My little brother loves the dualboot setup I installed for him. He says "It's like iOS"

yogurtwrong@lemmy.world to Linux@lemmy.ml – 1070 points –

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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“Is this a virus?”

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

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

Still better security consciousness than 99% of the population.

Nah, my father is one of those who thinks everything is a virus, especially emails. And so he installs all kind of "clean your PC from viruses"-software ....

That's because everything is a virus.

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.

My dad is in his 70s, but he is thankfully rather aware of these kinds of things. He forwards me messages or calls me to ask "is this legitimate?"

He's aware of computer viruses, but I think he's really on the lookout for scams, which is an interesting and effective approach.

My brother is the kind of people that installs stuff without reading a single option, just 'next next next' until the installer closes.

This is a lovely story

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

What your brother sees in Arch: Oh no another driver update, let me write a paragraph in computer language

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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.

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

I mean, there are definitely wrong ways to run Linux, like a single root user with no password, but your point is well taken. If Linux fanboys would keep the subjective gatekeeping to themselves the new user experience would be much more pleasant.

Hey now single root user no password is all that will fit on my 2 kb hard drive

True, but when done in jest I think distro wars are fine. The charm is that each distro has stuff you’ll like and dislike.

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.

Tangent, what's it like going for grad and post grad in computer science? I've wanted to try teaching for the longest time but I learned very little new material over the course of my Bachelor's and the only thing that made it worth my time was the math content lol

The further you go, the more specialized it gets. There are people I know doing their PhDs in CS, but it was pretty much just straight math. I'm now an expert in a very specific area of robotics. But it's only worth it if you have a specific reason to go to grad school, like for a particular career path. If it's just because you like learning, it's not worth it. There's a big opportunity cost.

Same with me but it was 2012 iirc. My sister installed ubuntu on my first laptop(which was a hand-down btw). Never used windows in any capacity in my whole life except for school.

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

Your brother is the wise guy of the bell curve

Or he's currently on the left, and he'll be on the bell's top by the time @yogurtwrong@lemmy.world 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”

Yeah, same but with Fedora: since Gnome 40+ came out I got back to it and never left again

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.

I came to this thread to conplain about IOS, so I guess that checks out.

Is this a made-up story? Be honest

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

Not op but I lived with a younger nephew for some years. He looked up to me in every aspect and if I introduced him to something he would learn it to talk about it later. I unfortunately just introduced him to League of Legends, I was too young and wasn't into linux myself.

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.

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

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.

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.

You generally have to have problems you need to fix to be interested in the guts of the thing. Projects like starting their own self hosted Minecraft servers would encourage that.

Just add Arduino and its ide, scratch, cura, tinkercad and a 3d printer. You can change their habits easily

Do you do the updates or do they do it through terminal? My sibling running Ubuntu is fine with it because it's easy and the update is a button.

I fully manage our machines as they are a resource shared by the whole family and used for work, study and play. We do have old machines, electronics, home server, arduino etc available for tinkering if they are interested and there is a lot that can be done in user space if they were interested so I don't know that they are missing out.

It is possible to do arch updates from a gui but arch occasionally requires manual interventions. These are normally documented through arch announce and easily searchable if an update breaks some functionality but intervention usually requires the console and I am fine with that. In my experience debian and variants do offer a simpler update experience since you are usually only applying security updates within your current release. If they were on a stable Debian based distro I would probably setup unattended automatic security updates. Arch is more like a refined Debian Sid.

I use NerdOS BTW.

(That's fantastic, I absolutely love it.)

Tech literacy amongst the youth is rapidly going down. Good on you.

Linus surely just stages things for clicks. No one with his experience could be that dumb.

I actually remember reddit posts complaining they hit the same bug as he did, some days prior and also some days later lol

He played dumb on purpose and it was infuriating. Even since I've been using Linux, its become so much easier to install and use. He must think his viewers are idiots if that's what he was trying to act like.

Reading this, I'm curious about the video now. To see it for myself.

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.

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.

And even for some types of image editing, terminal is way faster and easier. Some of the things i've done that are a simple command with imagemagick i wouldn't even know which gui app to install, let alone how to do it

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

Well some if those are only true for smie people. Add in a vad case of dyslexia and it get real hard to kniw if what you just tyoed is correct, and does any cli have a spell checker.

There's this aptly-named utility that I'm currently using:

https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck

I do think GUI is the way to go for "typical" usage, but if you wanted to set up a faster way to run a command you use often, you would create an alias to handle a complex command or something you do often.

For example, I have 'updateall' as my command to run 'sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && flatpak update'. Why not GUI for this? I like to see what's going on during my updates. It's also kind of satisfying for some reason.

Anyway, I suspect your problem then would end up being not running a syntax, assuming it even exists, but the correct syntax, which I often encounter, but that's what 'history | grep' is for.

Fair enough, I'm not against people making guis as well for people who prefer them for whatever reason, my point is that people don't just prefer terminals because of elitism or something. I imagine terminals can be better than guis for some disabilities as well.

yeah. you can change font size / change font on a terminal much easier than many GUI applications. and terminal is going to have that same standard apply to everything

from what i understand, there are fonts for people with dyslexia

I'm sure there are ways to make it more convenient to use a terminal with dyslexia but I'm gonna guess that it's always going to be a bit of an uphill battle. It might make more sense to use a gui in that case for many applications. Conversly, it's also good to make sure you have a proper terminal interface as well for disability reasons, but also for the convenience that a terminal interface can provide for people who are familiar with the terminal.

Because it just works (tm). And it is flexible to a point that no GUI can ever accomplish. It's liberating. It's repeatable, It's automatable. It's about control. And most importantly, it's FAST!

If you try to max out the control, GUI comes out of as an UX disaster. Check any enterprise software GUI to see what I mean. There will be lot's and lot's of buttons all around, and you would also end up with some kind of text input or programming environment inside it.

I agree in certain circumstances. For example a file manager I don't understand why people use in a terminal. When I need to do like batch deletions or something I can easily just write a couple terminal commands. Everything else I just use the default file manager. Either Finder on MacOS or the Gnome one on Linux.

But stuff like vim, a terminal text editor, is simply more fluid and enjoyable than a GUI program. I've tried using vim plugins for various different GUI text editors like Sublime or VS Code but there's nothing like a personalized vim install. It takes a little bit to get used to the commands, but once you do it's like riding a bike. You just feel faster and muscle memory takes care of the rest. You don't actively think about it

same thing with for example package managers. it's faster to just press my hotkey to open up terminal, type in "sudo dnf install <whatever>" and it's installed. why do we need a GUI here? it doesn't make anything faster. In fact, it just gets in the way.

so some things GUIs don't actually improve. Some they do. It's a per case thing I think

It's way easier to communicate a terminal based solution over the internet. Instead of making a guide with images, possibly needing annotation, you can just say "run x, y, z in order" and the user can just copy and paste it (even though it's a bad habit to run random commands off the internet)

I mean you could certainly have both but Linux treating its terminal as a first class interface is a big killer feature of Unix/Linux I think and why it's still used in the server/dev world so much. Having a command line interface that's not an afterthought, fully scriptable, and can be automated is very convenient for large tasks that need to be chained together whereas on Windows you have things like PowerShell where not every program you want to do things with in PowerShell has a way to interact with PowerShell, since in Windows you have the opposite problem of GUI being the only first class interface. I think I'd be worried that if you de-emphasized the terminal more you'd get the weird situation that happened to Windows and PowerShell whereas it's usually not super hard to build your own GUI around an open source terminal program. A lot of people aren't especially motivated to do that so some programs don't have GUIs, but if you're feeling like more programs need one then go for it.

I just find certain things to be quicker in the terminal than doing it through a GUI.

Like installing software. I think it’s quicker and more direct to do something like sudo pacman -S Firefox than to go through a gui. Especially if Im using a drop down terminal that I have hot keyed.

As for remembering everything, I’d say it’s just a matter of experience. Like, you had to learn how to use a GUI app at one point or another.

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Terminal fan here (though I’m on Mac). GUIs, in an attempt to contain all the features of a CLI program while being user friendly, make compromises on simplicity. It’s difficult to remember the combination of buttons to click to get what you want. For CLI programs, you have man and —help to figure it out. Of course there’s the pipes and automation aspects of it too.

one of the most important things about text based interfaces is reproducability. Being able to run commands and get the expected results every time and easily share it with others. GUIs can be customized and re-arranged, and its much harder to automate things with a GUI program vs a text based one. Those are handy features which will probably prevent the terminal from ever dying.

There should be a good GUI for everything but a terminal offers more options to do certain things a lot faster. Especially in work environments. And once you're used to this level of efficiency and control you're not likely to stop doing that in your home network.

I work a lot with building engineering programs with GUIs, and while you can get a lot of functionality in a GUI, there's always some things that just aren't worth the time to accomodate or even be a common enough issue to even think of

This is what sucks about Linux. It’s still not as complete as Windows in that regard… Things being too techy, even the real user friendly ones still got it.

You got this the wrong way around. Windows is lacking a proper terminal. You are at the mercy of constantly redesigned GUIs for literally everything. Windows is an absolute pain to use if you aren't used to it and have developed a certain amount of Stockholm syndrome.

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IDK about plasma, but in GNOME, if you search for PowerPoint, it shows LibreOffice Impress as a result.

I was looking for a similar comment. Plasma does exactly that too. These are probably provided from this line in its .desktop file:

Keywords=Slideshow;Slides;OpenDocument Presentation;Microsoft PowerPoint;Microsoft Works;OpenOffice Impress;odp;ppt;pptx;

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.

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!

the os should do as i say, that includes breaking it if i please. the problem are people writing into the terminal "i understand that i uninstall half my os with this command but want to do it anyway" and then wonder why half their os gets uninstalled.

I say this as a desktop Linux user for about 5 years at this point, but there is a big difference between typing "I understand I will uninstall half my OS with this" and typing "do as I say". One requires directly repeating what is going to happen, and one is a more verbose version of typing Y.

Yes, the user should still be allowed to break their system however they want, but the warning should definitely be more obvious so the user can actively know if something they are changing might completely break their system.

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

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/11/system76-patches-apt-for-pop-os-to-prevent-users-breaking-their-systems/

Should be fixed yeah.

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)

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

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

I don't think I want to meet a 12 year old who uses power point. Jk lol

They all use it if they want to pass school, so you are out of luck.

I mean, it's pretty much required in school. I had about 5 presentations each grade from late elementary through the end of high school

Well that explains why my job just expects me to know it without any warning... I'm almost 50, I have no problem learning new things if you tell me I need to, but when I was in school, computers were still luxuries...

Kids spend a large amount of their school time copy/pasting from google images and wikipedia into powerpoint and have done so for a couple of decades in many schools.

It seems very likely the lack of hand writing and illustration creates a huge deficit in fine motor skills. And copy pasting is probably detrimental to comprehension and knowledge retention. As long as educators don't question the motivation of tech companies using their classrooms to expand mind share and view technology uncritically as some sort of magic nothing will change.

Lots of kids have to present their school projects etc using powerpoint or similar.

You taught your brother well! I'm glad he is having a positive experience with it.

Such a wholesome story 😊

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

This is the kind of things I like to hear!

Linux is spreading among gen z. Source: I'm 13 and use NixOS, and my friend who's around the same age as me also uses it.

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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.

Who would’ve thought tech literacy was going to go down with the years? Not me…

Well, it has been obvious for quite a while now, pretty much since we noticed that it wasn't just the old people who "didn't grow up with it" who needed excessive amounts of hand holding when using a PC.

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.

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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!

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?

I will write a guide for you via editing so others don't need to after they see this message.

Yes. 1 hard drive is enough. 2 provides you few steps less (as in manual partitioning), but the end result is exactly the same in both scenarions.

I hope your storage drive(s) is ssd and not hdd. If not, I highly recommend to buy at least used ssd (my oldest ssd is from 2010 and still works).

Manual partitioning varies a bit between Linux distros, so google the guide for the distro you want ro install.

Windows overrides and formats the Linux boot partition, so install Windows first and at the partitioning "window" write the amount of storage you want to give for Windows and it handles everything else automaticly. If your Windows is already installed, then shrink your drive with the amount you want to use in Linux. Windows has a tool named Disk Management for shrinking the drive.

In Linux you need at least two partitions; boot (In Linux terms: /boot/uefi) and root (in Linux terms: / ). But like I said, Google/Youtube a guide for your distro of choice.

Have you chosen which distro you'll use? If not, format your biggest usb stick with Ventoy2Disk and it'll be the last time you ever format your usb stick. Just drag and drop any Linux .iso and try them in Live mode without the need to format or install anything before you've chosen which distro you like the most. Linus Tech Tips showed Ventoy2Disk in his latest video.

Try at least Pop_OS! and Linux Mint since they are very beginner friendly distros.

Dual boot isn't the easiest way to start your Linux journey, but I hope you have fun while learning new skills. If you have anything to ask, don't hesitate, just ask.

awesome, thanks so much! I really appreciate it

Oh, I forgot to ask. Do you have Nvidia gpu in your computer?

I do in my desktop, not on my laptop.

Do you have a gpu in your pcie slot or do you use integrated gpu?

Because you have a desktop, I'd recommend to use 2 separate disks. Because if you manage to break the Linux system (it might happen if you heavily tinker/customize your Linux and manage do some mistake) then you can just re-install the Linux and start again.

If you have 2 storage drivers, then unplug the Windows drive when you (put tape and write Windows onto it) are installing the Linux. Then the computer will manage the partitioning automatically, so less work for you.

Don't fear the tinkering/customizing. That's one big joy in Linux, lol. Remember to backup at least your personal files.

My desktop does have a dedicated gpu in my pcie slot. I just assume my laptop has integrated graphics with the board, its an average/below average hp pavilion from around 2018.

I have 2 SSDs in my desktop, with one containing gaming storage and the other being the boot drive. I would prefer to experiment with linux on my laptop though, and I'm pretty sure it only has the 1 TB HDD. However, all sensitive data should be moved from that shortly so that I may have room to tinker/play around with it.

I recommend that you install Linux on the laptop alone! Linux will work on that hdd, but will be slower. If you can, buy an used ssd for it. 256 GB should be enough for a lot. That 1 TB hdd could serve you as a backup disk.

I also recommend to overhaul your laptop. Remove the dust with compressed air and reolace thermal paste (should be done every 2-3 years anyway).

Windows doesn't like to acknowledge that other operating systems exist, so (at least from my experience) it will overwrite your Linux bootloader whenever it updates, or sometimes it'll just do it because it feels like it...

I only have one machine left in use with a single disk shared between the two systems (a laptop) but I haven't seen that happen for quite some time now (years really, and never on the last two laptops). And it hasn't happened for a very long time in my main box that has several drives, where Windows gets its own little drive and Linux has the others (back when it happened, it was simpler in that case as I could use the BIOS boot manager to pick a drive to boot from). I don't boot Windows very often, maybe once a month to run updates, and nothing much happens.
So while it certainly was a problem at some point, I don't think it still is.

GRUB is better anyway, imo. It can mess with SecureBoot and BitLocker if you use those, though.

I've read that some people have problems, but I used to dual boot (now I keep each os in a separate hard drive) without issues. Is a really straight forward process but if you get issues the online community is amazing and there are tons of docs (and reddit threads, some of them are deleted now or moved to Lemmy).

Linux is great! I started dual booting windows and Linux Mint, tried a lot of distros (this is called distro hopping) all Ubuntu based while using primarily Windows. After a while I got tired with windows and felt more comfortable with Linux, so I wiped Windows and installed Fedora Workstation (there's a community for ASUS gaming laptops that have a guide for Fedora).

If you just want to get a feel of Linux, you can also run it in a Virtual Box, setting it to full screen makes you feel like you are using Linux, but obviously that comes with limitations.

I think I will definitely check out a virtual box first! My uncle actually recommended that to me at our 4th of July gathering and I thought it was a wonderful idea, I just haven't sat down and done it yet.

I currently have two different SSDs on my desktop- do you think that it's possible to put a linux distro on my secondary one that I use for videogame storage without causing any problems to my videogame data, or would it be better to get a whole new drive for it? Thanks again for all your help!

Is it possible but you could run into issues. You can shrink that drive and leave space for Linux there, but be careful while setting up your partitions so you don't accidentally erase your games data.

Its always easier to use a whole drive so you don't have to worry about partitions. I've never done what you're describing but it shouldn't be much of a hassle.

@BrandoCalrissian9229 @yogurtwrong I never tried dual boot, but as far as I know the best thing is to have two separated drives in order to avoid problems (which can happen).

yeah, that's always been the way I've understood it, but it seems like not many laptops these days have multiple drives

It is absolutely possible to dual boot from a single harddrive. Don't know about fedora, but the Ubuntu installer has taken care of that for ages now. Yes, it can fuck your windows install initially, but that is normally reversible.

If you don't know, a computer uses so called partitions and not the hard drive directly. Think of them as folders. Normally you have one partition which holds the bootloader information (one or two OS, or more) and then a partition for each OS. A little Programm after Turning on the computer let's you choose which OS you want to boot.

A lone Linux installation often has three partitions on one harddrive. One boot Partition, one for the OS and one for the home directory of all users. This way you can reinstall the OS without loosing your home directory.

@BrandoCalrissian9229 that's definitely true. You could use an external ssd, if you have problems

I mean, the outcome speaks for itself. Although I would likely have gone for Gnome instead of KDE for somebody who is completely new to Linux and not exactly techy. I use KDE myself, but I have to say that the out-of-the-box look and feel of Gnome is a lot more polished.

Yeah, I installed KDE because it functions similarly to Windows. But something like Budgie would be ok too I guess

Also, I think young people like theming. My brother uses KDE's theme store a lot

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At home, my parents are forced to use Windows and macOS because of their work, but all the machines at home are either Linux or a Linux/Windows dual-boot. The mobile phones run LineageOS. I haven't succeeded with my little brother, who's the only one with an iPhone.

Everyone's happy, and when there's a problem (which happens quite rarely), I'm asked, and it's solved in seconds. Most of the time, no one misses proprietary applications, and everyone's surprised that everything's free, hahaha.

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?

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.

It’s true, I’m somebody who has run DIY distros daily for years and decided to try out Debian on a spare computer recently. I couldn’t even update the system after the initial install. It took me like forty minutes to find a thread which explained to me that Debian 12 has a bug with some raspi firmware that requires you to delete three files before apt will work, and there is 0 indication on the paths themselves, just people who have figured it out and were generous enough to share the knowledge. You can’t blame new users for those things, we as a community need to improve the software and the attitudes

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

I've had a very similar experience. It's always something, drivers, video codecs, you name it. If it gives you any confidence, it's happened less and less as I've gained more experience and I'm daily driving fedora now.

I wonder if some people have just been so lucky to never have issues.

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

I installed Ubuntu a few months back and I honestly don't see where anything could go wrong assuming you were remotely familuar with installing any OS, even if you've only worked with windows.

Hell, getting separate devices like printers to vonnect were even wasier on Linux than Windows. O Windows I had to go to manufacturer sites to install bullshit bloatware to get things to work righr, while on Linux they literally just worked immediately - I had to the 1 button to tell Linux to connect and that was it.

This is where I suggest OpenSUSE, since it shares binaries and matched release cycle with SUSE it is highly stable, and nVidia provides a direct download for the drivers. Not saying it is perfect, but it is much more dependable than cobbling together your own distro.

My 3 year old daughter has a 2010 MacBook running AntiX. She knows how to boot it, press Enter on the dual-boot screen, and is getting close to being able to select Stardew Valley from the app menu. She also enjoys playing GCompris.

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.

Do you think I would have a similar experience if I got my 70 year old mother to install Linux? She's on the other side of the country, but she's always asking me questions about Windows 11 and breaking things. I have never even used Windows 11, so my capacity to help her isn't great, especially since we haven't been able to get Remote Desktop working since she switched from 10 to 11.

My wife is bad with tech and was frustrated with Windows. i set her up with linux and GNOME. Its a simple interface. Settings are all in one place like a phone. Files, Photos in the overview tray. No more frustration with "what is Windows doing now?" and No more "why is this so slow"

Is she happier with it than Windows? Does she struggle less? My mom already used Libra office, so at least that much wouldn't be an adjustment. My fear is that she'll lock up the first time she has to use the terminal or install something that isn't in the software center.

PS, Gnome is simple, but it's also awesome! I've been using Linux off and on for 20 years now and I prefer Gnome.

She could careless about the OS, just as long as it is peppy like her phone and simple. So yes much happier than her Windows experience. some distros do a nice job at presenting a software store that is easy, like ZorinOS or ElementaryOS. if she isn't getting IT help from anybody and you think terminal install may become an issue, there is OpenSUSE with oneclick install of downloaded RPMs (if you are outside of repos). But SUSE is a bit of its own learning curve.

Thanks for the advice. Learning curves won't work for her. It needs to be like a phone, like you said. I have a lot of experience with Pop and I think she'd be fine with that as long as she doesn't need to use the terminal. The first time it asks her to sudo her head will explode.

Yep, understood. For my wife's I put the apps she needed on the dock and nothing else. And then for the browser I set the default page to always show her main websites as tiles. Backups are automatic to a raspberry pi running samba. So far there has been no issues unless the wifi extender goes goofy and she has to reconnect.

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I have used Linux for a while and transitioned the wife and kids to Linux Mint a couple years ago.

They know it is different than Windows but never miss anything as the alternatives are as good or better. The kids are used to mobile and tablets so know of app store and so on. The only downside is getting some games their friends play working, like Roblox. But for the most part alternatives like Minetest are fine (better).

The upside is IMHO massive in terms of privacy, security, user friendless and sysadm stuff.

It just works and we're happy with it!

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

Haha nice work! Reminds me of when I got my little brother his first computer (a Raspberry Pi setup)

I love Fedora. It was my OS of preference 20y ago. Now I am old and use Debian. Arch was a very shortlived adventure in a transitional period that I felt tired of keep breaking all my OSs out of boredom.

Hadn't heard of bottles before. Is it any different than Lutris?

Not really, but they are alternatives to each other. Bottles can also be configured to run "normal" applications alongside possible games and stuff, while Lutris has more a "gaming" UI vibes (but you can run everything you want on both of them really) and additionally provides some integrations for other emulators. I think it comes down to personal tastes at the end of the day, both of them under the hood use wine/proton and apply settings to it before running the application

"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"

😂

This is great lol. When my friend tried Linux Mint he had to go into the terminal to install Brave, as they don't just provide a .DEB like other browsers do. Maybe I should recommend Fedora to him as well.

Brave 🤮

i find the fall from grace amusing. i've been hating on them for years just because they're a chrome derivative. now they do some telemetry and all of a sudden everyone hates them.

I use Vivaldi (and Firefox if a site doesn't work in Vivaldi) which is part of that "other browsers" bracket so I'm good lol.

not open source and based on chrome

why not just use firefox for everything?

Because I need tab organisation to stop my arse from overflowing with tabs and getting overwhelmed, which Vivaldi does nicely with workspaces and Firefox can't really do at all.

I looked it up and while Firefox has most of the tab features Vivaldi does (tab pinning, tab duplication, moving tabs, muting tabs) it doesn't have tab stacking, which was novel to me

there are a couple firefox addons that more or less replicate this feature in different forms from some brief research

for example tree style tabs is a popular addon

i also found tab stack and simple tab groups although they do not look as streamlined as vivaldi

regardless, thanks for the info. i'm going to try out tree style tabs because it seems like a useful feature for me too that i hadn't considered before

No prob! I did use Tree Style Tabs and that helped a bit but Vivaldi's extra features and how streamlined it is just edge it out as better than Firefox + addons for me. There's also tab workspaces for grouping tabs into screens, typically on what type of browsing you're doing, and tab tiling which Firefox was able to do back in its XUL days but can't do in Quantum. I think Firefox would be pretty neat with a power-user oriented fork to bring back some missing features.

My only issue with Vivaldi is, if a site is still providing insecure HTTP for whatever reason (7digital for some reason still provides purchase downloads this way) then Vivaldi silently fails. Firefox clearly warns the user, so that's my reason for having Firefox on hand - for those stragglers.

You can find the flatpak version of Brave in the Mint software center. Many package maintainers don't allocate space for multiple web browser forks because they take a very long time to compile and update frequently (or have nonfree components like Vivaldi) so flatpaks are your best option.

I knew Fedora had Flatpak baked in but didn't know Linux Mint had it. I know they've got a hatred for Snaps, though lol. Thanks for the explanation!

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

That's awesome. I wish I had a sibling with an interest like this.