Comment by microtonal
2 days ago
My kids loved the power, freedom and later unexpected community this bought them.
I think it is also important to realize/point out that we do a lot of projecting and our child may have very different interests. Not saying that applies to you evolve2k, just wanted to make the general point.
I set up a Linux machine with our daughter and while it was initially ok, she did not have much interest in the power/freedom and it only became a nuisance for her. Her school/friends use PowerPoint - there is a lot of friction trying work with them in LibreOffice. She wanted to do DTP-like things several times and the Linux options are not exactly... user-friendly. Etc.
In the end we got her a Mac Mini. She can still open a terminal, use Homebrew, etc. if she ever develops an interest. Heck, she can use most free software. However, she can also do the stuff she is currently interested in much more easily. E.g., she uses Swift Publisher, which is a very simple/user-friendly DTP program, can collaborate on PowerPoint presentations when needed, etc.
First and foremost listen to what your child is interested in.
> she did not have much interest in the power/freedom
The reason I started with Linux with my kids is so they were aware that that power and freedom exists. Kids that grow up in a mobile ecosystem (and increasingly both the Microsoft and Apple ecosystems) are fundamentally disempowered, just as the adults that use that ecosystem are. The goal of having my kids use Linux was to make them understand that they did have agency.
Fifteen years on, I have to say it was an excellent decision. They're light years ahead of their peers in terms of their ability to use computers.
When forced to use Linux at an early age, I was given the agency to be made fun of and miss out on social things, i.e. discussing currently relevant games. It got me the jobs and knowledge eventually too, but I really did not learn much from blindly running ./configure and make and make install. I shudder to think exactly how my wine installation worked. There are significant downsides to using Linux and the freedom it brings needs lots of context to appreciate. If you don’t provide the context, Linux is not empowering- it is just a windows that works less.
> discussing currently relevant games
We shun most of this as faddish and low quality. Fortnite and Battlefield are replaced with OpenMW and Veloran.
If you're doing things blindly in Linux, there's no point. The value is in understanding and leveraging that understanding to achieve your goals.
In many ways, this isn't about Linux at all. It's about parenting.
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> If you don’t provide the context, Linux is not empowering- it is just a windows that works less
Couldn't agree more - Linux can be a great way to get into computing. But only if done in the right way. Arguably for an older kid / teenager (boys usually) it's important to have access to the same games your friends are playing, otherwise you start to become naturally excluded from lunch table talk.
Of course it still depends if the kid is a social butterfly etc., but parents should understand this.
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> Linux is not empowering- it is just a windows that works less.
As a child, I couldn't stand Windows. Nothing works, you just want to do that, but there is always some stupid error message, that tells you nothing. And it never does what you tell it to do, it always does some random mess, that you do not yet know what it even is, or how to fix it.
As a child you need to see causality and have a predictive system, so that you can form a mental model and understand things, or even have the ability to form a question to ask the adults. You do not need a system, that is it's own child and is always mulish yet things it is the smartest thing in the world.
the same happens with children not getting mobile phones, or not wearing the same brand expensive clothes that others can afford.
sorry, but what you experienced is comparable to peer pressure, and as a parent, giving in to that is the wrong approach. you will not agree because you suffered as a result and i am sorry you had to go through that. my oldest is just getting into the age where these things start to matter, but regardless, my kids won't get phones and or anything besides linux for their own sake.
fortunately times are changing and working in our favor. windows 11 is practically unusable already, inpart because it refuses to run on anything but the most recent computers, and in part because it requires an online account, not to mention all the advertising that i refuse to subject my kids to. windows games run on linux better than ever thanks to steam, and my kids school uses linux too for the most part. so admittedly, this will be easier for my kids than it was for you.
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As someone actually a teen. It is very interesting to share how I started my linux journey
I had only got a computer in 6th grade but I was always fascinated by computers in the sense that I was trying to run blindly termux scripts from youtube etc. to run windows programs or linux etc. and I had even successfully done these things earlier
But after 6th grade getting a pc, I was trying to learn some python in covid and uh, lets just say that vscode wasn't happy with a 500 mb ram win 7 pc
I even installed droidcam/womic etc. and it was a real treat on using your phone as a camera for sometime during online classes
Then uh my cousins and brothers bought me a new pc (technically my mum gave the money, so shoutout to you mom, i love you) and I am still rocking that pc
That pc has a very nice specs and they are so good except for one thing which is the gpu. it has just gotten an integrated intel 580 graphics card and barely any high power or mid power games can work on it
So I was having some games like valorant,portal etc. but mostly it became minecraft and I wasn't enjoying the other games
I was watching a lot of privacy content on youtube at the same time and how invasive microsoft is and how linux is just better in that sense.
Now I used to play valorant. It used to work on 60 fps but idk what triggered it to become extremely unplayable for me to the point that it was a godsend if it worked on 20fps
Tried doing everything but I realized that I am not playing a game at 20 fps and neither do I want to. It has kernel level access and its created by a game which has some chinese influence and Its not even about politics but I would actually not play american games with kernel level access either
That being said, First I thought of just reinstalling windows but then realized that if I am actually going through the hassle of re-installing system then might as well use linux (I thought backups were meh and I didn't have any important stuff [i think] anyways, although I wish I would've backuped my fathers occasional folders but eh its 2-3 years now)
Instaled nobara after watching linux experiment. To get the best linux gaming.
It is so funny but I thought that nobara/glorious eggroll had built all of this from scratch in start, like It was gnome and I was like wow did he make this and that and that oh my god, so cooool
Copy pasting dnf commands :sob: (I guess I am on cachy but old habits die hard regarding copy pasting, I still do it sometimes)
Then I went to raw archlinux, it was a mess in the start trying to experiment. I had arch kde and the experience was definitely something
Personally I used to play minecraft (with prism launcher) and not many games. And I genuinely wanted to play with arch more than gaming.
I then was on arch kde and I think I downloaded some games and tried to run it and lets just say that sailing the seas on linux was a very hacky solution but i was able to do that
Lets just say that your boy out here was installing a lot of software bloating disks and wanted minimalism and re-installing systems again and again (and always not making backups, I think I barely make backups even now :sob:)
I went from arch kde -> voidlinux iirc -> artix (realized that non systemd systems can't run vscode etc. a bit of a mess) -> arch hyprland iirc for a very long time and it was here where I tried to genuinely install proton and make games work and it had a very high learning curve (1-2 years flexing my neofetch) -> cachy hyprland (just 1-2 months ago) -> cachyos niri right now
Personally I would say that Linux is a W in everything but personally I just didn't have a graphics card at all to play modern games
From retrospect, regarding gaming, why not just buy older versions of playstation or xbox, are they not specifically designed for gaming itself. It can be a good physical level of seperation as well
I don't know what I do with linux honestly, I just do whatever my heart wants, so if someone asks me my hobbies, I genuinely don't know what to say, tinkering with linux/open source is the answer that I give (building custom linux isos, doing random open source cool stuff etc.)
I then go see on normal discord servers, the amount of games people play and I am like damn
The number of games I have completed/enjoyed can be counted on both my hands or maybe even just one
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My kids were exposed to many operating systems at a young age, and you couldn't be more right regarding the mobile ecosystem. There's a lot of highschool aged kids who don't understand directories on a file system. They're used to tapping "open" and being presented with a list of files sandboxed in that environment.
The situation you describing is the norm for everyone, including you, for most subjects. Expertise gives you greater understanding and allows for more meaningful engagement with the subject, but most people are experts very few things.
When I "dance" (sway to the beat) at a wedding, I am doing the equivalent of tapping open on the file, whereas my parter with their lifetime of dance experience can move with a level of skill that is much more meaningful and nuanced. My best friend is a chef, his daughter has a vasty deeper awareness of flavor and technique vs most kids (including mine) who are just consuming without much thought. The same goes for my colleague who is also a musician and DJ - their kids can hear a song and instantly understand all the layers of production and instrumentation, whereas most children and adults are just nodding along to the beat.
If I consider most of the things I do in my life, I am interacting with them at very shallow and superficial level versus an expert, and I would assume the same is true for you.
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When I was a teenager, I tried to dabble in Linux but the hardware support was abysmal and I couldn't use it, despite my strong intention to permanently switch to Linux.
These days the hardware support is usually fine and my employer requires me to use Linux on the desktop, but still, if I was a teenager I'd still be interested in games, a functional office suite, etc.
For my Linux hobby at the time, I ended up doing was installing MinGW on Windows XP and using Linux VMs on Windows, albeit I had an interest in that kind of stuff.
I don't think forcing people to daily drive Linux for the usual stuff makes much sense unless they want it and have an interest in low level configuration.
My experience is similar, although my kids are are a bit older (the younger one is 17).
There have been issues, mostly with gaming. On the other hand they are happy with the results in retrospect. I just got the 17 year old a laptop with Windows 11 on it she wants Linux installed on it.
Can you please elaborate on this? I have a five years old so it’s still early, but I want to prepare myself to educate him on starting from Linux. Do you use any special setup or go straight to Linux with them? Did they have frustrations using the cli and how did you encourage them? Did they ever want to give up?
for many kids TikTok is power, not a terminal
What 'freedom' won't they have on a Mac or Windows computer which could run all their friend's software and/or games?
Linux can run significantly more games than a Mac at this point. It can run maybe 95% of Windows games without tweaking, it only chokes on games with kernel level anti-cheat.
Compared to Windows, freedom from advertising and making your own decisions. Windows has so many dark patterns both out of the box and magically introduced with subsequent updates.
> there is a lot of friction trying work with them in LibreOffice
LibreOffice is always a sticking point, in my experience. I some times get roasted for saying it, but if you want people to have a good experience with Linux, point them toward something online like Google Docs. Yeah it’s not consistent with the ideological purity that some people want, but in my experience non-technical people do much better on Linux when they don’t have to deal with LibreOffice. I won’t even speculate why, it’s just not a good fit for non-technical Linux newcomers.
Sorry I was THAT child in school. While I now definitely have some technical knowledge, 10-year-old me, definitely wasn't that smart.
This is just not true. LibreOffice is way easier to understand as a child, since all the functionality is available and discoverable as a menu/tree structure, as opposed to the toolbar mess of MSOffice. That might be useful for professionals, but when you are a child, the unpredictability of these ribbons is just confusing. I just want to format this thing. Click on it. Search the ribbon for the thing. It's not there. Click slightly differently. Now the ribbon header changed. Click that back. Where is it? Still not there. Shit, how do I do that? Describe it in the browser. I have no clue, how anything is called. When I happen to find something, everything is in some foreign language where I can only say "apple" and "house" in. Also there are tons of advertisements and useless whitespace everywhere.
Screw it, I am just opening Notepad (because Notepad++ is not installed and I will only figure out how to use portable programs from an USB stick in 2.5years) do some drafts and finish it at home with a sane office program. In LibreOffice at home, I can find the functionality I need independent of finding out how I need to click on the item to apply it. Also when I click on something, on the left there is a property window open, which lists all the basic properties I can change.
MSOffice has moat for professionals who already know how to use it. It is not friendly for children who have never used a word processor.
Converting MSOffice documents to LibreOffice is not that hard, especially as a child, since my mates also have not used a word processor for decades, and have not used fancy formatting. And then you come around the corner with a poster designed in Scribus. They are all like: what you can do that? And guess with whom, people want to be in a group for a presentation, and who people will trust when you tell them to please save it in this format?
Out of interest, what's your issue with LibreOffice? The only issue I have with it is when you need to open documents made in MSOffice. Otherwise, it does everything MSOffice does and faster with less cloud/AI crap. Reminds me of MSOffice during XP era when it just worked.
> what's your issue with LibreOffice?
I'm sharing observations about seeing other people, including casual computer users, forced into using LibreOffice. It becomes the software experience they hate the most. They associate Linux with LibreOffice and want it all gone so they can go back to getting work done on mac or Windows like everyone else they know.
Your comment is a good example of the disconnect between average computer users and the LibreOffice fans:
> The only issue I have with it is when you need to open documents made in MSOffice. Otherwise, it does everything MSOffice does and faster with less cloud/AI crap. Reminds me of MSOffice during XP era
Collaborating with other MS Office users is a key part of many people's jobs. Having poor MS Office compatibility isn't just a footnote, it's a showstopper issue that will make these people's jobs harder every single day. Making people's job harder and take more time is a great way to make them hate something.
As for not having cloud features and having an old style XP era interface: These are also points that are only positive for a specific type of computer user wants computing to return the earlier, simpler era of computing they fondly remember. For everyone else, that "cloud crap" is a helpful feature for getting their job done and that XP era interface makes it feel like they're stuck using outdated software. I understand you don't use or like the new features, but average people who use this software in their jobs might actually benefit from the new features and new interface.
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It garbles up the formatting when importing / exporting. You can’t collaborate with people on office in a meaningful way.
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I find it to be just a little bit irritatingly flaky in the UI. Weird glitches, slow sometines for no obvious reason. I don't do anything complicated with it; I can easily believe there are bugs lurking in lesser-used control paths.
The average person in the real world is more likely to encounter documents made in Office, that would be a major barrier to adoption.
Please, it’s a functional copy of Office ’97, which millions (billions?) of people used happily.
The thought of willfully making a child dependent on the biggest advertising company on the planet for their documents is pretty gross, at least when you have the knowledge not to.
> Please, it’s a functional copy of Office ’97, which millions (billions?) of people used happily.
Exactly. The Office '97 is nearly 30 years old. The world has moved on. People like their modern software.
I think LibreOffice appeals to people who think computing should have been frozen in time at some arbitrary point in the past when they were younger, but it feels stale and old to anyone who doesn't have rose-tinted glasses for the Office '97 era.
Most people don't want their software to be turned into some ideological battle. They just want to get their work done and not have to fight the software along the way, so they can get back to enjoying their lives.
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> First and foremost listen to what your child is interested in
A child can only ever have interest in things he or she has been exposed to. A good environment will expose them to many different things, expanding their menu of interest options.
Very fair. Yes you can’t force them but I still think there is value in attempting to start the Linux way which you very much did.
Sounds like you’re doing a great job and tuning in to the needs and interests of your child. Love it!
this is the line of thinking which led me to furnish daughter with Windows laptops and, later, desktops; I remove the adware & spyware to some degree, but Windows (and I assume Mac, but I'm not in that space) has the benefit of generally being reasonably intuitive for basic use WITHOUT A CHEAT SHEET and, importantly, fast and easy to teach intermediate use of. if she wants to know how to enable literal (that is, correct) filename sorting in File Explorer or write an HID driver, I'll be here. + I sure don't feel like debugging every strange artifact appearing in Steam games as a result of emulation.
one thing I have protested, to the point of being obnoxious, is school-managed Chromebooks. I've talked to every principal of every school she's been in since Covid-19 to persistently request I be allowed to furnish a Windows laptop or at least a Chromebook I manage. -and in a bit of a surprise to me, everyone's been accommodating (though never to let her use a Windows laptop; I think maybe providing it as an option makes breaking policy to let her bring a self-managed Chromebook seem reasonable). I argue I operate web services with user information at home and don't want school employees on my network, and I don't want the financial liability of her accidentally damaging school property.
> Her school/friends use PowerPoint
I'm amazed parents are still paying for MS office licenses... Google Docs had completely taken over my college in the late 2000s and has been the standard at all the companies I've worked at since then. Plus I thought Chromebooks were pretty standard in schools now.
What's pushing parents towards a paid product over a free one that works better for a student use case?
> What's pushing parents towards a paid product over a free one that works better for a student use case?
Office 365 is free for students and has the same collaboration features you’re describing.
Do they no longer require a school email address with a school part of Microsoft's program? Are middle schools handing out .edu emails now?
Edit: a web search confirms that they still have those requirements so I remain confused
My daughter also had the same - she was really keen on DTP-like things and DTP programs. Well, not just DTP programs, she liked ZTP and MTP tier programs -- she didn't like TTP programs per se, but quasi TTP was more her speed
I think you're taking this too far. First off, limiting screen time and access to feeds while making sure kids are socialized is generally a good thing regardless of where they decide to go in life. Computers that make things a bit 'harder' help stave off mindless consumption of content without being oppressive.
Arguably you could just put your kids in a high-end private school with other well socialized children who have had significant sums of money invested in their development and haven't even been pacified with tech out of parental laziness/necessity but hey, whatever works...
Secondly, providing a linux based computer or old windows as an intro to technology has one very basic benefit. It teaches mindful interaction with technology. These things are tools. Regardless of how hard many companies try, computers (smartphone, tablet or desktop) remain machines that do exactly what we ask them when you ask them to do it and internalizing this at a young age builds stronger humans.
> She wanted to do DTP-like things several times and the Linux options are not exactly... user-friendly. Etc.
What's wrong with Scribus?
Simple things are painful in Scribus, like adding an image.
Not my experience, when learning it as a child. Everything is a box, and you just draw a box and tell it, what to put in there. That's a thing 10-year-old me could understand.
This. Thank you. Parents tend to project a lot of their fears and desires into their child. Your child is not you and will never be. They are their own person with their own interests. It's fine showing them your interests but forcing them on the child is not. A lot of nerd parents believe their kids like nerding like they do even when it's not true. Listen without judgement and be willing to install Windows if they want it rather than judging them for not wanting Linux or not caring about the command line or whatever programming language you are trying to force on them. You are a parent first. Nerd second.
You can do this on windows with wsl now too and have a more hackable machine that could dual boot in the future if wsl doesn't cut it
I sometimes used to make estimates of construction projects for my uncle since he wasn't a technical guy.
I am a teen and so when I had made the switch from windows -> linux, he was a little weirded out and I tried to do things in libreoffice but he just genuinely thought it was excel itself and he was trying to use his old experience for some niche thing and I was trying mine to figure out libreoffice etc.
Um, it was decent, I still use libreoffice but at that time, I just decided to open up google sheets (iirc) and just use google sheets for excel purposes and I think that later he even preferred it since he could then go to someone else and have them open up that excel as well
We never had collaboration on powerpoint presentations or etc., our school work was basically build a presentation and mail it
I live in the east tho so I am not sure how the western world's schooling system is entrenched in powerpoints collaboration etc.
I don't like google generally but atleast their suite is in the web and so I can naturally use it in linux as well without any limitations unlike the web versions of microsoft's monopolistic suite of softwares.
That being said, I am still on mac which my brother gifted me partially because I only have a computer and sometimes I like the portability of a laptop but I genuinely feel annoyed or I do feel limited by what I can do on mac.
Yes I have installed homebrew etc. but linux actually feels more comfy for me to use to be honest, I think I like both but I personally prefer linux more as well.
I would recommend if possible to try to buy them something like a old laptop and boot them linux as well to try to teach them your knowledge and try to bond with them.
There is just this instant sense of gratification I get when I realize that my pc is mostly open source and it has even gotten to the points of being reproducible and bootstrappable so somebody would technically be able to even re-architect or (myself) as well the way I use my computers in this open source manner. All of the things open source.. Wild.
I personally have starred a lot of projects along the way I have found and I am pretty sure that some of these projects could genuinely be useful to people.
I am sure you know some really cool open source projects as well and maybe you can share these softwares which can help them in the process as well. I have found it extremely surprising in how many things can be done by already built open source softwares.
It is not as if I don't use proprietory software, I think there are some trade-offs to be made
I decided to use obsidian partially because I found it to have a better plugin system than logseq (? sorry if this isn't the correct name) and I really like the excalidraw plugin in obsidian.
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