(note: this ended up being long, but I promise it’s worth it to read)
Learning to use Linux is as easy (if not easier) than when you learned to use Windows, and you probably did that when you were younger, even less experienced with technology, and didn’t have the benefit of comprehensive online help resources.
To start, the main thing to know is that unlike Windows or MacOS, the Operating System “kernel” (the bit that actually handles the core tasks of an OS which allows software to run on your hardware which you don’t ever need to understand) does not have many of the usability features you associate with Windows or MacOS such as the Desktop Environment, default programs, apps store, etc.
Instead, Linux comes in different **“distributions” (“distros”)**which facilitate all these things. So it’s more accurate to think of a Linux distro as analogous to “Windows” or “MacOS” rather than just Linux.
The awesome thing about this is that while they’re all similar enough that almost anything you learn will be applicable to all of them, the variety of options means you can find one that works well for you. So when it comes time to try Linux, here’s what to do
Pick a Linux distro that is super non-tech user friendly. If you want to have it chosen for you, just “Linux Mint” (but also look into “Pop OS.” Both are very user friendly)
Search for “How to install <name-of-linux-distro>” on the Internet
Follow the most official guide you find
Done.
Then, once it’s installed, any time you want to learn how to do a thing on it that isn’t intuitive to you, try the following in order until you get useful results:
Search for "how to do <thing-to-do> on Linux"
Search for "how to do <thing-to-do> on <your-linux-distro>"
Make a post on a distro-specific subreddit, Lemmy community, discord server, etc asking how to do the thing
Realistically, #1 & #2 should solve all your problems unless you’re doing complicated stuff, but #3 will almost always solve the rest.
Also, welcome to the club! You won’t wanna go back, trust me :)
The reality is that those people just run Windows 10 (or even 7) until WELL after updates have stopped being pushed. There is a narrow window of people who care about updates who won’t upgrade (because EOL for Windows 10 is 2025), but they are very much the minority.
And of those who care about gaming? You are likely already running “ps4/x1” levels of hardware and we are going to be seeing the refresh SKUs late next year (probably). So it is even more likely that an upgrade will occur.
That said: Linux Mint is pretty much plug and play for most people. Hell, I reformatted my parents’ laptops to Linux Mint and they still think they are running Windows but I have fewer weekends of “Okay, time to do tech support until they start blaming their viruses on jewish space lizards” because they can’t break it. And with the ever bigger push for Steam Deck support, most games, once you enable proton (which is a checkbox), “just work”.
Liftoff freaking rules. I can view /m/all, true ALL, not related to my instance, and I can comment on any post by having a few lemmy accounts (sopuli.xyz main, lemm.ee covers most everything else, plus beehaw).
Liftoff is the only one I know of that plays nice with multiple accounts and the whole fediverse
For fucks sake everyone stop arguing about what you use. The whole point of an open standard is that you can use anything to use lemmy. If you want to sell your left ball and all your privacy you do you.
I am more amused at how everybody missed that one Snoo antenna Reddit user I drew on the right side crowd. Syncpissers wanted to downvote like ledditors and fight instead.
Eh. But what does it mean to be raised online? I think for that you need the availability of ever present internet connections in the form of mobile devices. I think the first kids raised online would have been born in 2003, and would have been 4, preschool age, in 2007 when the iPhone came out. Those kids are 16 now. If we want to set the standard for “raised online” as being “digital native” then I think we should dial back the range to when AIM was popular. Again, setting the standard for who could have been raised with that constant interconnectedness as being someone who was 4 at time of introduction would give us the first AIM connected people reaching age 30 right now.
The reality is, I think, in the middle. The first generation we could say was raised online is basically right in between those two ages, 23. The other standard we could try to set is, who is the first generation who doesn’t remember the internet as exciting, just instead a daily part of life
Yeah but...ordinary people were not dialing into BBS forums back then. We weren't "raised" online like kids now are, we were able to log off anytime and not ever need it to function in society. That started changing in the early 2000s. All my kid's school assignments are now done on a laptop on a district-owned cloud system. He hasn't needed a pencil and paper in...I forgot how long.
If you're around my age, congratulations on being the last generation to ever know what the world was like before widespread use of the Internet.
If you’re around my age, congratulations on being the last generation to ever know what the world was like before widespread use of the Internet.
This is why I always insist that the cutoff between millenial and Gen Z is 1995. There’s a pretty obvious generational split along this topic and 1995 seems to be the birth year of the divide
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