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The day Windows died

thomasbandt.com

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Re: The day Windows died

#451

Post by oblio »

TylerE wrote: post #411
einr wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or keep trying to fix the environment + hardware compatibility issues and not work on the actual study. Or keep editing some random xorg.conf file because his monitor's display suddenly became weird. Or try to fix some other random files since the sound driver doesn't work. He's 10. I was doing this stuff in Linux when I was… well, not 10, but 12. Today I work with computers. What do you think ”tinkering” means? I do…

In a lot of ways it was way easier back then as you didn't have the fragmentation. You ran X11/Xorg (no Wayland), sysv init (no systemd), OSS or ALSA, not pulseaudio, you had sane/not insanely bloated desktops like KDE2 or XFCE. Even unicode wasn't something most really had to care much about...world was still mostly ascii.

> sysv init (no systemd)

Rose tinted glasses. Each distro had its own scripts and layout.

SysV sucked.

Re: The day Windows died

#452

Post by StrangeATractor »

piyush_soni wrote: post #380
safety1st wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post is basically about the author's nostalgia for his early days of computing with Windows 95 and how he wanted his son to have the same experience. This post is screaming out for Linux. Linux is the solution to his dilemma. If he reformats that drive and puts say Kubuntu on it - the kid's first PC experience is going to be a vaguely retro 90's style shell with a start menu, the start menu is going to have a Ga…

> And of course it's Linux, so there's infinite opportunity to get under the hood and tinker. - Or keep trying to fix the environment + hardware compatibility issues and not do the actual work/study. Or keep editing some random xorg.conf file because his monitor's display suddenly became weird. Or try to fix some other random files since the sound driver doesn't work. He's 10. I'm 40 and still horrified to deal with…

It's 2023, do people still have driver issues on Linux? Last I had to worry about that was when Ubuntu was (Admittedly, I've done well by staying away from nvidia)

Re: The day Windows died

#453

Post by hulitu »

baq wrote: post #408
kyrra wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WSL2 should help some? It's not perfect, but can get you a lot of the way there.

WSL2 is the best Linux you can get anywhere. Perfect hardware support.

Never heard about it. Does it run on bare metal ? /s

Re: The day Windows died

#454

Post by einr »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #440
einr wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But the article here is specifically about someone who wants their child to learn about computers by tinkering and trial and error.

Uh, the article isn't about that at all. It's about how cluttered, user-hostile, and specifically kid-unfriendly Windows has become in the latest iteration. Linux isn't the answer because it replaces those "features" with different kinds of user-hostility (everything is geared towards people who are on the road to becoming software developers, or are close friends with someone who is).

"Uh," maybe we can both be right. Allow me to quote directly:

"I want him to be able to dig deeper. To explore. To try things out, misconfigure, crash, fix, and re-install. To get a feeling for how things work below the surface and how they do not work. To learn how to type fast and efficiently. To create things. Maybe, one day, even to learn how to code if he's interested."

Re: The day Windows died

#455

Post by michelledepeil »

pmontra wrote: post #435
piyush_soni wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And of course it's Linux, so there's infinite opportunity to get under the hood and tinker. - Or keep trying to fix the environment + hardware compatibility issues and not do the actual work/study. Or keep editing some random xorg.conf file because his monitor's display suddenly became weird. Or try to fix some other random files since the sound driver doesn't work. He's 10. I'm 40 and still horrified to deal with…

It either works or it doesn't. Workarounds are usually permanent. Example: I booted a friend's Thinkpad t440p with an Ubuntu 22.04 pen drive to check that she was OK with it and that there were no issues. All went well (screen, touchpad, USB, printer, scanner) except resume from sleep: the pointer froze. An internet search returned the workaround from many years ago sudo modprobe -r psmouse sudo modprobe psmouse It w…

Ha! I've actually been facing this same problem on a t440s.

thanks for posting the fix!

Re: The day Windows died

#456

Post by einr »

pjmlp wrote: post #436
einr wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or keep trying to fix the environment + hardware compatibility issues and not work on the actual study. Or keep editing some random xorg.conf file because his monitor's display suddenly became weird. Or try to fix some other random files since the sound driver doesn't work. He's 10. I was doing this stuff in Linux when I was… well, not 10, but 12. Today I work with computers. What do you think ”tinkering” means? I do…

Not everyone wants to tinker when it isn't part of the job description.

You are talking as an adult with a job, not a 10-year old who likes computers.

Re: The day Windows died

#457

Post by dagw »

StrangeATractor wrote: post #452
piyush_soni wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And of course it's Linux, so there's infinite opportunity to get under the hood and tinker. - Or keep trying to fix the environment + hardware compatibility issues and not do the actual work/study. Or keep editing some random xorg.conf file because his monitor's display suddenly became weird. Or try to fix some other random files since the sound driver doesn't work. He's 10. I'm 40 and still horrified to deal with…

It's 2023, do people still have driver issues on Linux? Last I had to worry about that was when Ubuntu was (Admittedly, I've done well by staying away from nvidia)

2022 I spent several days trying to get Ubuntu to run stably without tearing on an AMD Ryzen APU.

Re: The day Windows died

#458

Post by GeekyBear »

foobarbecue wrote: post #355
apatheticonion wrote: post #332

It's really sad that there is no where for us to go in the desktop OS space right now. I, weirdly, daily drive all 3 OSes. MacOS; Work issued laptop and longish-time user (about 6 years with it). Windows; Desktop PC mostly for games. I've been using Windows since I could walk. Fedora; Desktop PC, dual booted which I use for most everything else. I cannot believe how much of a dumpster fire Windows has become. From th…

I'm fairly happy with my situation: Windows 10 work machine, I do almost everything in WSL. WSL is pretty impressive these days, with native graphical support and decent filesystem and device interoperability. Windows has come a long way; it has a decent terminal now and utilities like ssh and curl have been added to stock cmd.exe . I've been able to turn off all the awful ad stuff. Never crashes, and I can do vertic…

> I do almost everything in WSL.

You can run Linux in a virtual machine on any OS.

Re: The day Windows died

#459

Post by pjmlp »

einr wrote: post #456
pjmlp wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone wants to tinker when it isn't part of the job description.

You are talking as an adult with a job, not a 10-year old who likes computers.

When I was 10 years old, tinkering required going to the library, and if you couldn't find any Spectrum book there, the only tinkering left was LOAD "" or trying to understand what Timex 2068 manual was all about.

I also hardly tinkered until I got into programming classes later on the high school, and then it wasn't tinkering, my time spent with Timex, Amiga and MS-DOS was about coding, demoscene and games, not fixing the OS.

Re: The day Windows died

#460

Post by pantalaimon »

akvadrako wrote: post #412
natnatenathan wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just installed Fedora on my personal computer (X1 Carbon, 6th gen) and it is everything I've ever wanted. There was no configurations I needed to fiddle with. The semi-annual update is amazingly smooth. It also makes my old laptop feel like a hotrod again. I'm happy to have a computer without an AI chip. I use a Mac for work, and it is good, but I sense the subscription mania creeping in there as well. I couldn't m…

You got a bit lucky though. If you had installed Fedora on a 7th gen you wouldn't have had a working mic until about a year after release unless you patched your kernel.

That’s always the case with new hardware. If you want everything to work out of the box, buy a 2nd hand system. That’s cheaper anyways.
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