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”
“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.
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.
To be honest, I think most of young people is more security conscious than adults, at least most of the times.
My brother is the kind of people that installs stuff without reading a single option, just ‘next next next’ until the installer closes.
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.
Totally fair. Thank you!
He also keeps explaining to me why Fedora better than my “nerd OS”
Your brother is the wise guy of the bell curve
He used a wormhole
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”
Is this a made-up story? Be honest
The kid’s name? Little Bobby Tables.
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.
Yes, it’s just for OP to say “I use Arch”.
From now on I’m only refering to arch as “the nerd OS”
Tech literacy amongst the youth is rapidly going down. Good on you.
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
.desktopfile:Keywords=Slideshow;Slides;OpenDocument Presentation;Microsoft PowerPoint;Microsoft Works;OpenOffice Impress;odp;ppt;pptx;
I use NerdOS BTW.
(That’s fantastic, I absolutely love it.)
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
Linus surely just stages things for clicks. No one with his experience could be that dumb.
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.
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.
How to copy paste from chatgpt 4 will ne furture
He only asks me things like “What was the name of PowerPoint for Linux” once in a while
Show him https://alternativeto.net and that also drops to zero :)
You taught your brother well! I’m glad he is having a positive experience with it.
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.
wholesome
