Hello all,
I’m planning to install Linux Mint on the notebooks of some relatives as it’s not compatible with Windows 11 and thus not getting security updates anymore. They are absolutely not tech savvy and only using very basic stuff (web browser, print documents, maybe low level office stuff). Still I’m looking for a way to support them with some kind of remote control software if they have an issue. On Windows I liked Teamviewer for it’s simplicity, they can double click the icon and tell me the code that is displayed and that’s it. Is there something similar for Linux which doesn’t require complex setup on their end? FOSS is a plus, but not a must have.
Regards, rbn
Thanks for your post.
IMHO Windows is getting harder to use with every update. Context and start menus are changing, you get annoyed by One Drive, asked to use a Microsoft account for everything, suddenly stuff like Notepad has Copilot integration, suddenly links open in Edge instead of your default browserand you’re confused that her bookmarks are gone etc. Apart from that, hacks to install Windows 11 on non-supported hardware might work fine today, but may break with every next update.
I moved my mum to Linux Mint one year ago and so far didn’t have issues or complaints. In fact she’s super happy with the Solitaire game as it does have way more play modes while not having any annoying advertisements. She’s using Firefox and LibreOffice which she already had on Windows before. It was less of a deal for her than a new Android major release on her phone.
But my mom is living much closer to me. In worst case I can fix any issue in person. Unlike these other relatives. There I need some kind of support access for trounleshooting.
I’m not denying windows 11 is a huge pile of crap. It’s absolutely terrible and not designed for the user. Totally agree with all that.
But there are no hacks required to install it on old hardware. You just have to do a fresh install. If you want to upgrade from 10 to 11 then I agree you need to edit the registry which you could consider a hack, although very basic.
In fact there are less hacks required to install / upgrade to windows 11 then there are to install any Linux distro.
Also your point about risk and non supported hardware is not correct. Microsoft don’t support any hardware. They provide an os and updates, and any device with a genuine copy of windows will receive all and any updates, and it won’t just randomly stop working. Windows is just an os. As long as it is compiled for the correct CPU architecture, it is just as supported as any other hardware. The hardware is supported by individual drivers, normally provided by the hardware manufacturer, not Microsoft.
All my point is don’t push the change on people, give them a fair and informed choice.
I don’t know how recent your experience is with installing Linux, but there are no “hacks” required, haven’t been for many years. In 99.5% of cases everything just works, including sleep & suspend. This is just incredibly outdated or just plain bad advice. There is no tech-savvy-ness needed to use it either.
I’ve installed it for as tech illiterate people as you can imagine and told them “just use it like you have before”. They had a few questions where the answer would usually be “well what did you do before”, told em to try and that was that. I personally found the PCs to feel faster, but that’s my own comment, not theirs. I don’t think they noticed.