Old lady uses Linux … what’s your excuse?
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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My father, who taught computer science for the Army, later became a government contractor, and for whom Unix systems were bread and butter, is now retired and farts around on a Mac reading political blogspam all day.
My mother, having never had any interest or real education in computing in her entire life, now uses Linux Mint to take care of important shit and keep the family organized.
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Today at the grocery store a sweet older lady approached me and asked if I knew anything about computers.
Next on things that totally happened today...
Before I decide whether this story is real I need to know what OP looks like that some lady singled him out in public to ask a Linux related question. OP, do you wear a wizard hat in public? Were you buying Doritos and Mountain Dew? I must know.
A robe and wizard hat.
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i worked in sales long enough to know that No, No sweet older lady ever spoke those words to you "setup on linux mint" and include the capacity for understanding hardware compliances? did everyone in the store clap too? but...it would be a nice fantasy ngl
With what I've been through, I'm beginning to wonder if OP is telling the truth 😂
About 7 years ago I got a call from some random lady in her 70s. Turns out her husband passed away not long ago and every computer in the house had Linux Mint installed. She needed someone to help her with some various simple techy things that her husband used to handle.
I couldn't help but wonder how this random lady got my phone number. Turns out that one day, my Grandfather went on a walk down the road and this lady was outside tending to her garden. I have no clue how the conversation shifted to the topic of Linix, but it did. And my Grandpa knew I was in college for Computer Science, so he just volunteered me for this task.
Fast forward to today and I still help her out once or twice a year with whatever random questions pop up.
Uh my grandparents have Linux on their machine (set up a decade or more ago after I got sick of cleaning out malware/incredimail installs). They know enough to ask if stuff works on Linux though might not know to ask about Mint/Ubuntu specifically.
TBF they usually ask me first but they'll also ask the salesperson.
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I did once have a very not technical mate ask for some help with their laptop, and it was randomly running edubuntu? I was like yeah no worries I got this but why TF are you running linux, they didn't even really understand, apparently some random friend had set them up with it because they didn't want to pay for windows lol.
edubuntu
An education focused Ubuntu distro, weird. Also getting into Linux because it's free is a great reason to get into Linux, if you get comfortable with it now it can help you in many STEM careers in addition to your own needs and proposes.
Presumably the friend was familiar with it and didn't want to recommend something they didn't know.
Have an elderly patron at the cafe that I volunteer at as a tech support (basically helping the old sods learn how to use their phones and connect to the new digital services from the government in Denmark) and he is a Linux user too. Dude is 79 and is the fella I go to if I have any linux questions. Think he uses an old IBM ThinkPad and practically consoles everything except his web use. I want to stay as pro as him when I turn 79!
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I saw Richard Stallman at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything. He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying. The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter. When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
This is both very likely true while also being the peak male Lemmy user fantasy that will confuse future alien archaeologists the most. Thanks for sharing!
My sister installed mint on my grandma's laptop but she would ask us if she needed help.
Is this satire? Forgive me, but 99.999% of the population has no idea what a kernel is. Also, since when would a mouse care about your kernel version? Puzzling post.
I'm imagining, it said on the packaging of the mouse that it needed that kernel version.
In Linux, the kernel delivers most drivers, so it may not yet have had the appropriate mouse driver in kernel versions before that.
Maybe this is possible, but typically you're lucky to even find Linux support mentioned at all.
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Based boomer ladies embracing open source software.
I tried to install Linux on my mom's laptop for her, it was too scary. So she is still using windows 7 and probably getting scammed left and right.
My dad is running xubuntu for about 6 years now. I didn't get any questions in the last 2 years. Besides for installing a new printer.
Before that it was mostly which program he needed for something. Never a black screen anymore, malware or anything like that.
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They'll probably enjoy Linux way more than windows. It's so much less intrusive.
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That old lady's name? Albert Einstein.
Mouse? Sure. Those are standardized and interchangeable. 99.999% chance of success.
Graphics card? Wi-Fi interface? Now you've got problems.
My experience is still a good success rate there. Back in ~2015 my family got an USB WiFi card which needed an out-of-tree module, which the manufacturer had on Github, complete with DKMS instructions. It was upstreamed after about a year, though!
The only completely unsupported device I've had is my laptop's fingerprint sensor.
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That was really nice but I think the lady was lucky that she met you. Can you imagine if she had met Linux Torvalds himself? He would have told her off for not knowing that the 2.6 kernel was many years old, the whole Linux world had moved on with strides beyond this old piece of software and reached 6.5 and there was no reason wasting everyone's time with this kind of question. Plus: "we never, ever break the user experience and hence the mouse should work without questions!"
Doesn't need Linus for that, the average Arch user should be enough
That doesn't sound like Torvalds at all. The guy doesn't suffer fools, but he doesn't just pop off at people randomly. All accounts are that he's a pretty chill dude.
That really does not sound like Linus to me. The guy can be quite blunt and will gladly reach for swear words in his e-mails. But he can just as well be accommodating. I imagine, he'd be delighted that an old lady is running his software.
What grocery store and where? I set up Linux Mint for my Mom. She's 67.
Don't really want to doxx myself, but in the Helsinki area
BRB, gotta make some phone calls, Mom's lost in Finland apparently.
More Finns should be using Linux, specially considering its Finnish origins.
Also, hello from the other side of Östersjön 👋
I mean, Linux is not American than Finnish at this point.
But yeah, it still was born in Finland :)
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I work in IT and my hate for baby boomers is real but after reading this I am less hateful. Thanks
Why do you lie like this?
asked if I knew anything about computers
lol you got profiled. nice that you could help her tho
I worked retail in electronics for quite a while and all the linux people I encountered were turbonerds for the most part. Thankfully I think that is changing. I imagine this lady had one of her family members set her up of course.
I've been thinking about switching to Mint in my linux experiments, setting up Arch was fun and all but I think I want a bit less fiddling.
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Reminds of Penthouse Forum stories.
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