“Is this a virus?”
Your 12-year-old brother is more security-conscious than most of the adults I work with.
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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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 ....
Tell him that those are viruses too
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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.
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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
Time to become a toxic arch elitist user now.
Time to replace Fedora with Gentoo.
"Btw i use fedora"
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.
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.
He's learning
The children yearn for the distro wars
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.
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.
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.
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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He also keeps explaining to me why Fedora better than my “nerd OS”
Your brother is the wise guy of the bell curve
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"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"
😂
Tech literacy amongst the youth is rapidly going down. Good on you.
Is this a made-up story? Be honest
Yes, it's just for OP to say "I use Arch".
Did you add Flathub or rpmfusion? the store without those things is kinda barren
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Put my sibling on ubuntu and all they ever do is watch tv shows and stuff in the browser.
Such a wholesome story 😊
So happy to hear that he is enjoying Linux and you guys are doing things together.
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.
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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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
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.
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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:
- It's faster to type than to navigate menus
- 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
- You can combine commands with each other with pipes or
$() - You can search through your command history to find previous commands
- You can write scripts and aliases to automate common tasks
- 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.
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)
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