[Update] Re: [OT] Granny-friendly Linux Distros?

[Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)]

On 5/25/19 9:34 AM, Uknown wrote:
> 
> MTP works fine with Android. However, MTP by design is very unreliable. 
> Its practically useless for large files. With android phones though, KDE 
> connect helps a lot.

Thanks. (I wonder if KDE connect can be used outside of KDE Plasma...)

>   If you want to transfer large videos to the iPhone, you can try MTP. 
> If it doesn't work, iTunes on Wine might be the way to go.

More concerned with copying videos off of the iPhone, given her limited 
storage space on it. But thanks, didn't realize iTunes on Wine might be 
viable.

> You can also install the latest LibreOffice as a back up, and configure 
> it to use the ribbon UI. https://itsfoss.com/libreoffice-5-3-released/ 
> Its just selecting the right view in the view menu.

Ooh, I had no idea LibreOffice supported the ribbon interface now! 
Personally, I can take it or leave it, but she definitely prefers it.

> GNOME is pretty much OSX + iOS

The previous time I had tried GNOME3 it seemed quite esoteric, but on 
latest Ubuntu I'd definitely agree with you that it's pretty much OSX + 
iOS (but with the rather odd..."feature"...of certain windows being 
immovable...) It's definitely what I'd recommend for any Mac fan. I 
wonder how much customizing Canonical does over top the stock GNOME3.

> Never worth converting the DE on most Distros. Use what ever you got. 
> Otehrwise you end up with broken system or a lot of bloat.

Yea, certainly seems to be the case.

> Dell laptops are actually sold with Linux (developer editions)

Yes, Dell is definitely on my mind. Only problem is their website makes 
it nearly impossible to search for the small handful of models that 
still have an option of built-in optical drive, and compare them. Pretty 
much have to check every...single...model...they sell...individually, 
and they have TONS.

> USB3 HDDs are fairly cheap.

Oh yea. I've got a 5TB right here I got for not much more than $100. 
Very nice.

> Unfortunately we don't have a proper file 
> system other than good old FAT32. You can try ExFat, but you will need 
> to install extra software (I think its not necessary for Lubuntu)

I've found that whatever default filesystem they format them to these 
days has been working perfectly fine for me (Manjaro). Hmm, it appears 
to be NTFS (just checked). Linux does have pretty decent support for 
NTFS these days in my experience (I've been using my old Windows 
partition as just extra storage space).

> Kill switches are offered by the Purism brand laptops : 
> https://puri.sm/products/
> They also satisfy most of the other requirements.
> They're a privacy oriented brand, and they have linux pre-installed. 
> might be worth checking out. I have no experience with their products 
> though.

Yea, I'm familiar with Purism and would love to get one, but they don't 
have anything at all with built-in optical drive. And I really get tired 
of my so-called "portable" devices requiring ever-increasingly more and 
more peripherals. Kinda defeats the point of a portable. Guess I'll have 
to make a choice between built-in optical vs hardware killswitches for 
my next machine.