A notebook for Gramms ...help please

[questio verum]

I'm in need of some honest feedback. My dear mom, who is fast approaching 80, has asked me to help her pick out a notebook. This woman has never used a computer in her life. Remote controls and cell phones tax her patience, but she seems motivated to learn how to use a computer. I think I understand why. Most of her children now live 1,000 or more miles from her. Visits on Xmas and the Fourth just don't quite fill the bill. My question is: what, if any, distro would be the most bullet-proof yet intuitive enough for a great grandmother with no pc experience?

I have seriously considered buying her a MacBook, and I haven't ruled it out yet. But I would prefer to send her something with linux on it. I just don't know which distro might meet the demands of the situation. I live some 1,500 or so miles away, so popping over to mom's house when she has a problem is out of the question.

Anyone have any insights on this?


qv

[rokytnji]

My humble suggestion if it was my Mom. (Who I set up with a lowend IBM Laptop, a A22). My Mom Lives In Phoenix Arizona. I live in Pecos Texas. I did drive to her to instruct her on starting up and initial setup of password though.Plus instruct her on a couple of apps.

I installed Antix 8 on it and set up Rox Pin Board Desktop as the default desktop. I then put Icons on said desktop for Iceweasel and Opera, Claws Mail, Mplayer, Streamtuner. and Home and Leafpad. I made her user name "me". Told her to make her own password that she could remember no matter what. I set it up for wireless and ethernet land line and dialup. She uses the dialup at home, wireless on the road. Set up igoogle as home page and setup gmail also. I also setup Opera for her and Opera Mail.

She only has the 7 icons. Showed her how PCMan File manager works (Make a folder and make a text document inside of folder). I showed her Abiword on the menu and how it works but she likes leafpad for writing email letters.

My Mom is in her late 70's and at her senior citizen computer classes she wows them with her Linux install. She is the only Linux user there.

No matter what distro or Windows manager you decide on. I just stress the importance of Desktop icons for whatever application that your Mom would think she would Like to use. If she has ethernet, I would also stress to make sure flash and a video player be working also. Good Luck with it Questo. It stressed me a bit to get a simple, easy to understand interface going on a laptop that my Mom could use and hit the ground running.

She calls me once in a while when she gets a hankering to try out something new. Since I run the same distro I can walk her through with no problems. I don't have a interactive setup with her. I just tell her over the phone because she prefers it that way. She like hands on way of learning, Probably where I got my druthers from.

Edit: Forgot to mention I put a Xkill icon on taskbar and showed what it was for. I didn;t cover everything I had to do, But I set it up as idiot proof because in AntiX it will not update unless you tell it to using apt. A Easy Peasy Ubuntu Interface works for my wife. Ladies Like icons and easy to understand menus.

[Tarthen]

Prehaps a regular HP with the Sugar interface from OLPC? That's incredibly simple.