Linux

I would make it controlled by voice. Just need to figure out a way to tell the user what the system can do. Computer, help me shop for medicin and hold up a box infront of the screen with what you use today. This should be simple. If you make it to complex like it is today then elder people will not use the computer.

Basically a personal assistent/guide driven OS. Start with rethink the experience you would have if you went to the mall and have a human assistent with a big screen to show you everything.

a linux distro for extreme beginners in tech and elderly people

Android on a tablet.

A wallpaper with Stolas incentivizes me for sure, but unlikely for beginners or elderlies, unless they like Stolas also.

Mint/elementary are good if on windows 10/Mac respectively

What I would say is what is your reason for converting people, because you're going to end up as permanent tech support this way when they'd have probably been fine with a Mac or something

For elderly people, an interface with options to have big icons and accessibility options would be very helpful; and accessing a program should take no longer than 4 clicks via mouse, or 6 keyboard keys.

GNOME interface succeeds well in that, as you can click Super key and be able to search between all the existing apps. Or the top left Applications menu could be used to browse through all programs.

For beginners in tech; GUIs for installing programs would be a big help. New people might see writing console commands for installing programs complicated, compared to other OS's show their app stores in a visible location. Also do not make users search for graphics drivers.

Remember the "Jitterbug" mobile phone made specifically for older users?

Kindof in the spirit of that.

Don't hide things in a "start menu" or anything like that. No task bar. Just put a small number of big icons on the "desktop". Open all applications in fullscreen. Don't allow two applications to run at the same time. Optimally, the browser wouldn't be as general-purpose as Firefox or Chromium or whatever. No address bar. Just links to a few bookmarked sites. In fact, no home page on the browser would be good. Just make the websites they have available to go to more icons on the GUI's main desktop. Don't make them right-click for anything, only left-click. But make it easy for people's family to get at the guts, including remotely, to customize the experience for the intended user.

I would try to copy the usability of macOS/Windows as much as possible without being different for the sake of being different. They should never have to look at the command line if they don't want to.

These are solved problems.

I fixed this by using Debian and Firefox. The only thing my parents do on the PC is stuff on the internet. It’s just important that it opens itself after the startup. They love the speed of it.

Mint and Fedora based distros already do it good

Any more simpler and it would be an atomic distro that focuses mainly on flatpak and chromium

Why would it have to be KDE or XFCE? GNOME as it exists today is probably the closest to macOS' design language, and whatever you do designing any kind of operating system UI, macOS needs to be the benchmark. GNOME 2 in the olden days was my favorite DE so today I have to go for things like KDE or MATE but I'm not a novice and I can fully acknowledge that what works for me isn't what works for everyone. GNOME probably made the right decisions to lower the entry barrier towards Linux.

XFCE to me is purely a choice for outdated hardware so unless your extreme beginner has an extremely old PC XFCE is a non-starter. Whether KDE can be made more accessible to the non-initiated I can't say. Anything that has a Windows-esque taskbar is probably ill-equipped from the start as well. Again, macOS is as easy to use in a keyboard and mouse sense as tablets and smartphones are with our fingers. This is the way.

Wallpaper?

Linux Mint, just ensure the hardware is 100% supported.

Isn't that Ubuntu?

@adrianhooves@lemmy.today most of the issues elderly or someone not familiar with tech might face is installing something. pop os is the answer i think.