Did the same thing. Got them using FOSS apps on Windows (Firefox, LibreOffice, Thunderbird), then switched them and made Linux look like Windows. They never cared, kept on using it like nothing changed.
this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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“What was Windows even doing for us?”
Beautiful 🥲
This sounds about right. My parents only use their browsers. They literally do not use any applications outside of the browser. They would be just fine on Linux but change is scary and everything just works.
They’re in their 60s*
But lovely story ❤️
whatismypurpose
yourunfirefox
I’m having a very hard time accepting that your 60 year old parents, after seeing Linux, said something along the lines of “What was windows doing for us?”
I teach adults 40-80 on how to use Windows products. I’ve taught over 5,000 people this year so far. The vast majority didn’t even understand the concept of browser tabs or copy/paste. These are people well into their professions in corporate office jobs. They don’t even know what an operating system is.
I think you're overfitting to the average here with your expectations. Especially basing that on the experience level of people who would sign up for help learning how to use Windows products. And even then, the ones learning about copy/paste for the first time will likely make more noise about it then those waiting to see if you'll teach them something new or any that ended up in your training because their work made them or something.
While the majority might lack familiarity, the 40 - 80 age range includes tons of people that have been working with computers (windows or otherwise) since before Windows was even a thing, including many who worked on Windows and/or developed applications for it. Experience will range from not knowing what windows is, knowing it's the OS but not knowing what an OS is, to understanding what goes on in the kernel at a high level of detail.
There's a lot of people on Windows just because of inertia and Linux can handle a lot of the use cases. It makes perfect sense to me that someone, once they've seen that things aren't so scary and different on the other side of the fence, would wonder out loud about why they thought their inertia was so strong.
Your skepticism is more baffling to me than that.
Today's 40 year olds graduated in the high school class of 2002...there are people from that era that can't copy/paste? For real?
I do not use Google products or use FB or most social media and family looks at me as if I am from Mars. Some do not even know what Linux even is. If I installed it on their machine and didn't tell them what it was, they would just think it is "another" Windows.
Once a non-tech guy asked how I find stuff if I did not use Google Search. Another thought that I used Terminal, not because I need it but because I wanted to look Retro.
To plenty computers or tech in general are not their thing.
I expect someone in their 40s to not know copy and paste. The more savvy that I have worked with/taught knew they could right click and then click “copy” from the drop down list. Ctrl+c blew some peoples minds when I showed it.
People who are good with tech VASTLY overestimate the general public’s tech literacy. But don’t take my word for it, take this study’s word: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/
People who are good with tech VASTLY overestimate the general public’s tech literacy.
As a Gen X member who is 50 yrs old, a grandparent of two Grand kids, I never touched a computer until I was 12 years old (1986), this, I think gave me a head start into the computer world with an old Radio Shack Color Computer II (hooked up to my TV) with a Tape Drive to load programs with. With some of the older Gen X group starting to reach retirement age, I think we will probably have a larger portion of the population more adapted to computer than the Boomers before us. That's not to say that during the 80's and 90's everyone was into computers though. The important thing was that schools had Timex Sinclair computers and mostly Apple II computers which were the workhorses even into my high school years in the early 90's, so exposure to computer basics such as copy/paste and Word processing were certainly well know then!
I say all of this to mention that while right now, some of the older generation generally knows how to copy/paste, isn't scared of breaking the computer and pretty much get a long fine with them. I'm more skilled than my peers in a lot of areas but that's because I've used them non stop for so long and the others used them only in school but never saw the value until around Windows 98 or Windows 2000.
I believe there will be a shift of more computer literacy as the Millennials and Gen Z's reach my age and older. The writers then may say that compared to the previous generation (ours), that they are miles ahead in their skills and literacy. Even my Grand kids are growing up with exposure to tablets and phones (VERY SPARINGLY), but also live out in the rural country so are getting great life exposure to great outdoors. :) (Ages 2 and 6). One can only dare to imagine what technology we may have 40-50 years from now when they reach my age range.
Yeah but...I mean...wow. I graduated HS class of 2003 and I can't remember anyone handing in a hand-written paper in any of the 4 years.
How do people be around this stuff for half their life and not know basic things like Ctrl+C Ctrl+V.
I've met people who don't know what a URL is.
The kind of people that google "facebook" when they want to visit facebook.
Completely flabbergasted that we run internal services not indexable by google.
Completely flabbergasted that we run internal services not indexable by google.
This is why it's becoming the norm to have an Intranet with a links page to all of the internal and external webpages employees rely upon. Just make that the browser homepage with Kerberos authentication and the employees never need to know URLs or Google the internal/external service they're trying to access
Windows is just the micro kernel running the actual operating system: Firefox.
Or more likely, Chrome browser these days......
I posted this xkcd a couple of weeks ago, it's always relevant!
You can probably add an iPad and an Android tablet there too.
When I was at Qualcomm we had an experimental, internally developed mobile OS that embraced the ubiquity of the browser and the power of apps written for the browser. The code name was b2f, which stood for "boot to Firefox"
This isn’t related to boot to gecko, right?
Boot To Gecko is KaiOS, right?
Now yes, but it was briefly the basis for Firefox OS, which was almost early enough to the market to become a major player, but unfortunately too late and people were already attached to some apps they used regularly
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I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Windows, is in fact, Firefox/Windows, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Firefox plus Windows. Windows is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functioning Firefox system made useful by the Firefox browser, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS.
Many computer users run a modified version of the Firefox system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of Firefox which is widely used today is often called Windows, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the Firefox system, developed by Mozilla.
There really is a Windows, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Windows is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Windows is normally used in combination with the Firefox operating system: the whole system is basically Firefox with Windows added, or Firefox/Windows. All the so-called Windows distributions are really distributions of Firefox/Windows!
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linux has 2 really good target audiences people using it as a near chrome book like experience, and ultra advanced users who want fine control of the system.
its everyone else in the middle that needs to play how much do i have to tweak in order to do what I want.
Wha-
People in the middle! Crushed yet again, oof!
Moving from Windows as an intermediate user was the worst. I hated Linux for like a year. I knew just enough quirks about Windows to get 95% of what I wanted, 95% of the time, and on Linux I had to start from scratch.
Now of course I love I made the switch, as my Linux proficiency let me customize the heck out of everything, but damn, that first year...
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As a retired software dev, for me Windows is simply a longtime habit enforced by past work environments. I did use Linux for over a year on my main PC but went back to Windows so I could keep using my old copy of Visual Studio. My deeply conditioned shortcut keystrokes didn't work in VSCode - in fact, why did they change so much of the UI? But now that I'm used to VSCode, which I only use for hobby coding anyway, there's no excuse and I intend to go back to Linux by year end.
VS Code is an electron app, mostly likely coded by some flavour of Javascript developers, so I doubt it was ever planned to go in the same direction as Visual Studio. VS Code follows a design very close to what Sublime made popular.
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