As someone who used to sell computers to elderly and people who are generally non tech literate, as well as ran computer literacy courses;
ChromeOS + something like flatpak. I don’t think anything else will really work in the current linux world. Holding on hope for Cosmic based DE.
A Distro must have
- Easy AND reliable DE. KDE has been way too buggy and gnome has been way too hard for my parents to use. Old people often have an extremely hard time learning, it needs to replicate what they already know which is either going to be Windows or OSX most likely. Cosmic should be able to do both nicely when ready.
Reliability is so fucking key here I can not understate it. The computer glitching out is entirely unacceptable. They will not be able to do any debugging nor will you likely be on call 24/7 to fix their issues. They also need security so you can’t just “set and forget” either with no updates in a false sense of stability. Older folk copy and paste shit. Permissions and stability is key here. Flatpak has a lot of potential but it’s not there yet.
No real time AV really hurts here.
-
Extremely strong app selection with either android or wine app support. Wine is the most preferable. A lot of people are reliant on windows programs for things like tax filing and all sorts of stuff like crochet software and what not. Android apps however can often be good enough and are extremely simple so with a little help, and you will need to help, they can get by with android app support.
-
A11y, screenreaders, OSKs, maginifers etc. We need all of it if we want to fit the “generic elderly support”
-
Good performance. Elderly people do NOT like updating systems, Their systems will likely be old. And well they are old too. If a system is slower then what they are used to, and generally non responsive, they may think the bloody thing is broken.
cough cough gnome cough cough
I genuinely do not that that any DE let alone distro is an acceptable daily driver for “general people” because general people have such a wide variety of use cases and needs. Some folk need crochet and tax software, some folk need CNC software like stitchfiddle, Some need magnifier glasses and speech to text. and man, this is only the more common of things i’ve seen.
Remeber folk, a PC that does 99% of what people generally need, does not mean that it will fit the needs of 99% of people. Here is hoping to a bright future, but I don’t think it will be a close one.
Good touch support. Using termux has more then sold me on it, While many terms to support touch, I do often come across some that don’t. Otherwise i’m a simple man, be fast enough, work with one of the “major” image specs like sixel or whatever and do the basics and im set.