[Tfug] Ideas for the ultimate "Grandma Millie" distro...

[Jim March]

On 1/30/07, Earl <earljviolet at juno.com> wrote:
>
> OK, here is my experience with older people, being one myself.
>
> 1) get on the internet and get and write e-mail when they want to.
>
> 2) don't reconfigure anything, EVER!!!
>
> 3) see and print and forward pictures of their Grandchildren.
>
> 4) chat with and see web cam pictures of the Grandchildren on MSN.
>
> 5) NO CHANGE, EVER! This is to the point that my friend, who sells
> computers and sets them up, sometimes installs Win 98 on a new
> computer. Changing ANY program is like moving the gas pedal of the car
> to the dash and the steering wheel in the trunk.
>
> 6) touch their computer, you are responsible for it for the rest of
> their lives and yours.
>
> 7) NO CHANGE, EVER!!!!
>
> As I see it, these are the parameters you are working in.
>
> Earl



YOU GOT IT!

That's exactly the situation.

Now, the OS itself is going to do regular updates.  It's important that
those updates not break anything, and not be very obtrusive.

The Fedora Core 6 updates so far have violated "rule one" twice, breaking
things in slight but "interesting" ways.  Bzzzt.  Scratch that idea.

To give Ubuntu credit, their updates were always clean and never caused
breakage.  Kewl.

The OpenSuse updates I found to be obtrusive.  Repositories would be down
and you'd get "update failure".  Repository support in OpenSuse I found to
be ghastly in general.  If it wasn't for that, it'd be a "contenda" as they
say in boxing.

Jim