Easing wife onto Linux laptop How to?

    Ask HN: Easing husband onto proper computer, How To?

    My husband uses some weird sort of computer which doesn't run any proper
    software and he keeps trying to persuade me to do the same, even though he  
    knows I have work to do ...

How would you like it? Leave the poor woman alone!

> I am trying to move her away from Windows

Maybe you need relationship advice instead of tech advice

get her the best windows laptop you can afford, make sure it's secured properly with updates and such and that it "just works"

you get inherit the old laptop, put an ssd on it and install whatever linux flavor you want

everyone is happy

What the hell is wrong with the hn crowd here? Why is everybody picking on that poor guy? Why are all the comments trying to paint the bleakest picture of him without knowing him or his wife? He wants to introduce linux to his wife and she fears that relearning everything will be hard. I'm sure he wont force linux down her throat if she says she can't use it and will gladly install her the OS she wants. I installed my family linux on their PC as well so that I could better support them. Most of them still use it happily and one used linux for a few tasks and windows for others. I couldn't imagine giving my wife windows support, but she still got a windows partition for a few games. Anyway.... Back to the topic

If she does as little with windows as it sounds don't do anything fancy. Give her shortcuts on the desktop or in the favs and enable her to use her PC for what she does without distraction. Introduce the laptop parallel to her old laptop and let her try it first. If she doesn't like it you can dual boot windows or just install her windows. Don't try to hard making it like windows try making it easy to use.

If you go the windows route don't forget "open shell" and "o&o shutup" are essentials for a minimal migration from win7 to win10. Powertoys are nice as well.

Linux has been around for 30 years and still has not acquired any significant consumer share.

Yet you've decided that the best solution for her is an OS that requires debugging miscellaneous hardware and driver issues and runs a mishmash of software with no consistent UI language.

As opposed to MacOS and Windows which just work, used throughout the world on a daily basis by the majority of the world, and have tangible results in terms of productivity benefit.

Honestly I think there are bigger underlying issues here, like listening to your partner and understanding their needs instead of forcing your opinion on someone who doesn't want it.

This is so unbelievably condescending and frankly, gross.

Why do you get to choose what OS your wife uses? She likes Windows, for whatever reason. Why do you feel entitled to change what she’s using? How would you feel if someone tried to replace your Linux distro of choice with MacOS or a well-configured WSL2 setup? You’d probably be annoyed, even if you could do everything you did before, albeit in a different way.

Look, I understand the support concerns with a family member using an OS you don’t like. But the move isn’t to force them or trick them into something else.

I was able to get my mom to switch to macOS, which is my preference, 13 years ago. She was already used to iOS and Macs made more sense to her. My father, on the other hand, does not like Macs. I was able to get him to use a Chromebook for a time, but it broke and he went back to Windows. A few weeks ago, I bought him a new laptop that I got a great deal on (that was the price of a mid-tier Chromebook but significantly better specs and a much larger SSD), installed some extra RAM (that he probably didn’t need but he’s my dad and I love him and it was only $50) and I did a clean install of Windows 11 before I ever even logged into the machine. He’s exceedingly happy. And without the pre installed malware, I’m very happy to act as remote tech support if I need to.

When I shared this with people, the overwhelming response from fellow nerds was that I should have bought him a computer he did not want (a MacBook), a lesser-computer that he’d already had a bad experience with (a Chromebook), or forced him to use Linux. You know what my dad would do if I tried to force him into Linux? He’d go to the store and buy himself a more expensive and shittier Windows laptop than the one I got him and then get suckered into Best Buy Geek Squad bullshit. And I’d still be stuck supporting him on Windows. But now it would be even worse.

I say all this because your wife, like my father, is an adult. And she gets to choose what computer she uses. She’s not a child and she’s not your property. Let her like what she likes!

And trying to convince someone that Libre Office is the same as Office 365 is a really, really mean thing to do for anyone that shares documents with others.

Honest question -- why are you trying to get her to move away from Windows? What benefits for her do you see in doing that?

Perhaps she would be more amenable to a Chromebook? (Depending on what apps she actually needs to run.)

> I am trying to move her away from Windows

Honestly, I think the "why" is missing here. Does she have a problem she'll be able to solve by switching to Linux? Why isn't installing a fresh copy of Windows without the OEM crap sufficient?

>It is going to sound a little weird and if it does not belong here, let me know and I will remove the post, but I am looking for some advice.

Seems pretty weird, maybe you should remove the post and let your wife choose her own OS that suits her needs.

@A4ET8a8uTh0 I was about to suggest having your wife try Ubuntu Mate (via liveUSB/CD so its not a commitment just a test drive for her), since Mate allows for changing the panel to display like Windows (or MacOS, etc.): https://ubuntu-mate.org/features/panel/

But, then, I re-read your initial question...and you stated that she "resists" this (sounds like its because of her work flow comfort level). If that's the case, changing to linux will not help her. If she has to "fight" the UI/UX then this will not make her happy (nor you)....Of course, she can test drive Ubuntu Mate and maybe it might come close...but ultimately this is an exercise that you and your wife can take together to see what about her workflow she likes with windows and see if something on linux makes sense. Basically, learn about her workflow and then you and her can work out what makes sense for her. Who knows, maybe going through that you both will learn something. ...or if Windows is too perfect of a fit for her, then i suggest do as others advised and simply get a Windows machine and keep up with maintenance, backups, etc. I say this as both a husband as well as a super fan of linux!

After years of dealing with Windows bugs, updates, and malware for my parents I got them to switch to iPads. They use the web browser, email, light word processing, spreadsheet, and apps for banking and travel. They adapted reasonably fast and now love their iPads. They can’t touch-type anyway so the Apple keyboard cover works fine for them.

They already used iPhones so the iPad was familiar enough. iOS/iPadOS have built-in secure password generation and management/autofill they can actually use so they aren’t using their dog’s name for every account like they did on Windows. They even figured out how to cast video to their smart tv on their own.

The best part is I never get called to deal with their computer problems.

Husband requested that I pick up a six pack for an upcoming event, and his current choice of beer is kind of crappy by today's standards.

I am trying to move him away from American lager beer, but he resists, because that is the only beer he knows and does not want to 're-learn how to like beer'. It is not completely wrong, but maybe Heineken would be a good compromise?

As someone who's tried to convince their spouse to move from Windows to Mac or Linux, I'd personally not fight this battle unless they express interest. There will be friction regardless of how perfect you set up their DE, and unless they are actively interested in navigating the road blocks, they're going to get frustrated at you, and the computer.

Look at it the reverse, how would you feel if she pressed for you to get off your freebie OS and use a "real operating system." (disclaimer, I use Fedora as my daily driver.) You'd probably feel frustrated and defensive that Linux checks your checkmarks and Windows does not. That is probably true of her position.

Just show her a Chromebook if you want her to try Linux. You'll probably regret pressing for her to jump on anything anything more complex than that.

Dude just don't. Talk with her and figure out what kind of specs she needs and help her shop for one she likes. She knows what kind of tool she needs and how to use it. This is an Am I The Asshole post in the making otherwise.

What worked for us was me first showing her the beautiful setup and things I could do in my KDE environment. I also explained additional benefits such as how private the setup is which she has come to value. If she shows interest, be very upfront that it will be different and she must want to learn how to do some things differently. Without that desire, you are on a path of frustration and conflict. Be prepared to do a lot of tech support to help her with things. Only Office might be a better UX for her than Libre Office.

dual boot. give her a choice. don't force things onto her, even if you think its better. if windows gets slow, she can try linux and see how its faster.

i tried giving my sister linux and she's a technically savvy product manager but she still ended up not liking it. you're wife might be really smart, but if the computer doesn't work correctly she will resent you lol.

and by "correctly" i mean in any way that she doesn't expect or that is contrary to her intuition, which may have been built using windows.

most people generally don't like using computers that much. even i don't as a software engineer.

generally most people use computers as an interface to the web, so the OS is mostly irrelevant. But if the OS gets in her way like once or twice and forces her to install some package or whatever, that's just a little unnecessary friction that makes an already unpleasant experience worse.

can't go wrong with dual booting anyway. if there's any wifi/hardware issues it might be due to linux or she might just blame linux and think its worse even if its better in your eyes and mine.

i mean unless you want to spend extra time doing tech support, which isn't really productive for you, or for her to wait on you when she needs something done.

My wife is an attorney and has been happily using Ubuntu for her law practice for something like 10 years now.

When it was time to replace her aging 12in TiBook (OSX) I suggested she consider a Linux laptop. I myself had switched to a Thinkpad with Linux several years before that and she heard me rave about it and looked over my shoulder and thought it looked interesting. She was already interested in the privacy and freedom aspects of free/open-source.

I started by creating a user account on my laptop, setting it up with her most-used applications in the sidebar and a background and color scheme I knew she'd like, and copied a bunch of her documents to it. We went to a coffeehouse where I bought her whatever she wanted and answered her questions as she tried it out. There was absolutely no such thing as a dumb question. I thought Gnome Shell might seem weird to her but she did fine with it.

We spent most of our time with LibreOffice. She's not an Office power-user which probably made things easier. Things were in different places but the apps are similar enough she was able to make the transition. The only real sticking point was that LibreOffice had no split-screen view, but we found a workaround.

She agreed to try a Linux laptop on the condition that we would order a new Macintosh if it didn't work for her, but it worked for her.

Factors that helped:

- She was already interested in the social-justice aspects of free/open-source software. - She was already used to switching from Windows at her old job to OSX at home. - We agreed that she could switch back to Windows or Mac, or at least run Office using CrossOver/WINE if there was ever a problem. - She had her own law practice and didn't need to collaborate with other attorneys. Lawyers make heavy use of MS Word change tracking, and that would have sunk the whole thing. - We both worked from home and I had a job that let me offer tech support for her basically whenever she needed it. - She spends almost all her time in LibreOffice, Firefox, and Chrome. She basically doesn't interact with the OS that much. - I treated her every question as a professional support request. That's just baseline adulting.

She used Ubuntu and LibreOffice for her practice until she took a new job this year. They gave her a Surface laptop with Windows for work but she continues to run Linux on her personal machine.

In my experience, it can work well. For several people, I put Debian (or OpenBSD) on their machine, with XFCE as the desktop environment, and some icons on the desktop for their most frequently-used apps (or direct browser URLs to go where they usually like to go), give them a few tips for finding things in the menu, set up and test CUPS printing, and be available to troubleshoot anything or answer questions, and they didn't have to "learn linux" at all. It's enough like Windows XP that they have been able to use it generally without problems other than the occasional question about how to manage a 2nd monitor (so I showed them how to click to xrandr or arandr or something).

I also make/made sure to do upgrades for them. For debian, that includes but is not limited to installing the "unattended-upgrades" package, so many updates they get without my involvement.

(Some users don't use these computers any more because it was for a class that was discontinued after a few years, another family member continues, happily.)

edit:I admit, there have been some adventures with printing.

You’re in for an uphill battle my friend. The biggest obstacle will be converting her word/excel workflows to a OpenOffice write/calc (or other open source alternative). Unless of course she is using the web version of M$ Office.

I have a work laptop, a personal project laptop (more work), and a gaming pc. I’ve intentionally resisted from installing any work/productivity/etc software on my gaming pc and found myself spending a couple hours navigating through OpenOffice Calc to perform a task that would have taken me 20 minutes in excel. It was possible, but without the familiar UI I was completely lost.

But.. If you can convert her to using web version of these tools, and find an intuitive enough desktop environment, you/she may have a better time with this transition.

Edit: On second thought, I would take a moment to consider what is causing you push her towards this transition. If learning how to operate in a completely different environment than what she is used to is not her fancy, neither of you are going to have a good time.

Either way, good luck.

The UI itself is not going to be your problem. Compatibility is - if she uses Word or Excel, presumably to collaborate with other people, she will have a problem regardless of whether the Linux OS looks like Windows.

A Mac could be a decent middle-ground, especially the recent M1-based ones. It's still a Unix system underneath should she need to use more "Linuxy" things.

I've transitioned large numbers of people onto new systems (operating and other) and I've hit just about every problem along the way.

When you're introducing somebody to a new system, it's not enough to say "ah it looks they same, so they'll be okay". Visual parity helps but people very quickly get hesitant if things have different names, and it gets worse if they have muscle memory for certain operations that now don't work. Sometimes it's better that things don't look the same: Uncanny Valley is a real thing that upsets people. If it looks the same but works differently, it may as well look different.

On your description I would suggest that document management is probably going to be your biggest focus. You need to familiarise yourself with the tasks that get performed, and also how they get performed.

When jumping between office suites, people often struggle with the cooky names everything gets. Neither Excel or Calc say Spreadsheet. Consider altering your launchers. Icons can help too. Documents and downloads need to be in expected places and also look right (type icons).

You also have to consider what happens when something breaks. This might be global, this might just be a particular function like printing, but veteran users usually find a way around problems that don't involve bug reports and a 2 week wait.

> for upcoming event

What's your lead time here? Deploying something significantly new to production without some burn-in and fault-finding time is a mistake, whatever the change.

Check that there are no device requirements your solution won't fulfil (eg does it work with projectors)

There's nothing wrong with Linux. Most people can get along with it fine. The Power Karens in here likening this to abuse are over-reacting.

Ask her to try it. See if it sticks.

I set my wife up with vanilla Ubuntu and paired it with Microsoft Office 365 which she accesses from the browser. She's been using it for over a year with no complaints. I've had to intervene once when the wifi driver updated and broke her wifi, but other than that, she's had no issues.

To answer the question and not discuss your private life or your relationship as most seem to want to do for some reason, the consensus these days when it comes to the most Windows-like experience seems to be Linux Mint with Cinnamon.

( Others have said the same already from what I've seen. )

If you want options and customization and are willing to spend serious time to set it up, then yes, KDE beats everything else and you can probably have it set up to her liking if she wanted to try it.

I'd download a couple of live usbs, talk with her and see if she absolutely hates the idea of playing with them or not.

( Personally I'm not a fan of derivatives though, and would stick to an original distro; Debian, Fedora, Arch, SUSE ... Edit : Fedora has an official Cinnamon spin and people talk well of openSUSE's KDE. )

So many people are advising to leave her choose her OS. I'm tempted to join them, even if I'm considering to ditch Windows at home myself. But there are a couple of thoughts I'd like to share.

Does she maintain her current laptop? One of my current complaints with Windows is how intrusive the AV, indexing or other background tasks are. If you are shielding her from the real Windows experience and telling her that slowness is because the laptop is old, she has a biased outlook.

At the end of the day, the question is if she can do the same things that she does now. Can't you set up a Linux VM in another beefier computer and let her check for herself? If you can't build an environment where she feels comfortable, just buy what she says.

There's a ubuntu Linux that attempts to be visually and software compatible:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2020/07/10/ubunt...

https://linuxfx.org/index.php

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=linuxfx

- no personal knowledge of it, though.

Give her a Windows laptop.

If she doesn't want to use Linux, forcing it on her is not going to have an outcome you will be happy with.

I've migrated family, friends and neighbours to Linux Mint and had nothing but positive responses. In most cases they had a middle-aged computer that was not eligible for a newer Windows version; in others their existing computer died. Most mainstream Linux distros are not significantly different from Windows for your average user once they know which software is equivalent to what they used to use.

I get this from the perspective of not wanting to be IT support for windows issues (I've only used linux for the past 22 years, with a brief period of OSX at work, and find windows generally really annoying, aside from having a philosophical hangover from 1990s MS). I put my computer phobic father on Linux 15 years ago, and he's been fine with it.

Your issue is software. LibreOffice frankly looks bad compared to MS Office, and it will be a poor experience for her. If she's OK with google docs, then that friction at least is removed. What else does she use? Krita's good if she's a very light Photoshop user. You'll also want to make 100% sure that the hardware you get is well supported by Linux - you can't afford any wake from suspend, external monitor, or audio issues, or your credibility is shot (maybe get a Dell XPS developer edition with Ubuntu preinstalled). And be prepared to install Windows (promptly) if she encounters any issues or frustration other than a mild learning curve.

You could also consider a powerful enough Chromebook.

If you really want to do this (trust me, you don't) then just get her laptop setup with Linux and run Windows in a virtual machine.

The only way you might win this is showing her how different windows 11 is from 10 and say "you might as well try something new" and go Mac.

You're going to lose this battle.

Why are you trying to move her away from Windows, when that's what she is familiar with?

Don't worry about making it "look like windows". Just use the default KDE Plasma desktop.

Will LibreOffice suffice as a stand in for MS Office for her? (It should if her spreadsheets aren't full of macros). LibreOffice has a ribbon; learn how to enable it.

Does she currently use OneDrive?

Obviously web browsing won't be an issue (just use Firefox+uBlock Origin).

Does she watch Peacock streaming on the laptop? It blocks Linux for no good reason (DRM shills please stay quiet).

She can get used to the new interface just like when would have to if she got a new version of Windows -- if she feels like it.

I wouldn't bother to style it like Windows, would do more harm than good

Microsoft Surface with Fedora GNOME is a good easy gateway to Linux, mainly because of the touchscreen

https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Supporte...

https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface

This seems like it would make her dependent on you, and takes away her agency. Please don't do it. She's made her needs clear, and supporting those needs means a Windows laptop.

I've been down that road before. Don't force it.

Right now, all her computer problems are Microsoft's fault. If you force it, it'll be your fault whenever things go wrong.

First step: ask yourself if this is really a worthwhile pursuit.

Then ask yourself again.

Then ask yourself, of all possible changes I could ask my wife to make for me and my happiness (spending more time together at social events or at home, getting more dressed up for fancy occasions, changing some frustrating personal habit in the household, communicating differently, etc) is this the one I want to cash in my chips for or should I hold out and use them for something more important.

Windows 10 or 11, turn off the ads/suggestions in Settings and install ublock origin on Edge/Firefox/Chrome or whatever and it should be fine.

I would recommend to first introduce her to softwares that available both on Windows and Linux, such as Only Office, GIMP, Chromium, VLC, and let her use it on Windows for awhile. After that, give her Linux Mint or Zorin OS and install the same softwares there, those 2 OSes have a very similar layout with Windows and very popular.

If you have to come to HN to ask about the best ways to convert someone to Linux, you should maybe consider that your reasons are ideological and not based on what's best for that person. Just a thought.

If you must, then Linux Mint would be my recommendation. She can keep using Office apps via Office 365 in Microsoft Edge.

My gf not good with computers yet still she is on fedora since about 4 year but she is only using for browsing, she doesnt mind to use work computer (windows) when needed for excel etc... But if she needs one particular win app I would install back without question.

I recently switched to Pop OS from the mac and I love it. Another solid option is a chromebook.

She probably is used to applications like the Office suite that are going to be a pain and a half to use on Linux

and no don't tell me about Libreoffice we all know it's much worse except if you just want to type a bakesale advert

Don't be that guy, OP.

Linux Mint with Cinnamon really reminds me of Windows 7 in terms of UX, and runs well on old machines, usually without any extra configuration required. I would recommend that.

She's not going to be happy using Linux unless she doesn't want to use Windows.

It's probably not worth trying to introduce her to Linux if she isn't interested in it.

I made our TV an Ubuntu box. Now she knows how to use Ubuntu as well as she does Windows and iOS. Which is to say not at all, really. Click browser, browse.

Why not a Chromebook?

Have you tried just the tip?

Linux Mint

Hire some else to do it. Never explain technology to your wife.