When I was 12 my dad gave me two defect PCs and says: find out how to compare the working parts and you can have this one for you. Also a copy of win95.
If I look back this was enough to learn about every hard- and software related issue ever. Hell, even the mainboards back then doesn’t have any documentations about jumpers etc.
And win95 need a regularly reinstall. If I compare how many reinstalls I needed between win and Linux, windows wins.
I don’t even know which way the split would go. Many people i know studying computer science first year have a macbook, in what seems disproportionate. Maybe just general university student bias? also apple walled garden* lol *on the iPhone
I heard gen z mostly has iphone
They told us we should have a linux or a mac in first year comp sci and if we didn’t we should use the lab machines. Probably because they are both unix like operating systems.
Couldn’t just ssh in to the school machines when you weren’t in the lab?
That’s what I meant by “use the lab machines”. Basically you can do the work on your own devices if it is Mac or Linux but are expected to ssh or remote desktop into the lab machines if you have windows
First home family computer was a Packard Bell, windows 3.1…was forbidden from taking it apart or messing with the settings.
First computer that I was allowed to mess with was a thrift store Commodor 64…
That damn “warranty void if removed” sticker. I wasn’t allowed to tinker with the old family Win3.1 PC until 1999 because of that damn sticker, and only because we finally replaced the old dinosaur with a shiny new Windows 98 SE laptop.
Wait, if “Linux”=autistic, what does that make us GNU/Linux users?
Keep in mind that autism is a spectrum
Linux -> GNU/Linux -> GNU/Hurd?
-> booting emacs as an OS
-> UEFI IRC client written in Rust
As an Old, I started with an Apple ][ and learned BASIC. We did get the classic B&W Macintosh computers when I was 12-13.
I started on a Pr1me 550 type II learning BASIC myself. Apple ][s came out about 4 years later. Then I used them. Windows SA now.
My youth was at least partly misspent hacking z80 assembler on an Amstrad CPC664. Not as many regrets as one might assume. I miss when (8-bit) assembler was simple enough to hand-code without playing “surf the reference manual”.
Yep, this study would have to divide things up by age. As a fellow member of the Oregon Trail generation, all my early computers were also Apple ][ and b&w macs. But then eventually by young adulthood it all turned into PCs.
I enjoyed a stint with Solaris in college (that’s SUN Solaris thankyouverymuch) which I consider my true intro to Linux/posix/whatever-ix.
I learned basic on an old trash 80 from radio shack in the late 70’s. I really miss mucking around with it.
Edit: Now I use Linux.
Personally, I guess that you learn more the more issues you have. MacOS is a more closed down ecosystem compared to Windows, malware is less popular and as hardware comes usually bundled with the OS, you shouldn’t encounter as many driver or hardware issues in general.
As a kid I had so much trouble with incompatible software, viruses, adware, drivers, broken hardware etc. And as I had noone to ask, it tought me a lot about the fundamentals of IT and how to research such issues myself.
Counterpoint, I grew up at a time when Mac’s still couldn’t do much outside of what apple specifically developed for them, so I learned a ton about emulation and virtual machines and such to play games or use Photoshop. I guess that supports your hypothesis, I can rock Unix command line stuff and containers like a pro, but hate figuring out drivers
Yes, I completely see that. This is not a black or white question. You can use Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS… and learn close to nothing or you can geek around hour after hour to expand the boundaries of your device.
I would just assume, that you learn less if everything you want to do, works out of the box. And ‘working out of the box’ a typical selling point of the Apple ecosystem. Which of course doesn’t mean that you can’t have a steep learning curve. Your use cases obviously weren’t delivered out of the box, so you had to get creative as well.
I had a jailbroken iPod Touch with a shell on it and spend hours and days overcoming system boundaries just out of spite. I also remember vividly trying to bring mobile games to a Symbian phone, tweaking around with a HP iPAQ on Windows Mobile, manually typing Midi ringtones with a text editor on a Nokia. :D
And then there’s 90s Linux because your parents got a used computer with a friend that came with only that and they didn’t want to spend money buying windows 😢 it’s like learning to swim by being yeeted into the ocean, with a couple sharks hanging around.
At least 80s kids got assembly.
Linux had always been good - put together a new computer, move the OS from the old one, put Linux on the old one…
Find Linux is so much fun, dual boot the new machine on Linux, only keep windows for games
My audio collection from then is all .ogg files
Debian didn’t have a stable release until 1996… Even Slackware didn’t shape up nicely until around 98 from what I remember. SLS gave it a GUI but wasn’t well maintained. Linux wasn’t really “good” until early 2000s at the very least.
I just wanted to play Space Cadet Pinball or Commander Keen as a kid, not compile my programs.
You’re clearly talking about modern Linux.
I don’t think I had budget to buy my own computers until '99, and that’s when I first played with Linux
I started with System 7 on the Mac and because of that I had to quickly learn ResEdit and hex editing. Ironically this made me better later in life with windows and Linux, that shit is a breeze in comparison.
Also HyperCard fucking slapped
I used ResEdit to fix an issue with my school’s email system.
Someone used a Hypercard stack I made to “break” a computer, It got me banned from the school computers. Same school even.
Oh my god I forgot about hypercard…wowww. Memories.
The AOL amateur HyperCard game scene was like Newgrounds before flash. I wish the world was still that simple sometimes. Or, at least, that fun.
careful, you mentioned linux on 196, that’s a hangin’ offense
My commodore 64 laughs at the false dichotomy.
Yes, where we were
READYto solve problems like “is that game ported to my system” and “is it any good?”FWIW, we were also dropped immediately into a BASIC interpreter, day one. PC’s may have been priming IT professionals, but were C64 users primed to be programmers?
When I was 13 I installed Linux in Virtualbox on a Mac because for some reason thought dual booting would be harder, we did not have any non-apple devices in the house, I do not recommend, the performance was terrible (I probably had something set up wrong because it was really way worse than you would expect)
I have ended up on Windows with a Linux laptop for traveling, but will probably switch to Linux as soon as either:
- I get a new VR headset
- Monado gets decent controller tracking support
- It’s 2026 and Windows with WMR support has stopped getting security updates
Then I will have crossed the whole mac->windows->linux pipeline.
I feel attacked !
Or seen. same difference.
Imagine paying for a blue tick on Xitter.
could’ve been before elongated muskrat bought it
It’s not unfortunately, there’s a date of 09/12/2024 under the original tweet
oh… oh… oh…
I’m should bring that Ubuntu CD I had shipped to me as a kid to a therapist.
I had one i lost it. i also had a CD of solaris before oracle bought them out a long time ago.
I still have my SuSE 8.2 9.0 and 9.1 discs, and the official books I bought in a book store to get 9.1. I also have my Solaris discs. They are somehow part of the few things I haven’t lost in all of my moving.
my parents kept them then threw them out when i left home.
Literally the first definition says it’s an out of use synonym for exclusion
That it is, my bad.
Thank for noting.
Although I some how think she wasn’t exactly using it in the archaic sense on purpose, but I wouldn’t put money on it.
Maybe I am autistic after all.
