I'm currently training a new employee who comes from the "My school handed out Chromebooks" generation, and hol...eee...shit... Its frustrating as hell.
Literally every single instruction gets followed up with "no...double click"
FML
I am that generation, but I was blessed enough (not dirt poor) to have a family Windows PC at home, and my mom got me a HP laptop later because she knew I was gonna be going to a tech school program in my Junior year, and knew that Chromebooks were dogshit.
My tech teacher would constantly complain about the kids who had like zero Windows knowledge, and couldn't do shit like open a PDF in word, or simply find the terminal. I knew this shit would happen when I was in school, I literally told my mom that anyone who can't afford a windows device at home is fucked in the work environment. Compounded by the fact most teens are iPhone purists and make fun of Android, they're just too used to "shit just works"
open a PDF in word
Hmm.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/opening-pdfs-in-word-1d1d2acc-afa0-46ef-891d-b76bcd83d9c8
Word can open PDFs in word for editing them.
It's honestly more intuitive than opening then with the internet browser (edge).
Yeah, I'm having a lot of trouble working with younger hires, and I'm not even 30. If I had to summarize, they're able to do things like memorize button combos, but there's just no comprehension about the how the buttons were only pressed to achieve larger goals.
My favorite part is that my older coworkers are still convinced that Gen Z is super computer savvy.
I can sympathize from both directions. Teaching my iPad generation nephew to use a Windows PC is a challenge.
At the same time I look like a total incompetent when trying to do anything using the GUI on a Mac. My muscle memory is just plain wrong after 20+ years of Windows and assorted Linux variants I keep clicking in completely the wrong places
Tbf installing linux is not that hard
Back in the day when installing Solaris and OpenBSD and such you had to specify in numerical values the number of sectors of hard disk space you wanted to format drives with. Shit is considerably easier now with modern UNIXy systems.
Back in what day? My first Linux was in the early 2000s, and even back then it wasn't any more complicated than a Windows install.
When I installed Linux for the first time around that time frame, I had to write X configs (for XFree86, not X.org) by hand. And be sure to get your monitor timings exactly right or risk permanent damage, said the scary warning.
I've met people that struggle with the concept of shutting a computer down.
You are 100% overestimating the average non-techy
Me reinstalling windows for the 3rd time this year cause of some bsod:
Me installing advanced user linux for the first time after previous process did not fix monster hunter from crashing:
If I had known linux runs games better I would have switched years ago.
Linux users are inherently more tech savvy because there are no limits. On the contrary, there is documentation and free knowledge aplenty. Windows and especially Mac hide and obfuscate everything happening under the hood and you are vaguely warned away from doing anything not specifically blessed by the corporation. That's why those users are less tech savvy on average.
Don't jerk yourself off too hard for using linux
Yeah, leave some spunk for the rest of us!
Just the fact that someone is using Linux at all means they are probably tech savvy, simply for the fact they had to install it in their own. If all prebuilds came with Linux, it would likely be the other way around. (Although why someone would, out of free will, go and install Windows is beyond me)
I grew up with mac, but I was always so frustrated that I couldn't play the games and run the programs my friends could on their computers. I finally bought my own PC in high school, and was so happy to have the control I always wanted. I haven't switched to Linux yet, but at this point it's inevitable; I'm just dragging my feet on figuring it out.
Download VirtualBox, its free and open source. Download a few Linux isos, actual Linux isos, and fire them up in a VM to see what sticks out to you. People usually recommend Mint As a bridge from Windows, personally I'm liking PopOS a lot more than I thought I would. Both are based on Ubuntu which is ubiquitous. I hear a lot about immutable distros, but I haven't ventured there yet. Point is you can figure it out for free and completely without hassle.
My father made me figure out how to compile Linux drivers for a modem card before I could have internet.
I started on a Mac and now I'm an IT expert.
But that's because my next computer was a Dell.
My condolences, on both counts.
Year of birth matters a lot for this experiment.
Macintosh versus some IBM (or clone) running MS DOS is a completely different era than Windows Vista versus PowerPC Macs, which was a completely different era from Windows Store versus Mac App Store versus something like a Chromebook or iPad as a primary computing device.
Run a second correlation on the incomes of these families and the tech literacy of their children and see what you find. I have a hypothesis.
Looking at the comments, it occurs to me that we're not a representative section of the online community.
Were literally people who went out of their way to not use a conventional/commercial tech product.
I wonder what the % of people on here is who have built a pc, used a raspberry pi or installed Linux compared to the outside world.
I used MacOS for a bit, switched to Windows, then when I was 15 I installed Linux :3
Granted I do very much have autism
Discluded? Are you sure you don't mean excounted?
If you've had to mess around with EMM386 and HIMEM settings to play Wing Commander 2, you win.
I started on a Mac, and now I live as a nomadic caveman, never contacting the civilized world.
Lemmy Linux bros make me avoid Linux at all costs
I've been using pop OS for 5 years and barely understand anything at all, we're not all super nerds. I got it to save a bit of upfront money on a new build with the plan to buy windows when I needed it, never needed it.
I enjoyed a lemmy moment in the thread about things the Canadian government needs to do to not be as dependent on the US and the first bullet point in a comment was switch to Linux
Yeah I use Linux but I also hate people who shame people who use windows because it does what they need.
I doubt there would be much difference. I was started on an old brick-style Mac before switching to PC and am now the most technical person in almost any group I enter. It's not as if Mac devices are entirely void of programmers and other technical users.
Yeah, Apple computers are disproportionately common at tech conferences and meetups.
I'm curious what her hypothesis is, I don't think there is a correlation at all personally, seen a ton of people who know nothing about their computers regardless of Mac/Windows as their primary os.
My family’s first computer was a 68k Mac, specifically a Quadra 605. I tried (and failed) to teach myself C++ using that system at the tender age of 9, but eventually moved over to Windows PCs. Had a Linux-based web server running on spare parts as a teen, though, and did succeed at teaching myself PHP and later Python well enough to hack together my very own blog software. Not very good blog software, mind you, but the critical thing was that it worked! Even spent a few years as and SMB sysadmin even though my degree is in [building] architecture.
Since then I’ve drifted away from the very deep end of tech world, but I would never say that first Macintosh stunted my skill.
(100% autistic tho, so ymmv)
I learned because I was torrenting and broke the family windows computer. It was either fix it or get grounded.
Should've written "Mac PCs" just to mess with people.
I switched to Linux after my experience with Windows Millennium Edition. Many people have since referred to me as some sort of programming genius and hacker.....I don't know crap about any of that. I've simply followed instructions and referred to the help communities, whenever I've had trouble. Using the mainstream distributions (I'm guessing) has kept me from having much trouble.
I think my kids may benefit, as my wife only uses Mac, I have 2 Ubuntus and a Mint, and the kids use Chromebooks at school. We have 2 iPad and a Galaxy tab in the house. 1 kid has an Android phone and the other an iPhone. My wife and I both have flagship Android phones.
Sometimes it's fun to watch them debate over which systems they prefer, depending on the school projects they work on.
Mixed messages here: "I’ve simply followed instructions and referred to the help communities, whenever I’ve had trouble." Fellow human, those are the actions of a programming genius and hacker. The bar is remarkably low. A lot of people can't even read what it says on the screen.
Dislike the idea that only autistic people use linux.
I suddenly vividly remember putting my mom’s Chromebook into developer mode and installing crouton on it so I could play Minecraft.
People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
