plan for updates and especially auto updating the browser. Some banking sites may stop working if the browser hasn’t been updated in a while.
Also do take time to explain the difference between the desktop (as part of the OS) vs things like application windows and especially the browser and where to find things they may not necessarily need that often but will be useful if you can’t remote in, like OS settings.
Whichever distro you choose, you could set up SSH access for yourself to do things for them (apart from fixing most networking issues if they can’t connect to the internet ofc).
Any recommendation for handling dynamic ips for connecting these days? I used to use a dyndns client to register updates to a hostname but that was a long time ago
I also used to use the same thing. Been a long time since I’ve had to remote access someone else’s PC for troubleshooting but I think I also used TeamViewer back in the day (which I assume might not work as well on Linux anymore now that Wayland is the norm?). Perhaps you could write a quick script to get your public ip address by curling some web service that tells you your public ip address, add a desktop shortcut to that script, and over the phone tell the person to double click that desktop shortcut and read out the number they see. It’d still trip up the most tech illiterate but hopefully if they’re at the “can follow clear and basic instructions” level they can manage that. And possibly there are still dyndns clients that do that; I’ve just not messed with any of that for a long time, but you can set that up on their PC if that stuff is still around.
I was just thinking of packaged solutions/clients but yeah a script sounds good, maybe there’s packages doing the same thing but just scheduling a script every 5 min or so to detect a change and register it with a service called in curl is probably plenty for what I would need
FydeOS might be more in line with what you need. Based on ChromeOS, but without the Google account requirements and spyware. I installed this on my dad’s PC along with setting up DNS-based Ad blocking and it’s been rock solid. If he just needs a browser, that’s basically what it is.
That’s interesting, didn’t know that existed. I know OP didn’t ask about cost but I was curious if you’ve been paying for major version upgrades or subscribing for the yearly support? According to their pricing page only minor updates would be automatic for the free installs
so you’d need to manually upgrade the system whenever you need a major OS update to be done. It doesn’t seem quite as automatic as OP was hoping for but maybe it’s not a bad tradeoff if you only need to touch it once a year or whatever the software release schedule is.
He’s been on version 22 since I set it up back it February of this year. I don’t think a new major version had come out since then. (I actually haven’t thought to check) my plan was just to do a fresh install as needed for major updates, or when his current version stops receiving security updates since new features aren’t really a concern for him.
I personally have installed Mint (Debian edition) with similar needs. Absolutely zero input might be a bit much to ask, since user should be aware of that something is going on before shutting everything down, but when that’s taken care of the unattended upgrades work just fine. Just recently I had to fix a laptop with mint to friend of a friend because upgrade was interrupted. Just running ‘dpkg --configure -a’ followed by apt upgrade and apt dist-upgrade did the job, so not big of a deal for me, but for the owner of the machine that would’ve been pretty much impossible task since they just refuse to learn even the slightest amount of their computer and have a very short temper on anything like that. And I can kind of understand that too, at least up to a point. There are things which I just can’t be arsed to learn which are equally easy to different people.
Any atomic distro + flatpak packages.
- flatpak packages.
Yay, Gramps! I got you a supply-chain exploit! Wheee!
So should they use the AUR, btw?
deleted by creator
I’m aure they support Firefox + email client + a few card games to spend time between sending an email and waiting a reply.
deleted by creator
The OP’s elderly parents won’t need anything else. Have you forgotten that one of his specs is to minimize password usage and updating?
deleted by creator
Take a look at the immutable distros like Fedora Silverblue. It would install updates automatically, and has the ability to always rollback to a working version. I haven’t used it long enough to have version upgrades tested. Perhaps it asks for user input. These upgrades happen twice a year.
If I was doing that these days with my current skills, I’d install some minimal version of Arch Linux and probably would remote into it once in a while to update, or invent some simple script to do the updates unattended. The lesser the packages the easier the whole task.
Also, don’t forget there’s Chrome OS which you can install on a regular PC. (It was called Chrome OS Flex last time I did that for a relative.) It’s the easiest I can remember right now. That’s for situations when all they need is actually just a browser. For those cases Chrome OS shines.
Also, don’t forget there’s Chrome OS
No, please forget Chrome OS. Also, I’d hesitate to call it “Linux” at this point
Haven’t used one myself for years (close to a decade). Installed it for a relative about 5 years ago, never maintained it ever since.
What’s wrong with it?
It worked pretty well on an ancient PC which was running some Windows 7 if not XP. Can’t remember really. The relative is about 80 years old, so all he needs is a browser. So, Chrome OS came naturally. The hardest part was, for some really stupid reason Google wants Google account password to be entered upon booting, and not some other password. PIN code didn’t work for us for some reason. The solution I took is we changed the password to his birthday (perhaps with some A letter, if it wants at least one letter to be present). The password included dots, which was trivial to enter with a Numpad. Like A1945.09.05. But personally, I just hate it. There are use cases when you can allow a computer to have no password. Here, Google forced us to use less secure password, out of convenience. I’d prefer to have my Google account having stronger password, and forcing no password of my computer at all. The potential security risk is someone breaking into the house, and surely they’ll be very dumb to steal that computer, to have … what? YouTube history of some old fart? But that’s a bit of a different story anyway.
Me, I’d rather go with some very minimal distro and maybe even kiosk-mode browser, if necessary.
Still, what’s wrong with ChromeOS? Did I miss something important? Beyond Google dropping ‘don’t be evil’ obviously.
Still, what’s wrong with ChromeOS? Did I miss something important? Beyond Google dropping ‘don’t be evil’ obviously.
A quick look through some of the privacy communities will give you an overall vibe on what Google is doing. But overall, they’re getting monopolistic.
They’re requiring all android developers register their identities with them or they’ll be blocked on all Google’d android versions (which almost all Android phones ship with). They’re also datamining everyone more and more each year, just like Facebook.
And they’re using their influence over Chromium to force adblock blockers into every Chromium browser. And the only non-Chromium browsers are Firefox and its derivatives
And by far the worst one, they bought out ReCaptcha and they just rolled out an update that requires verification with a device that has either iOS or stock android. It doesn’t support deGoogle’d android like GrapheneOS or LineageOS, and it doesn’t support desktop. So now any website you visit that uses the new version of ReCaptcha requires you to verify your identity with a phone, even if you’re accessing the website on desktop. This is so they can link all your systems to your identity
If you value your privacy, you should work to get your digital footprint off Google’s software as much as possible
I’m a mint hater but mint is the choice here. You’ll need to monitor the transition from x11 to wayland but other than that it should be fine.
I think more important than which distro to choose is you setting up remote access for yourself. Tailscale and maybe rust desk or something would be a good idea. Or if you want to go further a vpn connection to a KVM device, some of them support being able to wire into the power button so you have full control. I would also have their account info in your password manager. Then you don’t need them to remember anything because you can do it when needed.
The distro doesn’t matter, the Desktop Environment does.
If they are used to MacOS and want something simple and “out of the way”, go with Gnome.
If they are used to Windows, go with KDE.
Fedora is probably the most straightforward to install and manage right now. You won’t need to “lock down” anything if you don’t give them sudo credentials.and just a regular user account.
If they are used to Windows, go with KDE.
I’d say Cinnamon or XFCE. Plenty customizable enough for this use case and very straightforward.
Facts. XFCE should be familiar to anyone who has operated a computer in the last 25 years
