I started on a Mac, got a bachelor’s degree in IT on a Mac, and have used a Mac professionally in that field for over 20 years.
disclusion is not real science
Since when did this become an autistic trait? I joined the school computer club when I was 14. It started that year with a single IBM PC. We did not load Linux because it didn’t exist for another decade otherwise I’m sure we would have. I have to believe that kind of curiosity and learning still exists without one needing to be autistic. Then again, under current diagnostics for autism, we might all have been on the spectrum since we were all geeks on some level.
Oh yeah? Well I have a hypotenuse too!
I remember this meme from when the Berlin Wall fell and everyone in the DDR got access to Ubuntu.
Why would it skew results? It’s a study of correlation, not causation.
Because it would add one more variable. “Skew” isn’t really the right word though. It could affect the results in unpredictable ways, discoverable by comparing a separate study done with only autistic kids.
Best use of a Mac is to sell it and buy 2 computers to put Linux on.
To fix Windows problems, reboot (and pray)
To fix Linux problems, Be root.Macs can actually be really good linux computers. It’s not always straightforward, but I’ve heard good things once it’s installed.
Anything running Linux can be good of course- just not going to easily convince me that paying double (or more) is rational.
Macbooks aren’t really always overpriced anymore. Macbook neo is among the best value at its price range and m5 Mac air is roughly comparable with other of its tier.
Not sure if either can run Linux yet tho
MacBook supported for 7 years and then no more updates vs 10+ years of support on average.
I guess if you dont mind the forced obsolescence and ewaste, maybe?
I hear Linux runs pretty good on a can opener!
I agree with you but you don’t pay double when you buy an old “obsolete” Mac and install Linux on it. Granted, my computer needs are very basic but my 13 yr old Mac is running better than ever after I got rid of MacOs.
Now I understand you.
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I had a job developing software for datacenter machines’ hardware and software health. And the most common automatic repair that we had was escalating 1. reboot; 2. reinstall OS; 3. check hardware. I know it’s different but it was fun to see it “first-hand”.
And also, “to create Linux problems, be root” works as well.
to create Linux problems, be root
Personal attacks are against community rules.
Hey, if it’s an Intel Mac they run Linux great. I’m using a 2011 iMac running Linux Mint going on two and half years and haven’t had any issues!
(I know that more recent Macs have Asahi Linux, but I’ve not used it and cannot speak to it)
Nice.
I started out on a Coleco Adam. I could play Atari games on it.
My very first was a Sharp PC-1251. I couldn’t run anything on it. 😐
There are dozens of us.
The first 3 computers I ever touched were an Apple II, Apple II e, and a Powemac.
Then I spent a decade in the Windows wilderness. Back and forth… Now safely home to Linux.
Maybe not a good question by itself.
The question really does need to be separated out by era. Are we talking Mac System 7 vs Windows 3.1, Mac OS 9 vs Windows 98, early OS X vs Windows XP, Intel Macs versus Windows 7, ARM Macs vs Windows 10, etc.? Each generation had a different user paradigm, and people who were good with one versus another might mean different things than other generations.
That was definitely back before Apple went crazy with their whole closed ecosystem. Apple II feels a lot more like linux these days considering the amount of documentation available about the hardware. And parts aren’t locked down with serial numbers like in the iPhone…
I had a lot of fun as a kid messing with an Apple IIgs. One of the games I had was “Thexder”, and you can probably guess where I got my username.
thexder and silpheed were both ahead of their times. good memories.
Basically the same here haha
people who grew dealing with classic mac are going to flip a table reading this.
Is Discluded a word? Isn’t that Excluded?
Annie failed English but they change her grade to get her out of their school
She was about to say discarded, then change the route mid sentence.
No no, discluded is for when you exclude someone and diss them at the same time.
Got 'em!
I think it’s one of those flammable/inflammable sort of things.
I wasn’t autistic, I was poor and switching to Linux made old hand-me-down computers work like new. It also frustrated me a lot, but that’s part of the game.
I had to install PC-DOS because Windows didn’t exist.
On my family’s 386, it booted into DOS, which I wasn’t literate enough to figure out at the time, but I knew how to load MS DOS Shell, which was a text-based file GUI I could navigate to launch DOS programs, or I could run Windows 3.1 to play Castle of the Winds. (And I was aware Windows has other purely theoretical uses. It was only necessary for Castle of the Winds.)
I remember when my aunt got us a 320MB hard drive loaded with shareware games. That was life changing.
I was definitely autistic, as it turns out.
Guess i’m autistic lol. I did install Linux on my laptop when i was 12, but it didn’t last very long. The only reason i installed it is because i felt bored with the Windows UI, and distros like Ubuntu and Mint looked really interesting at the time. After i realized that i couldn’t get my EXEs to work i just went back to Windows lol.
It wasn’t until LTT made their video about using PopOS instead of Windows 11 back in 2021 that i remembered Linux even existed. I decided to give it a shot since Windows 10 had already started to freak me out for a while with their weird questions like asking if they can use my handwriting data. The rest is history. I know LTT gets a lot of flack for how they’ve handled their Linux content, and some of it is deserved, but if it wasn’t for me seeing that video i wouldn’t have given it a try.
I somewhat managed to set up my own mail server on my PC when I was 14. It was unbelievably shitty, barely functional but I did learn a great deal and only wasted about a week of my life while gaining some trauma. After I realized I can send and receive some e-mails, I immediately reinstalled windows to play counter strike with my friends as I was becoming ostracized for constantly talking about POP3 at school. That was the episode that made me understand that I do not want to do computer science.
Well, for the EXEs you just needed to use Wine.
About te UI… Well, graphical environments are independent of the distro most of the time, the only exception is when a distro has its own DE or WM hardcoded to it and won’t support anything else, as Mint, but even Cinnamon and MATE can be run on other distros
Yeah, i know these things now, but back then i just didn’t do any research and had no clue. Although i do remember trying wine, but i couldn’t get any games to work. I’m not sure if that was me being incompetent, or wine not being as good back then, probably a combination of both lol. This was like back in 2010 or something.
WINE was awful back then. It’s still not great. Bottles makes it bearable and of course Proton has entirely changed the game for gaming.
I’ve been into Linux on and off since around 2006… it was always cool, but kind of a pain in the ass to use. Until sometime around 2015-2020 or so we hit an inflection point and now linux is ready for primetime in a way it wasn’t before. Like when I first installed linux in 2006 it was like “yep… this sure is volunteer-made software (derogatory).” But it’s much better than it was.
Well, that’s fair.
As for Wine, I only managed to make Warcraft III to work, but not Minecraft or any other game. Wine needed so much tweaking back then.
Around the same time also.
At 12 I was not so interested in the features and mechanics of computers and OSs as to even have an opinion on the Windows UI, let alone consider other options. I was using AOL chat rooms and MSN Messenger, watching stupid flash videos on Newgrounds, and playing The Sims and Mech fighting games. I was in college studying Computer Science before I even gave a shit, and didn’t actually install Linux on my PC until I was in my mid 20s. So, from my perspective, you’re still an outlier.
Well when i talked about the UI it was honestly just very superficial. In a way of “oh i’m bored of this, but this other thing looks much different.” Basically monkey brain shit. It’s funny cause while i ended up going back to windows to be able to play games, my laptop was just a dual core celeron that could barely play anything anyway. I remember it often overheating and shutting down while i was playing sims 3 lol.
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