[dkersten]

Mine was using non-free applications too beforehand. You obviously would need to find ways that she can accomplish the same tasks as before without too much trouble.

Having said that, if she wanted a new computer right now, I'd probably recommend an iPad with a keyboard case (assuming that she can do what she wants with it, which I think she can -- most of her computer use nowadays is web browsing, email and the occasional word processing/spreadsheet. I use mine for everything except coding)

At the end of the day, its down to cost analysis: is it cheaper (in terms of time spent, for both of you) to leave things as they are and deal with support issues as they arise; or to retrain your mom to use something which has lower support overhead?

It may not make sense to get her to switch.