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On Sat, 2003-11-15 at 10:26, Don Saklad wrote: > a. For grandparents, how do you set up a computer with GNU/Linux ?... > b. How do you set up computers with GNU/Linux for elderly seniors?... Computers for what? It depends a lot on what their use will be. Mostly web browsing? Mostly e-mail? Or will they be doing their finances on the machine or anything like that? Unless they're computer savy, I would suggest limiting choices as much as possible. If they only read e-mail and browse the web, then only have those two programs available. Install a single easy to use e-mail client, and a single easy to use web browser. Load any common (and safe) plugins in advance. Flash, java, etc. Their usage is quite common these days, and the missing plugins will end up causing confusion. Any programs that won't be used, uninstall or at least remove the icons/menu entries for them. Configure the window manager so that nothing can easily be accidentally changed. I don't even know how many times I've recieved phonecalls from relates running windows who accidentally moved the task bar or something else trivial like that. Fixing it is simple, but it's not an easy thing to explain over the phone to someone who isn't computer literate. I would suggest using KDE or Gnome rather than something like Windowmaker/Afterstep/Enlightenment. It's a bit more similiar to something that they've seen before (assuming they've used computers.. I don't think my grandparents have), and they both have built in support for easy access. Large fonts/high contrast for people who vision problems. Sticky keys for complex keyboard combinations. That sort of thing. You might want to look into KDE's kiosk mode. It's designed so that you cannot change any of the options. I haven't used it personally, but I read up on it a little when the feature was first introduced, and it looks convenient for it's purposes. If you decide to go with Gnome, newer versions offer the ability to lock applets in place on the menu bar. It would probably be a good idea to use that. As for distros, it doesn't need to be bleeding edge. Stability is important. I wouldn't suggest Fedora Core at all at this point as I've had a number of random crashing issues. I can deal with them, but seniors may not be able to. -- Gregory Boyce <gboyce at badbelly.com>
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