[OT] Granny-friendly Linux Distros?

[angel]

On Monday, 6 May 2019 at 17:01:21 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) 
wrote:
> Thanks for all the responses. (Actually, it's not *my* granny, 
> it's my mom, but she *is* a grandparent, as find I rather enjoy 
> reminding her ;) Yea, I'm an ass...)
>
> evilrat's comments about Mint's GUI are a bit worrying.
>
> Ubuntu LTS certainly seems to be the common recommendation. But 
> I have some (perhaps unfounded?) concerns:
>
> - The LTSes are still, what, 3 or so years IIRC? I'm figuring 
> her next machine will probably last her about another decade, 
> so that's well beyond that. So what's the LTS-to-LTS upgrade 
> process like? Is it basically an OS re-install like upgrading 
> Windows traditionally is? Or is it as 
> simple/transparent/painless as 'Uknown' describes Ubuntu's 
> regular day-to-day update process to be?
>
> - It's been a looong time since I last used Ubuntu, but I 
> remember it being clearly designed to be very Mac-like (ie, 
> OSX). She's not experienced with Mac, she's more 
> WinXP-through-Win7. I remember alternative desktops like 
> KDE/Xfce (along with Kubuntu/Xubuntu) being pretty much 
> second-class citizens. Has this improved?
>
> I'm not too terribly worried about the whole Linux-on-a-laptop 
> thing. That's what my main machine is and in my experience 
> Linux works pretty well on laptops these days. My main concern 
> in this area is just making sure the BIOS (or...whatever the 
> new thing is called now...) is unlockable so Linux can even be 
> installed in the first place.
>
> Chromebook's an interesting idea, but probably a no-go. She's 
> gonna need more storage than that, plus something to backup her 
> iPhone to, probably a bigger screen than those usually have, 
> and definitely built-in CDR. She does enough audio recording 
> (yes, actual audio recording, not music piracy) that external 
> CDR would be too much of a hassle.
>
> Netflix is no issue, she has one of those TVs with Roku 
> built-in, so that's how she always does Netflix. (But ugh, I 
> *thought* a RokuTV would be a great pick for her, but honestly, 
> I'm seriously APPALLED at just how piss-poor the menu's 
> responsiveness is (not to mention the boot time). It's 
> absolutely absurd. Menus on my Apple II were more responsive, 
> no joke. *Serious* blatant incompetence involved in these 
> modern TVs these days. If I had it to do over, I'd go with a 
> non-smart TV (if I could find one) and then just connect a Roku 
> device. At least then, the Roku could be replaced without 
> replacing the TV or worse, making her deal with two separate 
> layers of Roku.)

Ubuntu LTS is supported for 5 years, and LTS to LTS upgrade is 
supposed to be easy, and in most cases it is.
These days Ubuntu has switched away from Unity (that was somewhat 
Mac-inspired) to Gnome (that is kinda a thing in its own right).
Usually, prior to buying a laptop, I research whether the laptop 
I think of supports Linux well. Most of the "leading" vendors are 
Ok, Dell are even more so.