Hello, i have task to install a system for elderly person without much technical knowlegde (never used pc, no windows or mac).
They need text processing, calculator and maybe spreadsheet.
Want to disable anything else (setting panel, file browser, web browser, launcher, dock, terminal, login select, etc.) that not needed, all important thing only from desktop. Should not be able to go anywhere where not know what to do. But not permanent, might need to fix machine if ever break.
Is there distro or config i can work off? Or need to start from scratch? What program you recommend?
Thank you for any answer or recommendation
No way. Then better use FydeOS.
Note that while ChromeOS is really really nice, beautiful and intuitive, it has like no support for running apps normally. You get Android apps and Debian in a container.
The performance sucks, you should setup unattended-upgrades.
But yeah, after that it could be great. If they never touch the terminal they cant break anything.
And while you can run Android and debian browsers (I tried Android Mull and Brave, and Debian Firefox and Brave both from their official repos), Chrome is always there and mostly the default I think.
Depending on use case it doesn’t sound like that’d be an issue. I used one of the like 3rd generation Chromebooks for school, I had to rdp for visual studio and Photoshop but it was perfect for everything else
The support for running apps in the Linux container feels fairly normal. I had a family member using LibreOffice and other apps that way for years and it worked fine. We bought a more powerful Chromebook and performance was fine. One family member is using ChromeOS on the Framework laptop. Performance there is great.
FydeOS is a de-Googled ChromeOS based in China.
https://www.aboutchromebooks.com/news/fydeos-vs-chromeos-flex-which-is-right-for-you/
Unattended upgrades is for updates in the Linux container. Sometimes it’s used primarily for security updates. The whole thing is so locked down and containerized, I don’t think security updates in the container are as important.
It’s true that Chrome always installed, but you can put whatever icons in your launcher.
I’m not sure about changing the default browser.
Yes, I know. She has a Framework Chromebook? Or do you actually run ChromeOS Flex on a Framework?
Both options are… interesting XD
Yes I would enable complete auto upgrades for the container. Maybe that could be hacked a bit by placing desktop entries somewhere.
Linux apps are running in a virtual machine that runs a Container. But they have access to storage, so it is relevant.
But I agree that ChromeOS is really well made. But a Tracking Hell full of Google too.
FydeOS is the only one you can use with a local account. Not even Android sucks that much.
You’ve gotta ask does an old person care more about Google spying on them or being able to use a computer as easily as possible