I use Fedora with GNOME for my parents and other family members. Some have used Windows prior, some have not used computers at all really, only iPads. They all get along very well on GNOME!
I have started using Silverblue the last year, which simplify things even further. Combined with the excellent remote controll functionality, it has been a really pleasant experience both for me and them.
If you can find a secound hand Fujitsu R727, they are great linux tablets! But they are not as common, in my experience.
It has RSS built-in, but since it is a static site generator, it does not support ActivityPub out of the box. But I do think I have seen implementations with some custom JavaScript.
I have been running this for a year on my old HP EliteDesk 800 SFF (G2) with 64GB RAM, and it performes great on the smallest models (up til 8B) only on CPU. I run Ollama and OpenWebUI in containers/LXC in Proxmox. It’s not as smart as ChatGPT, but it can be suprisingly capable for everyday tasks!
OtterWiki looks awesome! The combination of markdown, git and a web interface is powerful.
Nice! It can also connect to a remote instance of ollama 👍
I use Navidrome, it’s a single binary and gives you your own Spotify, kinda. It can be use with many other apps, in addition to the web interface, as it supports the subsonic protocol.
Fedora has been “just working” for me for the last couple of years. It is my go to for older relatives for that very reason.
Check out Anytype! It is a local-first cross-platform app with Notion-like features, and it has a Kanban view. It is SUPER customisable, I have set it up with a PARA workflow that fits my needs.
Nice! Bought it, it is reasonably priced. It works well and is responsive 👍
Does it support Podman yet?
I have a couple of these (only the G2 and G3 SFF) and they consume between 6-10w when not under load, and they max out at 35w (or 65w depending on CPU). I run proxmox with 64gb ram and they are surprisingly efficient.
I never notice any update times, as the default in Fedora is to auto-update (I think?). Everything is just always up to date.
Edit: coming from ten years of Arch, this has significantly reduced my time fixing things related to an update 😆
It does share dependencies, but in a different way than a regular package manager. You share runtimes and base apps: https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/dependencies.html
It actually works great for slightly more complex stuff to, like converting markdown to HTML etc. Caddys documentation is made using Server Includes for example.
I have done this, but instead of PHP, I have used Server Includes, which is a performant and simple way to add repeating headers and footers etc without extra dependecies. Nginx, Apache and Caddy all supports Server Includes, but with different syntax. I have used Caddys templating language, which I am most comfortable with.
Podman is great, but a lot of confusion arise from the rapid development the last ~year and the fact that different distros have relatively old versions in their repos.
I recommend using the latest Fedora Server and defining your containers as quadlets. Also, on Fedora, yoi can install Cockpit (and cockpit-podman) and get a decent webgui to manage your host and container.
I should just write a blog post about this instead of typing this up on my phone in bed 😆
And Qwant is really great! Have been using og for a couple of years, and have no need to fall back to Google, DDG etc.