“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 ....
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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.
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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
What your brother sees in Arch: Oh no another driver update, let me write a paragraph in computer language
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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.
I mean, there are definitely wrong ways to run Linux, like a single root user with no password, but your point is well taken. If Linux fanboys would keep the subjective gatekeeping to themselves the new user experience would be much more pleasant.
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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.
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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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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.
one of us! one of us!
He's learning
The children yearn for the distro wars
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Is this a made-up story? Be honest
Yes, it's just for OP to say "I use Arch".
The kid's name? Little Bobby Tables.
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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.
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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I use NerdOS BTW.
(That's fantastic, I absolutely love it.)
Tech literacy amongst the youth is rapidly going down. Good on you.
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
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maybe unpopular opinion here but while it was user error, Linus breaking the OS by installing steam is something that should have never been possible, anyways glad to hear your brother is learning Linux!
the os should do as i say, that includes breaking it if i please. the problem are people writing into the terminal "i understand that i uninstall half my os with this command but want to do it anyway" and then wonder why half their os gets uninstalled.
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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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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
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.
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I don't think I want to meet a 12 year old who uses power point. Jk lol
They all use it if they want to pass school, so you are out of luck.
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IDK about plasma, but in GNOME, if you search for PowerPoint, it shows LibreOffice Impress as a result.
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Good work son
Such a wholesome story 😊
So happy to hear that he is enjoying Linux and you guys are doing things together.
You taught your brother well! I'm glad he is having a positive experience with it.
😍😍😍
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 :)
This is the kind of things I like to hear!
My grandfather uses Ubuntu (bad distro bruh) and he loves it
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