When I was visiting my wife’s family for Thanksgiving, my father-in-law told me that his laptop was telling him that if he didn’t upgrade to Win11 he be vulnerable to all sorts of malware. They’re both retired and on a fixed income so he was panicking over buying a new machine. I put Mint on his existing laptop and walked him through its use. Fingers crossed that he’ll be able to handle it. I haven’t had any support calls from him yet but I’ll find out how it’s going when I see him in a few days.
Does anyone have any tips for supporting older family members on Linux if they have absolutely no experience with it?


TeamViewer, or similar.
My mom has been running Linux Mint for 10+ years now. She is not tech savvy, but also not helpless. She has needed help a handful of times, usually with a printer.
Trying to talk anybody through support remotely is a PITA, Linux or Windows. So NAT-triendly remote desktop is very helpful.