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by mrmyers 2703 days ago
Talk your grandmother through anything GUI related over the phone and compare. Spend half an hour trying to help her figure out which button she should press only to find out at step 3 she opened facebook instead of the start menu, and that she actually has been pressing buttons randomly for 15 minutes while producing assorted nonspecific vocalizations of agreement while doing literally none of the things you've asked.

Or even get the legendary confusion of them never having turned the machine on in the first place.

Generally, after years of experience doing exactly this, I've found it is a lot easier to dictate a literal sequence of characters over the phone than coordinate a complex visual action with only confused verbal feedback.

Of course, with terminal stuff, you have even further options in, say, sending an email with an attached bash file for them to download and click, or if this continues, set up a script for them (and ad an icon for it in their start menu) that ssh's them into a handy aws or digital ocean instance so you can then ssh into their machine from the comfort of your own home and do it yourself.