kadup

Yep! Okular is amazing, and it’s available on Windows too. Install it for someone and they’ll never bother you again about PDFs or EPUB documents, it’s performant and everything works: printing, resizing, selecting text, searching, signing, adding comments. Never worry about paid PDF software or shady slow apps that keep trying to gatekeep features.

Honestly, there isn’t much to it when setting up Linux for elderly people - in fact, I find it less troublesome than setting it up for a teenager.

Most often the issues regular users face with Linux are related to installing packages from external sources or broken updates. Elderly people tend to not do that.

Set up a stable distro like Debian, Linux Mint or Ubuntu LTS with KDE Plasma or Cinnamon, install LibreOffice, Okular and a browser with strong ad blocking, and any other applications you think they might need. Enable a simple firewall, hide the root / folder from the file browser’s sidebar, and you’re done. Perhaps set up scaling to make everything bigger on their monitors, disable mouse acceleration and set the speed slightly slower than usual.

I wouldn’t bother with immutable distros, Flatpaks are nice and all until permissions turn using a simple app a confusing chore with broken interactions.

Ah yes, so we went from “no DRM whatsoeverr!” to “there’s DRM but on a DLC I don’t care about!”

I see. Sound logic, great argument. Sounds like GOG is amazing then, they’re probably doing great with their current business model! No, wait…

you value Steam’s honesty

Both are multi-millionaire if not billionaire companies. There’s no way to attribute virtues like “honesty” to corporate entities.

But GOG is a much worse store than Steam, lacking features Steam had a decade ago and, most importantly, being loudly indifferent to how the games work on platforms other than Windows. Any gaming thread gets flooded by GOG fans talking about how we should support them anyway, because they’re great and anti-DRM… Except I’m telling you they aren’t, if their own games are at risk of being pirated they add DRM, if somebody wants to publish games protected by DRM on their platform they allow it. That’s not anti-DRM.

Steam’s DRM is disabled by default, and Valve is aware it’s trivially easy to bypass and said multiple times they don’t care. That’s just as “anti-DRM” as GOG if we go by their actions, rather than their marketing claims.

Don’t fall for marketing claims when they themselves are using DRM, it’s ridiculous.

anti-DRM policy

What anti-DRM policy? They included DRM into their own game, what kind of policy is that?

“I have a strict, non negotiable anti-beer policy! Except every weekend when I drink a 12 pack! And sometimes in social events! And at night to take the edge off! Sometimes on Wednesdays too!”

Did I ever claim Steam is a “strongly DRM free platform”? Did Steam ever sell itself as the non evil alternative due to a quoted “lack of DRM?”

If you’re trying to follow my argument, you’re not doing a good job.

strong DRM stance

They have allowed content protected by DRM into their store four times already, which is not surprising, given GOG is owned by CD Projekt Red who included DRM into their own DLC for Cyberpunk, including on GOG. That’s not “strong” in any sense of the word.

So in other words, they sell you the “feel good” anti-DRM narrative but quickly look the other way when it’s good for business. At that point, might as well purchase on Steam, where DRM is common but optional and Valve actually cares about making the games platform-agnostic, easy to backup, easy to share, etc.

EDIT: cool downvotes, doesn’t change the fact that GOG provides software protected by DRM on their “strongly anti-DRM platform”. There is no amount of downvotes in this world that can change this reality.

I use it as a “laptop” a lot, using a case with a stand and Logitech’s mini Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I like it.

I don’t disagree, but it’s pretty weird that Americans always try shifting the blame or motivation around rather than admitting their own questionable behavior.

US being authoritarian? “Must be related to them Russians!”

I don’t think the US threatening to take over other countries is somehow related to Russian imperialism.

It’s quite literally the same old US imperialism that has always existed, only less sugar coated.

Double check if Secure Boot is disabled, xone and xpadneo have known issues with secure boot.

Bluetooth controllers actually do behave weirdly on the Deck, the polling rate is sub optimal. You can modify certain system files to help, but you’d have to reset the setting after every update.

But for audio, it’s mostly fine. I really do not have issues using this phone to Deck setup. You could consider a full system reset if it’s that bad on your end, it’s supposed to work well.

I believe you might want to double check your phone and/or headphones. Or even the Deck itself.

I use it daily and apart from the expected latency, the audio is great with no flaws. No interruptions or jank.

Bluetooth 4.0 is capable of handling around 8 connections simultaneously

To be fair, cheating on a MMO is very different from cheating on a precision FPS game.

If you do pixel perfect inputs on a MMO it barely matters. If you do pixel perfect inputs on a FPS you can win an international tournament.

VRR works really well already - some Nvidia users might lose extra functionality like Reflex Ultra that, when paired with VRR, can smartly adjust the frame rate cap. But VRR itself works.

HDR is a difficult beast though… It’s hard even on Windows, and very problematic on Linux (though with Gamescope, KDE Plasma and Wayland you can kinda use it already).

Bluetooth headphones work well with the Steam Deck, I specially like how you can pair your phone to the Deck and it will mix the phone’s audio with the game audio (so you can have music or a podcast playing, for instance)

For those asking how to do it, simply enable Bluetooth on the phone and then go to the Steam Deck’s Bluetooth page, find the phone and pair it from there.