Met a nice lady at the grocery store
Today at the grocery store a sweet older lady approached me and asked if I knew anything about computers. I said yes I do, and she produced a mouse saying that her son set up Linux mint for her and she was wondering if the mouse was compatible. It needed kernel version 2.6 or newer so I said that the mouse should work, guessing mint itself was probably newer than that kernel. Happy with my answer, we chatted a little, then she thanked me and left.
It was a nice experience, so I thought I should share!
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I don’t have any reason to not trust OP, but the likelihood of this conversation happening at ALL seems incredibly unlikely. Never mind that it is described as successful.
If true, this is amazing.
I don’t get why she would take her mouse to the grocery store rather than just ask her son, who installed it for her. All I could guess would be, her old mouse didn’t work so she went out and bought one?
I'm assuming OP meant a store like Target or Walmart that have groceries and also a tech section
Yes, it's a bigger store where the bottom floor is groceries and the top is more of a department store with a few shelves of computer and phone stuff, among other things.
Changing the setting from a grocery isle to an electronics department makes for a completely different story. Goes from "yeah, sure, that happened" to "perfectly credible encounter."
I've had people ask me about random things in the food aisles before now, simply because I've been the first 'young' person they've run into since they picked up the item.
*I'm in my 40s, but on a weekday afternoon, it's mostly elderly people in some supermarkets. I still know nothing about Pokemon though...
All the grocery stores around where I live sell pretty much everything; electronics, car accessories, hardware like lights, screwdrivers, pliers etc. And yes, also fruits, vegetables, meats, deli, etc.
I literally set up Ubuntu for my mother (an old lady by now) 10+ years ago, and she has absolutely no problems with it other than the occasional LTS version updates that I need to do for her. I am pretty sure the overall tech-support I had to do for her over all these years is actually lower as it is much more difficult to accidentally mess up a desktop Linux than some Windows installation.
I live a few hours away from her and can't just go out and buy her a new mouse (and she doesn't like online shopping), so the OP story could be exactly her to the letter (except she isn't using Linux Mint).
I've never seen someone so brazenly bragging about elder abuse before.
My mother did way better with Ubuntu than Windows (also, that was 2010-2014 and Ubuntu seemed a bit better back then)
So does mine. I installed Fedora on an old, 4GB laptop connected to a monitor for her to watch Netflix and TV on her bed. We literally reused a laptop from 2013, an old 900p monitor and a VGA cable + a cheap, poor quality Amazon speaker I was not using at all. I'm really happy with how everything turned out.
Agreed!, my relatives get Debian
I installed Fedora on my aunt's laptop she runs an eBay business with. She only ever used Excel for a spreadsheet she tracks her accounts with and Chrome for her listings. Replaced them with Libre office calc and Chromium, didn't really need to explain anything to her
To be fair chrome is an option on Fedora as well
Yea, but now both apps she uses are open source
Yeah, I’m not saying it’s impossible, just incredibly unlikely.
The number of people out there that fit the description of your mother is low.
The number of people that could have intelligently answered the question is a bit higher, but still low.
The likelihood of those 2 people meeting in a store not dedicated to computer tech, and having this exact conversation, is like… monkeys playing Mozart level unlikely. ;)
I completely agree, it was one in a million and I was extremely surprised when it happened.
I've never been on the receiving end of a "that happened" before. Not really sure what to do about it. But I get it.
I’m not being skeptical!
Good thing you’re here to sus out the BS, otherwise we might all have been hoodwinked by OP recalling this friendly conversation at a store.
Honestly at this point you’ve spent longer trying to explain why it’s made up than OP took to write it.
Are you happy with the person that you are? I can’t imagine you’re very pleasant to spend time with.
Yeah, I’m content with who I am.
Your assumption regarding my goal is wrong though. I took care to explain my thoughts in a way that didn’t deny the possibility outright. No worries if you missed that, or are skeptical.
I think most can agree (even if you don’t) that the chances of this are just wild. That itself was interesting enough to me that I chose to type out 2 comments. I’m told commenting/contributing is the point of being on lemmy?
Anyway, I don’t know who pissed in your wheaties, but I hope your day improves from here.
I mean, it could be possible that the box of the mouse said something like kernel 2.6+. Considering that is older than 2011, OP's answer was absolutely spot on.
Why is this sweet old lady carrying a mouse around the grocery store asking about decades old kernel versions lol
Put this way... 😂