Yasha Karant <[log in to unmask]> writes:

> Zoom

Ignoring the recent news items and that the Zoom client for Ubuntu
hasn't been updated in forever and that the whole thing is
proprietary...

...Zoom works fine on Ubuntu 18.04 for me.

You might consider to try out Jitsi Meet.  It works rather well in the
tests I've done so far.  Being free software I expect it to improve
further and keep getting updated.  That said, my tests have been
relatively small scale so I can't speak to how well it works on the
scale you and your wife need.

> giving root a real login and GUI access (not just sudo from a terminal
> application),

A root console (non-GUI) login can be warranted.  I'd strongly suggest
not running X11 sessions as root but, of course, you are free to do
whatever you like.

I typically will add my public SSH keys to /root/.ssh/ to gain direct
remote access to root.  I set "PermitRootLogin prohibit-password" in
/etc/ssh/sshd_config so remote brute forcing a root password is
impossible.  I'll also use that or use "sudo -s" to gain local root
shell.

In cases where I need to walk up to a box to do some admin stuff in a
GUI session I make a special user account with "administrator" rights
(ie, it can "sudo").  This account is only used for this purpose and is
kept free of any "user cruft".  

> Note also that there is no equivalent to this list for Ubuntu LTS that
> I can find, necessitating "digging" on the web to find solutions to
> issues.

There are various Ubuntu web forums and a stack overflow sub-site.  One
benefit of using Ubuntu is that a google search typically find answers
quickly and without the delay inherent to a query to a forum or mailing
list.

> Ubuntu claims that the migration from one major production release to
> the successor for LTS can be done in place without disruption -- I
> shall see if that is true.

This has been true in my experience with Ubuntu for the last ~decade and
with Debian for more than two.  I've not yet moved to 20.04 yet (it's
April already!) but I expect it will again be a very normal upgrade.
Famous last words....

Cheers,
-Brett.