351–360 of 390 posts
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Name one thing lacking in the utilities included with MacOS (which come from BSD).
The overwhelming majority of UNIX-like software isn't designed for BSD runtimes, to name one.
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Did the same for my freshman year of Uni on a $99 Chromebook. Java and C dev on 4GB of ram wasn't an issue. That said, I quickly upgraded to a 4 year used Thinkpad and that was a huge difference.
C dev wasn't an issue back in the 1 GB or 256 MB or 16 MB days either. You just didn't use to have a Chrome tab open that by itself is eating 345 MB just to show a simple tutorial page.
What's so special about this machine? Is there no comparable $599 Windows or Linux laptop for kids to buy?
There are absolutely $599 laptops available from companies that aren't Apple but they've all made major compromises to get to that price in ways that people will notice. The cooling will be terrible so that every 30 seconds the fans kick in at full speed, thermal throttling takes hold, and then it decides all is fine 30 seconds after that so you're working on a machine that's constantly cycling fan noise. The trackpa…
Not entirely sure about that. With the coupons/ deals HP does, I landed a brand new HP 17" (17t-cn500) laptop with a intel core ultra 5 225u, 16gb ram and the 1920x1080 fhd screen upgrade for $588 tax included. Obviously not the same form factor as the Neo, but this is also a laptop for my kitchen that will spend most of its life streaming media and displaying recipes. I'm sure you can find something closer to the size of the neo with better specs for a similar price.
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I think you're making it sound like they're forced to build Linux from scratch while walking knee deep in the snow, uphill both ways. That's way too detached from reality and certainly it's not a "tragedy". Kids are not doing specialized things that only have future value, they tinker with everything. Usually on what's available, yes. >and MacOS has more quality software than any other platform This is simply untrue,…
Windows have also always required a lot of tinkering and trouble shooting to make things work in a pleasant way. But for Linux, the creative software simply isn't there in many cases for a kid to start learning. Unless it's programming, which is not everybody's talent. A kid tinkering with any kind of creative software learns and absorbs important skills which they can build on later if they want to. These things are…
I genuinely mean no offence, but you sound as an old serious man when talking about useful skills. Kids and teens are not doing this for their careers, they're doing this for fun.
Wut? Chromebooks can run full-blown graphical Linux apps via a VM, including Blender - Linux apps get a regular icon on the Chromebooks launcher.
This sheds light for me on why some people are lauding a $599 computer as accessible, I guess they do not know what you can run Blender, VS Code or entire dev stacks on a Chromebook with an 10-hour battery life that costs $299 new, or $50-80 used.
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Windows have also always required a lot of tinkering and trouble shooting to make things work in a pleasant way. But for Linux, the creative software simply isn't there in many cases for a kid to start learning. Unless it's programming, which is not everybody's talent. A kid tinkering with any kind of creative software learns and absorbs important skills which they can build on later if they want to. These things are…
Perhaps I wasn't clear, I'm not saying kids rush to install Linux to run creative software, they're perfectly fine with Windows. I'm saying that nowadays Linux is another cool thing to try, as a father of one of those tinkerers. There's no way in hell he wants a Mac because it's so limited. Same thing about my niece, she's into electronic music since 14, and the only way she got into music making was pirating a ton o…
Garage Band is free with a Mac...
And Logic Pro is a cheap subscription or very fair price when somebody like her is ready to take the next step. Maybe they even have a nice uncle who'd like to pay for it?
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Autism is a quite strong diagnosis at the end of a spectrum. Not every tech-loving introvert is autistic. That's the kind of arrogant attitude that marginalizes nerds and on a forum like HN people really ought to know better. As somebody who identified a lot with what's in that article I can say that I haven't just made peace with having been "different" but I love it and wouldn't want it any different comparing my l…
Would you give it a rest? It's being used here as a colloquial term that's distinct from an actual medical diagnosis.
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Windows would do just fine. But the state of cheap Windows laptops is abysmal, and Windows as a product is in the doghouse lately because... well, I honestly don't know why Microsoft is doing what they're doing, but from the outside they certainly do appear to want to ruin Windows.
Has windows actually been screwed up or do people just not like changes in their operating system?
The only thing in Win11 user experience wise that absolutely drives me up a wall is the new right click menu forcing me to hold shift to get the usable menu instead of the "Win 11 is smart and this new menu UI is easier to use" menu.
Other than that, it feels like win 10 (and 7 for the most part) for anything else that matters (for a normal user).
All of that being said, yes, the experience of a naive consumer buying a windows laptop is awful, but not due to the OS itself, rather the amount of bloated useless shit vendors ship with the installed OS.