My favorite is when someone tells me that they are too old to learn about new technology, or that they can’t use a device because they aren’t very tech-y. No, you just refuse to learn.
My favorite is when someone tells me that they are too old to learn about new technology, or that they can’t use a device because they aren’t very tech-y. No, you just refuse to learn.
Being completely uncritical of it. This ties into being unwilling to learn, if they’re introduced to word processors via MS Word, many people are completely unwilling to move to something else like LibreOffice Writer, even if it’s not actually that different.
Back to the first sentence, too many people just aren’t willing to consider the ramifications of living in a walled garden made and maintained by foreign far-right groups, or if they are generally aware and critical of it, it usually still not enough to actually do something against it. That includes people who are generally tech savy, most of my millenial-or-younger friends and relatives aren’t on Signal, including one who is a software developer and vocally critical of Trump and US tech companies. Meanwhile my parents and grandparents have no issue using Signal.
And what makes so many people so willing to look at ads? I know way too many people who could easily use adblockers if they wanted, but just don’t.
My parents are older, in their late 60s and 70s, neither of them are particularly tech-savvy. They’re not totally helpless, they’ll usually do an alright job of basic troubleshooting like making sure things are plugged in, turning it off and on again, even look around a bit for settings and try to Google their problems before calling me.
They’d been using a copy of office 2003 or something like that age since that was new, they had the disk and didn’t feel any need to upgrade to a newer version. At some point they “upgraded” their computer to windows 11 which finally seemed to break compatibility with that old version of office.
Of the two of them, my mom is slightly more technically savvy. They had started using Google docs at her job before she retired, so she was able to switch to that with no major issues.
My dad couldn’t quite get the hang of that. I put libre office on their computer and told him it was just like Microsoft but free, and he’s been using that just fine since then.
Their computer, while technically compatible with Windows 11, seems to really struggle with it. They’re old retired people, they watch YouTube, do basic word processing and spreadsheets, check their emails, and go on Facebook. It’s not a beefy computer and they don’t need one, I’m pretty sure there are smart toasters or something these days that can do everything they need.
On a whim I stuck a bootable USB flash drive with Linux Mint on it in their computer about a week ago, and have had them test drive that. It does everything they need, they’ve had no issues with it so far, and even running off a flash drive it’s been running smoother than windows 11.
So when I go visit them tomorrow I’m gonna be making some backups and installing Linux on their computer.
Pretty much the one program they use that’s not a web browser or office software they use is Hallmark card studio (2007 I think) to print their own cards. Not gonna be the end of the world if they can’t use that anymore, but fingers crossed I’ll be able to get that running in wine. Wine HQ lists its compatibility as garbage but I don’t think anyone has tried to do it in a few years and wine has come a long way recently, so I’m cautiously optimistic.
So if these two old people can learn to use libre office and Linux, no one has an excuse.
Honestly, Linux is great for two groups:
A) People who extremely tech-savvy.
B) People who aren’t tech savvy at all.
It’s the people in the middle, the people who know just enough to get themselves in trouble, who want to screw around with things and do weird custom stuff, but aren’t good enough at it to handle learning a new OS, those are the people in the middle Linux isn’t well suited for. But the two opposite ends of the technical ability spectrum are perfect for Linux.
I think Linux has a peculiar learning curve. If someone else installs it for you and does basic tech support once in a while, and installs a beginner-friendly distro, and the users only use very basic stuff like word processors and browser-based social media, it’s really easy, even easier than Windows. For people who know just about enough to install new software and reinstall Windows, Linux can be fairly difficult since a lot of the system plumbing just works quite differently, and these users are also tempted to install more difficult-to-use-and-maintain distros. Then once you’re very tech-savvy, Linux becomes easier than Windows again because it mostly does what you want and doesn’t fight you like Windows, and it’s often a first class citizen when it comes to software development.
Yeah, it’s absolutely a weird curve like that
I’m kind of in the second batch where things get hard, I’ve managed to keep myself from diving headfirst into some crazy hard to maintain distro and biting off more than I can chew, but it’s really weird not knowing how things the way I did on windows.
Yeah, I’d really like to switch to Linux, but I’m the most tech savvy person in my circle and I know I’d fuck something up.
If you have a second device, like an old laptop or something, that you can put Linux on to use it for stuff, I’d suggest that.
The short story of my Linux conversion was I got a Raspberry Pi for my amateur radio hobby. Learning how to deal with Linux as a side thing that had no pressure of “I might need my computer for something” really helped take to it.
You will! But it’s pretty hard to actually do lasting damage. If your install breaks, just reinstall - can be annoying, but it’s also a great excuse to try another distro or desktop!
So I’ve been running Linux for a few months now. Making the switch was pretty intimidating at first but I have a couple thoughts now.
If you have important work documents, or big collections of music movies, pictures, etc. yeah, that’s a bit of a chore, but again if it’s anything that can’t be easily replaced you should make backups anyway.
Once you’ve done that, you’ve got nothing left to lose. You have your backups, and while it’s intimidating to hit install that first time, trust me, it is really hard to totally brick your computer to the point that you can’t just wipe everything and either try again or even reinstall windows if you really need to. You may need to spend a couple hours googling on your phone and borrow some time on a friend’s computer to create a new bootable flash drive or something but unless you really try to you’re not going to totally fuck up anything.
Like I said, my parents have been running off of a flash drive for about a week now, you can do that too, test things out in that safe little sandbox, you basically can’t break anything from that live USB.
If you know enough to get yourself in trouble, you know enough to get yourself back out of it again, and you’ll have learned something from the experience. I’m actually at the point now where I’m kind of excited to eventually really break something to give me an excuse to try out another distro as a daily driver. I’m not trying to break something, but if it happens, it’s an opportunity to try new stuff.
Maybe I’m weird, but setting up a new computer, figuring out the settings, and personalizing it the way I want may actually be one of my favorite things. When I do that I always seem to find a fun new thing that I didn’t know was there before.