Fedora Atomic if they are normal and Bazzite if they are a gamer (which is just gamer flavored fedora Atomic). Super super easy to set up and use out of the box, basically idiot proof and unbreakable. Would highly recommend.
this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2025
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The same Ublue family of people who make Bazzite also make Bluefin (Gnome) and Aurora (KDE), so I would actually recommend Aurora over stock Fedora Atomic since the Ublue bakes in a lot more stuff like drivers.
Edit: someone else mentioned this already, whoops. I still agree though.
why Atomic Fedora over their traditional distro?
Atomic distros are harder to break and easier to use than non-immutable distros, making them a very easy sell to someone who wants "high stability, KDE, unobtrusive updates that happen without user input, and a snapshot system so we can roll back if anything gets fucked up"
The only correct answer is “whatever you use”.
You will be acting as frontline tech support so it needs to be the same thing you use to make troubleshooting easier.
Debian is stable, open office or whatever can open the new office formats but if they use spreadsheets there isn’t any serious alternative to excel. Sad but true.
This is skirting around the problem, but it's very easy to install Winboat as an AppImage through Gear Lever and use Microsoft Office apps that way if the Office 365 versions aren't sufficient. It's just a Windows VM, but greatly simplified in its setup and requires just a few button clicks. I use it for Word, since LibreOffice uses different margins that fuck up all my documents by making them take up more pages than they normally do.
You’re 100% right and I’ve done this before.
LibreOffice is usually the recommended option instead of OpenOffice.
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You mean staroffice?
Rip 2 sun
I use Arch and regularly have to do manual fixes, which I enjoy because it forces me to learn about Linux. This is for someone who has grandparent level computer knowledge
Arch is easier than Slackware and that’s what I’d put people on when they asked back in the day. Of course, some of those “computer illiterate grandparents” came up using dos so they weren’t scared to type “startx” when they didn’t have a mouse.
Keep a vm of whatever you set em up on, it’ll make figuring stuff out much easier.
if they use spreadsheets there isn’t any serious alternative to excel. Sad but true.
~~Perhaps, but I Will Fucking Dropkick You If You Use That Spreadsheet~~
Edit: It's called PostgreSQL 
Edit 2: There really are two separate but overlapping problems. One is the claim that alternatives are not capable of doing what Excel can do. This is one I am skeptical of. Their may not be a single alternative which does everything Excel does, but Excel is used for all sorts of workflows from data entry to data processing to accounting to mathematics to statistics to data visualization to using the cell background colors to create recreations of classic nintendo pixel art, and there are many tools well suited for each of these specific niches.
The other is that, as an individual or organization with complex accounting systems and business processes created on top of Excel, there is no replacement. Excel is a requirement to continue operations under these circumstances. This is certainly true, but I consider it a problem that organizations opt into. Why hire a dev (or even basic IT staff) to build out internal information systems and applications when we can just use Excel? Why hire a DBA to schematize and safeguard decades of essential business records when we can just license this bauble from Koch Industries or Oracle and "put it all in the cloud?" Why should we provide any infrastructure whatsoever for our accounting staff other than a Windows PC with Office? Most companies like this are basically doomed, but if you have the opportunity to think about how you are keeping records and processing data before you create ten years worth of it, there is always a solution that will scale much better and cost a lot less in the long run.
In the latter case, I don't think it is even possible to create an alternative. If you build a system of sufficient complexity, it cannot be moved without essentially re-creating it from scratch. This is just as much the truth for a skyscraper or a car designed with a specific CAD package as it is for a complex business accounting process created with Excel. This is the reason the Social Security Administration is STILL using mainframe computers running COBOL. There is nothing exceptional about Excel in this regard. It is just the foundation that many of these systems were built on (and it will be around just as long as COBOL for that reason).
Okay
Bazzite KDE or Aurora. The universal blue distros are rock solid. Both use kde, update in the background and have btrfs and snapshots built in (it defaults to saving your last working config so if a problem update makes it through you can rollback easily). Flatpaks work out of the box with bazaar is a pretty good flatpak storefront (which will turn you gay), and offers a way to install programs that is similar to what someone would be familiar with in android or on an iphone.
The biggest difference between the two is Bazzite has useful gaming software installed and setup by default, and steam layered in, meaning you can't really uninstall it, because there are a few issues with the flatpak version. Aurora you have to install the gaming related software yourself. If either of them has a flatpak installed by default you can easily uninstall them.
Sometimes an update will switch out a default app, which someone may find annoying, but it's usually done for a good reason.
If they want to dabble in other things, distrobox and podman/docker are set up and ready to use by default, making it trivial to start using them.
I've been running the gnome based ublue, bluefin, and it's been great and incredibly stable. I would have no hesitation installing it for someone new to linux.
Every time I read one of these threads, every distro mentioned is new to me lol. Just so many out there
I think Debian is the answer here.
Mainly, because you can set up transparent automatic updates, and be confident that they're not going to break things. Also comes with KDE (with sane defaults). Then use timeshift for snapshots, just have to make sure you use btrfs during install. It's not going to be fancy, but it's going to work.
LibreOffice is the usual choice for MSOffice formats. It's also worth looking at Onlyoffice and WPS Office, some people like these a little better, especially people coming from MSOffice.
Fedora KDE, atomic variant or not.
Libreoffice is compatible with msoffice but you can also try onlyoffice as well.
ive been using ultramarine on an older laptop and its pretty solid. for office, just use the libre suite. it comes with most distros (for sure comes with ultramarine)