I changed my grandad onto GNU after I've distrohopped a few times on my system just so I knew how to do a system install (which is a skill in of itself no matter what OS you are installing)
All the major technical issues for install like getting to boot, display driver issues, etc are solved. Even Nvidia is reccomending people use their open source kernel modules (nvidia-open)
That was likely some kind of kdump error, interested to know what distro you used, I often advise people to use a stable but stale distro like a Debian based distro: Mint or Ubuntu is ideal for stability and ease of install.
I setup my grandad on Mint 2 years ago,was fine but decided to hop to Archlinux KDE Plasma as needed some newer stuff(if you enable the incremental backups its not hard to switch if you think a different one is a better fit), even though Archlinux has a reputation for less stability it's been pretty good the last year, avoided AUR *mostly for stability, pamac for GUI updater.
Most of what he needs is in the browser and printing. (Printer issues are OS agnostic nowadays as modern printers seem to be very anti-consumer and they mostly use software to make their money, I.E DRM on ink cartridges)
Only issues my grandad had are printer or website related.
(Detail: used the CLI installer)
(DISCLAIMER: I am a qualified computing professional who have used GNU/Linux as daily driver since 2016, for newcomers a Debian based distro would be more the route I would).
That's awfull,
I am not from America, am from UK.
Currently reeling from the ill-advised amendment to the Online Safety Act.
I could see situations where the "security" theatre of ID based age verification could cause parents to let their guard down too low and get in legal trouble for negligence.
I happen to be a software engineer by trade, i feel no software can protect people from bad decisions they want to make willfully. (Without a strict régime of oppression/surveillance enforced)
You can mitigate accidental exposure with local filters though. (But those are readily available on many routers, even at the technical level(that you don't nessesarily see) its just a list of domain names to block/allow).
The question I always ask people when they have greviences about a political problem is: "What are you going to do about it? 🤔"
There is probably some advocacy group this political issue cited.
Any Americans or others here who care about this a lot, should reach out to them and/or contact their representative directly.
I am sure many people know this, I was busy focusing on recovering from the lockdown's and serious health issues when all this amendment was mentioned in Parliament. (Not that this is an excuse for not utilising my expertize till this when its bit late)
Where I live its pretty quiet when politicians say its to "protects the children" with no reasoning how it does so and amendment involves information technology, which many people understandably find difficult to navigate.
Many of my family still upload their passport or driving licence now despite what I warned.
Guess I just have to keep quiet to them about it unless something bad happens like identity theft or worse. (Then I help if they ask, but it just sucks).
Am glad that our votes in UK are least are paper only votes. (I don't think our democracy could withstand long-term large-scale computerized voting)
Just some food for thought. Goodday, from across the pond to my American folks hot on this story, and to everyone else. 🙂