kadup

I’d say their software limitations are the reason they failed, not the keyboard. In fact, people really liked the final BlackBerry devices with Android and a keyboard, but at that point the company was already gone.

But while iPhones were at the boom of Fruit Ninja, Angry Birds, iBeer and using Skype, and Google’s Android looked like ass but already had ad-infested versions of the same titles, BlackBerry had… corporate messaging? A really robust email app, I guess?

I already dislike ads in general, but ads on things I pay for, be it physical goods or digital services, is crossing a line I find unacceptable.

Yep! Okular is amazing, and it’s available on Windows too. Install it for someone and they’ll never bother you again about PDFs or EPUB documents, it’s performant and everything works: printing, resizing, selecting text, searching, signing, adding comments. Never worry about paid PDF software or shady slow apps that keep trying to gatekeep features.

Honestly, there isn’t much to it when setting up Linux for elderly people - in fact, I find it less troublesome than setting it up for a teenager.

Most often the issues regular users face with Linux are related to installing packages from external sources or broken updates. Elderly people tend to not do that.

Set up a stable distro like Debian, Linux Mint or Ubuntu LTS with KDE Plasma or Cinnamon, install LibreOffice, Okular and a browser with strong ad blocking, and any other applications you think they might need. Enable a simple firewall, hide the root / folder from the file browser’s sidebar, and you’re done. Perhaps set up scaling to make everything bigger on their monitors, disable mouse acceleration and set the speed slightly slower than usual.

I wouldn’t bother with immutable distros, Flatpaks are nice and all until permissions turn using a simple app a confusing chore with broken interactions.