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submitted 2 days ago by fhein@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

A few years ago my wife and I built a computer out of old parts for her friend's then 10 years old son. Last month we were visiting them, and I heard the wife's friend say something funny that I thought I'd share with you.

They live on the other side of the city, this was the kid's first computer, and his mom doesn't have much computer experience either, so our goal was to build something that was easy to use and hard to break from the beginning. Originally I choose ElementaryOS since it seemed to fit the bill, but after a year or two it turned out that it couldn't be upgraded to a new major version without a full reinstall so it got stuck with an older version. We didn't visit that often, and the kid's games still worked so it wasn't a major issue until Factorio broke due to glibc incompatibility.

When his birthday was coming up last month we bought him a SSD to make the computer a little bit zippier without a major upgrade, and I thought I'd give him a brand new Linux experience too, so I asked for advice here and in the end chose Bazzite. While I was helping the kid with the installation, I overheard his mom saying in the other room:

This Linux thing.. We've never had any problems with it, he just clicks something to install it and it works. Unlike normal computers, where you always have to do things and fix them.

Perhaps not the most eloquent, but I consider it a very good review.

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[-] 7U5K3N@lemmy.dbzer0.com 54 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

My ex father in law would always always ALWAYS install random ass flash games / random sketchy software and bork their windows PC.
He was always complaining about popups and his antivirus was always flagging a threat etc.. they'd spend tons of money annually to have their computer fixed and he'd go right back to the same behavior.

Anyway... I installed a dual boot setup with his windows and Linux mint.

He bitched and complained about it.. but he never had any actual issues. His complaint was it was different. He ran mint until he died like 5 years later.

Honestly, if my exFIL can run Linux.. anyone can.

[-] Cyber@feddit.uk 9 points 1 day ago

His complaint was it was different.

This is the absolute core of everyone's reluctance... and 99% of (domestic) stuff is browser based...

[-] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago

Cause of death: Linux Mint allergy.

[-] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago

Lucky he was using linux when nobody really creates viruses for linux. But it's best to teach people not to click on everything before they do get viruses

this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
597 points (98.7% liked)

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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