These are especially elderly and others that have never been in a position 'to get used' to the Windows environment.
I've set op Linux computers for such people and they just don't know any different.
But after they had visiting family & friends I sometimes have to reassert they really don't need anti-virus.
I live in the East End of London and am already involved in this kind of approach, but on a small scale and informally. So I think it's a a pretty good approach to supply of the basics and a better way than just stripping down perfectly viable PCs.
But, the big but, is training and support. Here Linux [we're mainly Ubuntu and variants] is slightly better because it doesn't get trashed by viruses immediately and file permissions etc. make things easier to lock down. However, I've spent 7 years on/off train
It's not too bad, really, though I think you might be able to do better with some careful shopping on ebay and using public wifi. The big difference is that you'd be getting support from these guys, rather than depending on a computer geek friend. That's important to a lot of people.
I fear the "open source software" will be very quickly replaced with "windows", just like what happened with the OLPC.
These are especially elderly and others that have never been in a position 'to get used' to the Windows environment.
I've set op Linux computers for such people and they just don't know any different.
But after they had visiting family & friends I sometimes have to reassert they really don't need anti-virus.
If over a decade of Linux distros has taught us one thing, it is that one man's "half assed" is another man's "usable".
But, the big but, is training and support. Here Linux [we're mainly Ubuntu and variants] is slightly better because it doesn't get trashed by viruses immediately and file permissions etc. make things easier to lock down. However, I've spent 7 years on/off train
It's not too bad, really, though I think you might be able to do better with some careful shopping on ebay and using public wifi. The big difference is that you'd be getting support from these guys, rather than depending on a computer geek friend. That's important to a lot of people.