Since I’ve been unemployed, I’ve been taking on more “pay what you can” work for friends and neighbors.
You know what a whole lot of people are struggling with right now? Their somewhat outdated laptops, that were always budget priced and underpowered, are practically self-immolating they’re trying so hard to run Windows 11. Its so bloated and ad-and-ai-riddled that it just plain sucks to use now.
They’re so fed up that when I’m like “Linux is pretty easy to use these days. I can set you up with Mint in a couple of hours?” They’re usually ready to try if it means a useful computer again. And setting them up for my friends made me happy and excited about computers in a way I haven’t felt since childhood.
I set up some open source audio and DJ stuff for a podcasting and dabbling musician friend, Krita for an artsy friend, etc. These are mostly just web browser and word processors, but I get to ensure my friends are using ad blockers and a privacy enhanced browser, libre office instead of MS. And they get some fun! Computers used to be fun; little wonder boxes that wanted to help you do the things you loved better.
Yeah okay, that makes a lot of sense and isn’t as extreme as I thought the original post to be. I suppose that for me, I used to push Linux way too hard on my friends and when I saw what I was doing, I hard pivoted away from pushing it to hardly even mentioning it unless it comes up in conversation.
But clearly there’s a very agreeable and respectful middle ground where you can bring it up as a legitimate tool to solve a very real problem for people putting up with the woes of Windows 11.
Since I’ve been unemployed, I’ve been taking on more “pay what you can” work for friends and neighbors.
You know what a whole lot of people are struggling with right now? Their somewhat outdated laptops, that were always budget priced and underpowered, are practically self-immolating they’re trying so hard to run Windows 11. Its so bloated and ad-and-ai-riddled that it just plain sucks to use now.
They’re so fed up that when I’m like “Linux is pretty easy to use these days. I can set you up with Mint in a couple of hours?” They’re usually ready to try if it means a useful computer again. And setting them up for my friends made me happy and excited about computers in a way I haven’t felt since childhood.
I set up some open source audio and DJ stuff for a podcasting and dabbling musician friend, Krita for an artsy friend, etc. These are mostly just web browser and word processors, but I get to ensure my friends are using ad blockers and a privacy enhanced browser, libre office instead of MS. And they get some fun! Computers used to be fun; little wonder boxes that wanted to help you do the things you loved better.
Yeah okay, that makes a lot of sense and isn’t as extreme as I thought the original post to be. I suppose that for me, I used to push Linux way too hard on my friends and when I saw what I was doing, I hard pivoted away from pushing it to hardly even mentioning it unless it comes up in conversation.
But clearly there’s a very agreeable and respectful middle ground where you can bring it up as a legitimate tool to solve a very real problem for people putting up with the woes of Windows 11.