Just show them where the web browser is and done!

My dad has been running Linux Mint for almost 10 years now and he doesn't know that LibreOffice isn't "Linux."

Yeah. A typical non-tech person is just as likely to say their PC is running on Microsoft or Google. Maybe they'll say Edge if they are really knowledgeable.

Most of them are unaware of what an OS is even.

Your dad seems miles ahead knowing windows versions compared to the average person.

Yep, my first level tech support experience absolutely confirms this. The question what operating system the client uses has gotten me a wide variety of answers, and most of them did not have anything to do with operating systems.

When I was a child, Windows 95 came out and people bought it without owning a computer, deciding they would get a household PC now.

That level of hype is biblical and it sticks.

Edit: Then of course, Bill openly said he likes Windows being pirated because it would be the OS of choice of everyone. People would only know Windows.

While I don't disagree with this in principal, it's important to distinguish between stupidity and ignorance. Most people don't know about OSes because they've never needed to learn more than how to do basic tasks, and so are ignorant of how they work, what alternatives are out there, and why someone might choose one. This is very different to being incapable of those technicalities if shown a good reason to do so.

I always think about the effort to create a bear proof trash can in Yosemite that gave us the phrase “there is significant overlap between the smartest bear and the dumbest tourist”.

gotta add the babbage classic :

On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/security_is_a_t.html

"There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists.”

Adams was truly a modern philosopher of great note.

"The average person probably only knows systemd and one or two generations of sysvinit" "and upstart of course" "of course"

The average user installs fucking TikTok on their computer

That...can't have been real and serious

I live in debianland

And they don't even understand their phones.

I jokingly threatened to install Hannah Montanna Linux on my wife's windows gaming rig, and she said she wouldn't be mad.

If only that version wasn't deprecated.

Most of them haven't even set up Arch

Poor godless fools.

oh mine is a "dy"

B (Berkeley), S (Software), D (Distribution).

A Unix based OS, developed at Berkeley.

A separate family of operating systems. It's a direct decendant of the old UNIX. FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD are the most common distributions.

It shares a lot of the same userspace tools as Linux (the GNUserspace, if you will), so if you're used to the command line, a lot will seem familiar at a first glance. However, the underlying mechanisms can feel a bit strange at first once you try it out.

I used FreeBSD as my daily driver back in the day, but now I'm also on Mint, mostly because I used linux more at work.

I've been meaning to check out BSD these days to see how far it's come since I last used it 20ish years ago, I just haven't gotten around to it.

I also remember hearing someone say that there are two things from Berkley that messes with your head: BSD and LSD.

Basically Macos

Okay, imagine Linux. But (most of) the whole thing developed at once rather than just the kernel and tools separately.

AND:

• GNU licenses: companies use code and contribute because it may help
• BSD licenses: companies that use code shouldn't contribute because it sucks

Yeah but you're probably using a custom Linux distro (I forgot what it's called now) to investigate either a Windows or a Mac system because that's what everyone else has, and you're not investigating yourself.

written in holy C

uhhhh temple os