My cousin got my grandmother moved to Linux Mint with some actual success. All she did was check her email and browse the internet, and Linux can do that perfectly competently.
Same story here. Purchased a System76 machine for my ex-wife's grandmother. She "enjoyed learning about the new system". As a bonus she is now completely support scam immune, one of the advantages of the year of the Linux desktop not having happened yet.
Not going to lie, I feel a System76 machine is way overkill for someones grandmother who likely doesn't really need that kind of horsepower... Especially given the cheapest model they sell is 1400.
Windows is like 80? For the average user the average cost of supporting windows is basically 80.
You can get windows laptops for $100–$500 just get one of those and put Linux on it? Not a single person's grandmother (except maybe that one that plays Skyrim) needs a $1400 laptop, total waste of resources.
My kid has an excellent Thinkpad I picked up for something like $500. Runs linux (NixOS, specifically) perfectly well. Even the fingerprint reader works! And if he spills something on it, replacing it is substantially less awful.
Yep, pre-owned Thinkpad is going to be your best option, slap a decent Linux distribution on it and that thing will run for years and years. No need to spend thousands on a laptop that will be used by a kid or an elderly person.
There's a big difference between noobs on their own and noobs with a competent relative.
Way back in the day, I set up my grandpa with Slackware and FVWM. Yeah, I had to edit a configuration file to add a program - but that also meant that once I set it up, it would never break.
