My favorite is when someone tells me that they are too old to learn about new technology, or that they can’t use a device because they aren’t very tech-y. No, you just refuse to learn.
My favorite is when someone tells me that they are too old to learn about new technology, or that they can’t use a device because they aren’t very tech-y. No, you just refuse to learn.
I think Linux has a peculiar learning curve. If someone else installs it for you and does basic tech support once in a while, and installs a beginner-friendly distro, and the users only use very basic stuff like word processors and browser-based social media, it’s really easy, even easier than Windows. For people who know just about enough to install new software and reinstall Windows, Linux can be fairly difficult since a lot of the system plumbing just works quite differently, and these users are also tempted to install more difficult-to-use-and-maintain distros. Then once you’re very tech-savvy, Linux becomes easier than Windows again because it mostly does what you want and doesn’t fight you like Windows, and it’s often a first class citizen when it comes to software development.
Yeah, it’s absolutely a weird curve like that
I’m kind of in the second batch where things get hard, I’ve managed to keep myself from diving headfirst into some crazy hard to maintain distro and biting off more than I can chew, but it’s really weird not knowing how things the way I did on windows.
Yeah, I’d really like to switch to Linux, but I’m the most tech savvy person in my circle and I know I’d fuck something up.
Edit: thanks all for the advice, I’ve got to at least wait until I finish my thesis and my husband and I have more than one computer between us
If you have a second device, like an old laptop or something, that you can put Linux on to use it for stuff, I’d suggest that.
The short story of my Linux conversion was I got a Raspberry Pi for my amateur radio hobby. Learning how to deal with Linux as a side thing that had no pressure of “I might need my computer for something” really helped take to it.
You will! But it’s pretty hard to actually do lasting damage. If your install breaks, just reinstall - can be annoying, but it’s also a great excuse to try another distro or desktop!
So I’ve been running Linux for a few months now. Making the switch was pretty intimidating at first but I have a couple thoughts now.
If you have important work documents, or big collections of music movies, pictures, etc. yeah, that’s a bit of a chore, but again if it’s anything that can’t be easily replaced you should make backups anyway.
Once you’ve done that, you’ve got nothing left to lose. You have your backups, and while it’s intimidating to hit install that first time, trust me, it is really hard to totally brick your computer to the point that you can’t just wipe everything and either try again or even reinstall windows if you really need to. You may need to spend a couple hours googling on your phone and borrow some time on a friend’s computer to create a new bootable flash drive or something but unless you really try to you’re not going to totally fuck up anything.
Like I said, my parents have been running off of a flash drive for about a week now, you can do that too, test things out in that safe little sandbox, you basically can’t break anything from that live USB.
If you know enough to get yourself in trouble, you know enough to get yourself back out of it again, and you’ll have learned something from the experience. I’m actually at the point now where I’m kind of excited to eventually really break something to give me an excuse to try out another distro as a daily driver. I’m not trying to break something, but if it happens, it’s an opportunity to try new stuff.
Maybe I’m weird, but setting up a new computer, figuring out the settings, and personalizing it the way I want may actually be one of my favorite things. When I do that I always seem to find a fun new thing that I didn’t know was there before.