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

[Paul Scott]

Jim March wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I'm running into a circle of politically active older folks almost entirely
> running XP, "geek genes" about on par with a hampster, and they're getting
> *hammered* by malware.  We're talking dozens now expanding into hundreds of
> these folks just around Tucson.  They use a few basic apps hard and heavy:
> EMail, web, MS-officecrud.  Some do simple photostuff.
>
> I just spent about 8 hours doing a total "nuke from orbit" cycle on an XP
> laptop, which means talking them into scoring an external USB drive cheap,
> do the backup, reformat, reload, reconfigure.  I am NOT going to "rinse
> lather repeat" on the next 50+, I'll go completely bugfuck.
>
> Ahem.  Sorry.
>
> Anyways.  Fedora Core 6 ain't newbie-friendly enough.  The initial installer
> is ghastly at times, but I can get them past that.  The problem is, once in
> a while the cutting-edge updates (as in, I'm now on kernel 2.6.19.xxx...)
> break something, like the package installer or the ability to mount USB
> drives fr'instance.  In both cases I fixed the issues right quick after
> searching Fedoraforums but that's not going to help a true newbie.
>
> Finally, I had an instance where my laptop's built-in touchpad didn't
> initialize one fine boot and Xwindows barfed all over the screen with dire
> ultra-geeky errors before dumping to a command line.  "Grandma Millie" would
> have a heart attack.
>
> Ubuntu Edgy is too unstable.  PCLinuxOS '07 looks like it's got big
> potential BUT it's still beta and I haven't pounded on it yet...any other
> ideas?  OpenSuse 10.2 had potential too, it was stable at least...but
> riddled with odd glitches in the update process.
>
> Where else should I look?
>   
Mac OS X

Paul Scott