When I was visiting my wife’s family for Thanksgiving, my father-in-law told me that his laptop was telling him that if he didn’t upgrade to Win11 he be vulnerable to all sorts of malware. They’re both retired and on a fixed income so he was panicking over buying a new machine. I put Mint on his existing laptop and walked him through its use. Fingers crossed that he’ll be able to handle it. I haven’t had any support calls from him yet but I’ll find out how it’s going when I see him in a few days.
Does anyone have any tips for supporting older family members on Linux if they have absolutely no experience with it?
While I appriciate the security concers of having a “back door”(tailscale), having an icon for a support app for non techy elderly is also a security risk. That being said I use both for supporting my elderly mother. Having tailscale can be a lifesaver if she says the screen is black or she has no mouse. I can ssh in and check for hardware issues on remote restart.