Irony-in-action quote of the day:
DrJ said:
I get so very tired of this line. This grandpa has no issues at all with FreeBSD desktops (I've been using them since the 4.x days) and I need no technical support from the young'uns. It helps, I suppose, that I've used BSD for over 25 years, but it just is not that hard.
Ya think?
At any rate, I stand by my line.
I'm no whipper-snapper either - closing in on 30 years in the IT industry in one form or another. My kids are not yet at the point where I need to worry or look forward to be called gramps.
I too run BSD on the desktop (although lately I cheat by accessing my dwm workspaces via XMing on Windows - its a handy environment for the work I am doing these days). I know it is not that "hard".
But aside from my own friends who came out of the Unix industry (I worked for Data General myself) who may now be "grandpas", I don't know any personally that would enjoy the mental challenge of adopting an entirely foreign (to them) OS that requires some assembly. Nor do I know any gramps or grannies that I would plunk down a BSD desktop unless I knew they had someone to step in when things inevitably go wrong or they want to know why the latest bridge or bowling tournament software they bought doesn't work.
That isn't so much a comment on BSD or X but on the availability of a helping-hand - be it from a neighbour or from some geek-on-the-go for hire - who will have some Unix experience. The odds do not favour this.
I'm loathe to recommend Windows too but at least there is more likely to be someone who might ride to the rescue for poor ol' gramps. I don't need any more people to support, thus I want gramps to run something that someone near him can support. In this case grandma will look after many of his needs.
Whatever is recommended to these folks has to at least:
a) reliably boot
b) provide some means of rescue if it doesn't, often by someone who will be brought in to do the job for free or for hire, by gramps or grandma who may live in other locations
c) auto-update in some sane manner with security as a prime objective. The net is a dangerous place.
d) run the software they are likely to want/need and deal with the files their buddies will be mailing to them. A typical active gramps might serve as a volunteer somewhere, get meeting minutes or spreadsheets (usually in MS formats), lots of pics from the kids and friends. If they are like mine, they'll be big football fans and watch their alma mater over the internet using a variety of tools, some of which are custom to their school of choice. Granny is keen on doing basic DTP work, churning out cards and function menus and awards and photoshopping her pic collection and playing a number of games to keep mental acuity up; meanwhile gramps is still running FirstChoice in a DOS window because it is the only application he can get his mind around aside from some limited ability with the browser.
You can do most of these things, perhaps all of these things by virtualizing Windows (oh boy, something else to break for poor granny and gramps); and
I can do these things too.
But
they can't, and the vast majority of elderly folks are going to fall in that grouping as well as 40 and 50 year olds, most of which are barely able to manage their Windows boxen.
Thus unless someone like you or I are willing to configure and manage this setup over the years, I would not recommend a BSD desktop nor even a Linux desktop. Maybe an Ubuntu or PC BSD might change my mind sooner or later, but the ready availability of a helping hand is going to be an issue for *nix on the desktop of the non-professional / non-geek user for some time.