Welp… My mom is apparently done with windows (yay!) Anf wants me to move her laptop to Linux (oh nooo). I personally use Ubuntu studios but im not sure what to get for her. She is getting her masters in nursing online so it def needs to be able to accommodate that. Do y’all have any suggestions on where to start? TIA
Depends from her hardware but generally Linux mint I install for everyone who is not familiar at all with linux.
She is getting her masters in nursing online so it def needs to be able to accommodate that
Is there any specialist software she needs, or is it browser based?
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Another vote for Mint.
Mint is one of the best options for your mom. People switching from Windows to Linux are their main target if I remember correctly
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1, Find out whether she needs any specific piece of software that is hard to replace. 2, Regarding distro, you should install her what you use, so it is easier for you to help. Ubuntu is well hated for a reason though (Canonical doing big tech things). I’d recommend either Linux Mint or Debian (if you are not a beginner in Linux and comfortable in the termunal) for both of you, but I’d wait until she passes her exams and may consider setting up a dual-boot on a spare SSD first, so she is able to try Linux and go back to Windows when needed. 3, Desktop environment: GNOME is considered best for ones coming from Apple and KDE from Windows. Both are resource hungry in my opinion, so I use MATE, which looks like GNOME 2 out of the box and uses a bit more resources than Xfce, well configurable though. Note that Ubuntu MATE is its flagship edition, many options are there out of the box (like MATE tweak).
Linux Mint Debian!
I moved my mother to Mint a few months ago. I have not had a single tech support call. She uses it daily. About a week in I asked her how it was going. She liked that printing worked more reliably and wished the scroll bars in Facebook were a bit thicker. Her printer used to show as offline sometimes in Windows but that issue has gone away under Mint. I was going to look for a theme with thicker scroll bars but she told me not to bother.
Granted she was a Firefox and Thunderbird user already so that helped with the transition.
My grandma got along with Mint for Facebook browsing and KPatience.
If your mom is more into using real apps, plus the Windows UI, and you’re comfortable with some setup, I’d highly recommend Debian 13 with KDE Plasma and Flatpak, with the Flatpak-Discover integration. That’ll allow her to use lightweight, stable apps from apt, or more recent, but larger apps from Flathub, and install it all herself through Discover. Honestly, there should be a distro for that.
I’d be using that myself if it weren’t for some very specific software I need from the AUR.
Have you heard of Distrobox?
You can run Debian and still get access to the AUR. I moved from Arch to Chimera Linux and but I still get a few things out of the AUR.
With Distrobox export, you can even add them into the app menu in KDE. So you do not even have to manually launch Distrobox to use them.
Either Mint or Ubuntu. Both are gui and user friendly compared to Arch or Fedora imo
Linux Mint, as many have suggested, but Fedora would also be a good choice if there’s any bleeding-edge hardware not supported otherwise.
i recommend version 6 😄
Get her the same one you have so you can see what she sees and help her. Or standard Ubuntu. For real. Don’t overthink it. She’s gonna be interested in your help.
Though I’m disappointed at how ugly Cinnamon and all it’s themes are, Linux Mint (with Cinnamon).
But as someone else said, probably ought to dual-boot or have a Windows VM just to be safe.
I put my mom on Linux Mint Cinnamon (Ubuntu based) looks a lot like windows with minimal bells and whistles. Mostly just works unless you have bleeding edge hardware. Most Ubuntu flavours should also work. I’m suggesting Ubuntu based distros due to the fact that most media codecs, fonts and drivers are installed or easy to install.
