this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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My brother is 12 and just like other people of his age he can't use a computer properly because he is only familiar with mobile devices and dumbed-down computers

I recently dual-booted Fedora KDE and Windows 10 on his laptop. Showed him Discovery and told him, "This is the app store. Everything you'll ever need is here, and if you can't find something just tell me and I'll add it there". I also set up bottles telling him "Your non-steam games are here". He installed Steam and other apps himself

I guess he is a better Linux user than Linus Sebastian since he installed Steam without breaking his OS...

The tech support questions and stuff like "Can you install this for me?" or "Is this a virus?" dropped to zero. He only asks me things like "What was the name of PowerPoint for Linux" once in a while

After a week I have hardly ever seen my brother use Windows. He says Fedora is "like iOS" and he absolutely loved it

I use Arch and he keeps telling me "Why are you doing that nerdy terminal stuff just use Fedora". He also keeps explaining to me why Fedora better than my "nerd OS"

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

He also keeps explaining to me why Fedora better than my “nerd OS”

lol he's already a true linux user.

But probably best to have a talk about gatekeeping linux though. There's no wrong way to run linux.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

haha I thought exactly the same thing lol He's linuxplained why his distro is better. That's the spirit.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I absolutely lost it the first time he called me a nerd for using Arch and straight up started doing Fedora elitism lmao

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Time to become a toxic arch elitist user now.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“Is this a virus?”

Your 12-year-old brother is more security-conscious than most of the adults I work with.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Non techies have two settings. Either everything is a virus or nothing is a virus.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's because everything is a virus.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I remember an old story about a father deleting bat.exe off the family computer and blaming his son for breaking the computer with his Batman game.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He also keeps explaining to me why Fedora better than my “nerd OS”

Complaining about what works for other people? It is tradition. It's innate Linux user behavior.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The children yearn for the distro wars

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He also keeps explaining to me why Fedora better than my “nerd OS”

Your brother is the wise guy of the bell curve

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Or he's currently on the left, and he'll be on the bell's top by the time @[email protected] is on the other side?

On another note, I feel this so much. I went from “Mint seems comfortable”, to “Ooh slackware, i3 WM, running Arch with i3 completely built up and customised by none other than me!” back to “I can set shortcuts in Mint, and it's comfier there anyway”

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

My kids have been gaming all day on Steam. They have zero intellectual curiosity about the system they are using. They have been using Arch for years but it might as well be a console or Mac. They log in and launch a web browser, Steam or a Minecraft launcher and that is it. It makes me a bit sad.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

To be fair, my curiosity for the system when I was a kid came from having a win98 computer without internet or any games installed, other than some freemium CDs and a neo-geo emulator.

I'd spend time just going through the menus, and I had no idea how anything worked, but it was interesting just seeing what was there. Also I spoke no English at all, so many things were out of my reach/understanding.

If I had Steam and Minecraft? I wouldn't have explored the OS so much. Probably. That stemmed out of boredom as much as from curiosity.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

You have to give them a reason to get interested in the OS and the programs they're using. I gave Linux a try because I was concerned about privacy and I wanted to use more ethical and user respecting OS and software than what I used at that time. Linux and the FOSS world was an obvious choice for me. Custom ROM on Android was sort of the bridge which allowed me to transition. If it wasn't for that, I would still be on Windows and I wouldn't learn that much on how an operating system works and what differentiate them, aside from the look. The fact they're kids or that they play games have nothing to do with it: a lot of adults don't know either what type of OS they're using, despite it being in their best interest. The problem is that we don't give or show them the reason they should be interested, or at least be curious about it and most of time, before people get a degree, we end up killing their curiosity.

As they play Minecraft, you can advise them to switch to Prism Launcher instead of the minecraft launcher, especially if they mod the game, it's much better for that. It could be a good start.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The fact that they're gaming on it means they'll know how to use it later

When I was that age I didn't think much about the system I was using, it doesn't really appeal to kids but they'll still be learning

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

"Why are you doing that nerdy terminal stuff just use Fedora".

Because nerdy terminal shit is cool.

explaining to me why Fedora better than my "nerd OS"

😂

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

My older sibling did something similar - getting Ubuntu installed on my very first laptop (a 9" netbook) back in 2008 and replacing windows XP. But be warned: it is a slippery slope. At the time , I just wanted a computer that I could take class notes on (high school), and never wanted to touch programming or the terminal. Now I have a PhD in computer science. I still don't use Arch though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

From now on I'm only refering to arch as "the nerd OS"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That's amazing and encouraging, I want to hear more stories like this because when my kid grows up I plan on trying to guide him into not being tech illiterate, so far my plan is (more or less, but not exactly) to start him with a crappy but usable computer and give him upgrades he has to work for or tinker for, I feel like I learned the most by trying to squeeze performance and usability out of outdated hardware.

I don't intend to make him have my passion for computers, my intention is that he'll have the initiative to Google problems and the curiosity to solve them when it's not that easy, just having those two can get you 80%-90% there.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

As someone who is interested in starting into the world of linux, was having a second hard drive necessary for creating a dual boot system or were you able to do it all on one hard drive?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Su Linux is most likely the answer to lering younger people to use computers fedora is especially good becouse it has a nice package manager (dnf) that is easy to understand

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I had the same thought process seeing the software repository on Linux Mint for the first time. It really is set up like a MacOS or general Appstore interface.

Happy for your brother getting comfortable with Linux so quickly! Way to go!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

My 11 year old brother had been using PopOS for a while. Unfortunately Roblox recently intentionally broke Wine support and I had to put Windows on his computer.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Did you add Flathub or rpmfusion? the store without those things is kinda barren

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Windows really screwed itself over with how it handled its integrated app store. By making it Microsoft-owned and moderated with a bunch of caveats on the format (compared to most Linux package repositories) you ended up with shit like FOSS apps being repackaged and sold for money, low quality ports of apps, and a bunch of bullshit that made people avoid it like the plague.

Linux for its faults with how package management works is far superior to even MacOS when it comes to finding free or low cost software. You get 80% of your apps available thanks to flatpaks and new apps can be uploaded with very little hassle compared to even iOS or Android. No fees, no lengthy review process (which could be a disadvantage arguably) and software is much restricted by the platform host.

While GenZ/A may be known for being bad with computers, I think it might just be a sign that Windows is so outdated and poorly designed that people coming from better-designed platforms are confused at shit older folk just put up with for decades.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Put my sibling on ubuntu and all they ever do is watch tv shows and stuff in the browser.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

My grandfather uses Ubuntu (bad distro bruh) and he loves it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

My elderly mother has been using Linux for almost 10 years. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a single tech support phone call from her for it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

An amazing story! I doubt I ever have kids, but if I do I'll do something like this. God knows what sort of dumbed down tech crap they'll be fed in school.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Such a wholesome story 😊

So happy to hear that he is enjoying Linux and you guys are doing things together.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

maybe unpopular opinion here but while it was user error, Linus breaking the OS by installing steam is something that should have never been possible, anyways glad to hear your brother is learning Linux!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

wasn't linus's issue a rare packaging issue or something that happened and was fixed within a few days' period?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

In a way yes, but the same "bug" is still possible. The dude was given sudo rights AND copy pasted random commands in a terminal instead of "open the GUI, look for package, install package safely" - so now certain parts of the commands are crippled because one person was stupid, but it was a very very rich and famous influencer so ... yay.

Look at the image ... "unless you know exactly what you're doing"... Linus was being a moron.

He had over five paths out of the issue, one of them was PUSHED on him but nono...

EDIT: if you are gonna use something that says over and over "are you sure" and "only if you KNOW what you're doing" and "type out yes do as I say".... seriously no safety net in the world can protect against that level of dumb

https://uploads.golmedia.net/uploads/articles/article_media/6505586791636543814gol1.jpg

EDIT2: I am not angry at you grimaferve I just had the awkward pleasure of talking to folks who "fixed the bug" and it annoys me when rich and powerful social media influencers force others to do work by talking shit about them just because those influencers are absolute hot garbage gaaaaah! (I love you grimaferve, you rock - and you're amazing and happy holidays <3)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why are you doing that nerdy terminal stuff

That is a legitimate question. I still don't fully understand people's obsession about terminal. It's 2023, we should be able to do everything comfortably using GUI rather than type everything, remembering all the commands, parameters, paths, permissions etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As a terminal fan, my main reasons for preferring them over a gui (for some tasks) are:

  1. It's faster to type than to navigate menus
  2. If I don't know where something is and can't guess it instantly, it's usually faster to search for it in a man page than randomly digging through gui menus
  3. You can combine commands with each other with pipes or $()
  4. You can search through your command history to find previous commands
  5. You can write scripts and aliases to automate common tasks
  6. The terminal requires less context switching. Typing ten commands is less mentally taxing than opening ten different guis

The barrier for entry is higher with terminals but unless you need visual feedback (e.g. because you're editing an image) it's easier and faster for both common and rare tasks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

To add to point 4; in most Unix terminals you can use Ctrl+R (mnemonic “reverse”) to search commands from your history, press Ctrl+R repeatedly after typing to keep going back up, start using the arrow keys to leave the search or hit [Enter] to run the result

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I still maintained that Linus fucked up those Linux videos on purpose. Not sure why but for a guy in the tech industry he really played dumb.

Really pissed me off. What has he got against Linux?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Blaming Linus for breaking Linux is what's wrong with the Linux community. You guys are so blind to the obvious glaring issues with Linux Desktop that any time something goes wrong, it must have been the user who did something stupid.

Sure, you CAN get it working the first time without issues, but the amount of times I tried Linux Desktop without any issues is 0. Every single time I installed Linux, I had some kind of breaking issue. I have tried multiple times between 2007 and 2021 and I'll likely try again soon, but don't kid yourself that people "play dumb" or something. Linux is as stable as the user makes it, and with instable, fragile, incompetent users (like most new users) come a fragile OS that cannot be relied upon.

I'm 100% sure if I try to install Ubuntu Desktop right now on my desktop, I'll again encounter some BS thing that just doesn't work like it should. Maybe the audio won't work, or bluetooth just drops out constantly, or it randomly freezes, or YT videos don't play at any decent framerate. Maybe everything works fine, but in 4 days some random thing doesn't. And once some thing doesn't work, you'll have to waddle through a sea of sudo commands that you have no clue what they're doing and you either fix the issue or break something else.

Note that I specifically mention Linux Desktop every time. Linux as a Server is great.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

don't blame Linus

incompetent users

Which one is it?

All those claims you make about things not working in 2023 is ridiculous. I've been using various distros since 2009 and maybe you could have claimed those things back then. But if you can't make Linux work at least as easily as windows in 2023, that's on you.

Linus demonstrated his willful ignorance right from when he ignored that warning in the command prompt.

Linux: WARNING DONT DO THIS Linus: well I guess I'm going to have to do that. Linux: breaks Linus: Linux sucks

Fanboys: LINUX SUX LINUX SUX LINUX SUX LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is this a made-up story? Be honest

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yes, it's just for OP to say "I use Arch".

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