this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2025
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How to grandma-proof Linux? (self.linux)
submitted 2 days ago by stefounet to c/linux
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In short, my question is "Is there a way to prevent a non-malicious but unknowledgable and clumsy user to ruin their own home directory?"

Say my grandma opens a file browser looking for a picture, finds those dot files or those mysteriously-named directories distracting, sets her mind to deleting them. And assume she somehow finds a way to do so. While I understand that dot files or mysteriously-named directories of a non-privileged user are of no ultimate importance, it is a maintenance nightmare.

Plus, it's not only mysterious files that are prone to be targetted. She might well delete by accident the picture she was looking for.

Two kinds of solutions that come to mind are: -Restrict file permissions in an adequate way -Implement an easily operable, fool-proof, back-in-time scheme

Is there a mainstream, well-supported distro of GNU/Linux that has figured this use-case out?

I figure it might come in handy when Window 10 is no longer supported and the reports of hacks keep coming in.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I'm looking at upgrading my mom and my wife's mom to Linux as w10 dies.

So far: I'm gonna put their homedirs on zfs with a cronned snap operation so I have that trivial history-eraser which I know I'm gonna need.

But I've been thinking about their use-case, and as browsers, searchers and friendica candidates I don't see much else I need to do beyond ensuring I can VNC into their running session and see what they're looking at when it's a strange thing.

Most of the damage they COULD do as a regular user is to their own stuff. We're gonna have a backup. The bulk of the concerns will be "why can't this earbud set work" or "my printer" and that's kinda the same as windows.

Honestly I'm looking forward to synching their workstations here when they come and visit a d showing them fun stuff.