In the sense that it will stay the same for years and won't break on its own or bother the user with requests of questionable motive.
Chromebooks are fine, but you need to trust Google. Macs are mostly okay if you're willing to eat the expense, because there's a limited amount of nonsense in the OS and a wide network of Apple Stores for support.
The only customisation has been to switch to MATE desktop every time, which she finds more familiar. That might also imply sticking with Xorg? Overall though her experience has been good. But perhaps your grandmother uses a wider variety of apps. For her, it's mostly about videos (she does use the ISO automount feature in MATE and CD ripping), some document editing, a web browser, and video conferencing.
The last support call was about plugging in a projector. Turns out the projector was not turned on, and once it was on, it autodetected just fine. I then mentioned mirrored mode and monitor positioning, and that was about it.
Ubuntu is offering 5 years of LTS maintenance on 22.04, and if in 5 years she needs help with the upgrade, I don't feel that's a huge imposition, but she may well manage it on her own just fine.
I hate to say it, but ... don’t? Go the full managed-workstation route, put an LTS on there, and hope you’ll have a chance to do a version upgrade sometime in the coming years. I usually dislike the idea of using an LTS on a personal machine, but here, when the person using the computer isn’t the one maintaining it, it feels appropriate.
I agree it should be better, but it doesn’t feel like a grandma problem, it feels like a smart-and-willing-but-not-savvy problem. (Not that grandmas can’t be in the latter category, it just doesn’t sound like that’s what you’re describing.)
Which distro was this? The major-version-upgrade flow is very different for different distros.
IMO it would be difficult to make upgrading between major versions much easier than Fedora Silverblue — literally 3 clicks. (If you want to try it out, now is a convenient time to install Silverblue 38, because 39 is due out next week.)
I had a super old laptop that I installed Ubuntu Mate and gave it to my mom who needed a laptop for simple web browsing/email/YouTube. My mom is totally illiterate when it comes to computers btw.
Worked like a charm for a few years until the laptop finally stopped working for good.
I think Mint would have beem even better. Hell, I use Mint myself. Best OS available by any metrics I can think of. I like it so much that I now donate some yearly 20 bucks to the project. Using it for free feels almost like a steal.
I heard not a peep for tech support for years. One time someone thought she forgot her password, but it turned out she just had someone else’s computer.
Eventually the practice made enough money to get everyone on MacBooks, which honestly has given me more trouble (especially around all the system-level permissions for webcam and mic access seemingly resetting on random updates).
Never underestimate how many users just basically need a mobile kiosk instead of an actual computer.
It can be configured to have a windows-ish layout very simply with their tweak tool.
It kept my parents' old hardware running years past when it would have become unusable and unsupported on Windows.
I just bought them a new cheap Beelink for around £150. More than powerful enough to run MATE for occasional browsing, emails etc.
With tailscale I can ssh in if needed for remote support.
