How many non-techie Linux Mint users?

[ivar]

Commoditization has had some highly deleterious effects on the state of the technology world, a very notable one being that so much of the "fun" is gone. It's hard for me to see how anyone becomes a technology enthusiast in today's environment, since so much of it is about control and manipulation of the public.

I see one thing bringing the fun back - and getting new users into tinkering with computer stuff, is the Arduino and Raspberry Pi families of cheap hardware intended for education and building stuff.

As for myself, I'm a techie I guess. Got Mint installed on 4 computers - but the one I use most is used in a "non-techie" way 99% of the time. It just works, no need to mess with it. Got other computers for that

[MurphCID]

Commoditization has had some highly deleterious effects on the state of the technology world, a very notable one being that so much of the "fun" is gone. It's hard for me to see how anyone becomes a technology enthusiast in today's environment, since so much of it is about control and manipulation of the public.

I see one thing bringing the fun back - and getting new users into tinkering with computer stuff, is the Arduino and Raspberry Pi families of cheap hardware intended for education and building stuff.

As for myself, I'm a techie I guess. Got Mint installed on 4 computers - but the one I use most is used in a "non-techie" way 99% of the time. It just works, no need to mess with it. Got other computers for that

I agree with you. But I have discovered that I have less interest in "getting under the hood" as I get more drained at my real job, and just wanting the Linux system(s) I use to "Just Work". So far Mint and Manjaro fit that desire. Perhaps after I retire I might get more involved, but right now I am tired, tired in a way that I cannot seem to get un-tired. And now the Spouse Unit just dropped the bomb on me that I will have to wait longer (much longer) to retire next year. I am not sure I can make it to next December I am so burned out and tired. I am so tired that nothing really seems to give me any excitement at this point. I might over rule the Spouse Unit and go in May as I had planned anyway. Yeah we will have to tighten our belts, but I don't think I can last at the job much longer.

[ivar]

I agree with you. But I have discovered that I have less interest in "getting under the hood" as I get more drained at my real job, and just wanting the Linux system(s) I use to "Just Work".

Sounds too familiar at the moment So not so much tinkering getting done at the moment...

[MurphCID]

I agree with you. But I have discovered that I have less interest in "getting under the hood" as I get more drained at my real job, and just wanting the Linux system(s) I use to "Just Work".

Sounds too familiar at the moment So not so much tinkering getting done at the moment...

It certainly has been rough. Knee is better today for some reason, Spouse Unit saw how swollen it was yesterday. I am not techie, although I do provide Daddy Tech support at the house.

[Portreve]

I see one thing bringing the fun back - and getting new users into tinkering with computer stuff, is the Arduino and Raspberry Pi families of cheap hardware intended for education and building stuff.

As for myself, I'm a techie I guess. Got Mint installed on 4 computers - but the one I use most is used in a "non-techie" way 99% of the time. It just works, no need to mess with it. Got other computers for that

And that kind of proves the point I made previously. The tech industry has become about control because of its commercialization and commoditization. The Linux community, because of its essential nature as being a community- and humanity-focused environment, is fundamentally different.

---

Perhaps after I retire I might get more involved, but right now I am tired, tired in a way that I cannot seem to get un-tired. And now the Spouse Unit just dropped the bomb on me that I will have to wait longer (much longer) to retire next year. I am not sure I can make it to next December I am so burned out and tired. I am so tired that nothing really seems to give me any excitement at this point. I might over rule the Spouse Unit and go in May as I had planned anyway. Yeah we will have to tighten our belts, but I don't think I can last at the job much longer.

I've been doing a fair amount of reading lately, particularly Noam Chomsky. Now, it'd be only the effort of a second to get into a political discussion here, so I'm going to keep this very strictly focused.

Mr. Chomsky has written extensively on a lot of the history of contemporary socio-political-economic structures, and I find it really interesting, personally, because it ties in with a lot of what I've thought about over the years, filling in blanks as well as providing a lot of additional background I wouldn't otherwise know. Capitalism as we presently know it, particularly in America, has become increasingly degrading and demoralizing. There's a lot of things it could do where empowerment of the individual is concerned which it does not do, and that's by design. It's only through the Linux world creating a commons, as well as a community, that allows for escaping that in any way and to any degree.

When you retire, don't go back for a second helping. Go do your own thing. Break the chains. It's the only way you'll find a true sense of self-satisfaction, and therefore liberty.


To anybody reading this, a book which I cannot recommend highly enough is Aja Raden's "The Truth About Lies".

[farkas]

Used to be a hardware techie way way back in the 1970's when I was testing and repairing the CDC CYBER 18 PROCESSOR down to component level.
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/cdc/1700/cyber ... _Sep77.pdf
A hot soldering iron on standby all the time.
Now days I don't dare to get close to any modern hardware with a hot soldering iron . Today the components are so small that I can barely see some them with a magnifying glass. Circuit and logic diagrams are proprietary as are the innards of the cpu and custom chips. My hardware techie days are over. Unless you consider that building a home-brew desktop being a hardware techie.
Currently I'm not a techie as far software is concerned. I occasionally dip my toes into the Terminal window. Most of the time following the instructions of the LM gurus. Sometimes I try something on my own. Some failures and some successes.

[t42]

I've been doing a fair amount of reading lately, particularly Noam Chomsky.
Mr. Chomsky has written extensively on a lot of the history of contemporary socio-political-economic structures, and I find it really interesting, personally,

self-censored : it scares me, what take has the author of 1968 Language and Mind who buried structural linguistics and behaviorist psychology on modern world and, still, on peoples' minds

[farkas]

Just to clarify things in my past as a hardware techie my indispensable tool was an o-scope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscilloscope
I used one similar to the one pictured in the link above.
I'm pretty sure it was a Tektronix 547
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tektronix ... illoscopes
The soldering iron was the healing tool.

[greengnome]

I don't qualify as a non-techie. But my mother does and has now happily been running Mint for a few years.

[RollyShed]

I've always found that people who are deeply into formal systems like computers, logic and mathematics tend to strong needs for control.

Or do they have problems finding someone to take over the responsibilities? "Leave X in control, I'm too lazy to do it myself."
The logical person is the "go-to" person, they'll have the answer.
???

[Cenuel]

By the standard of a post slightly above mine, I don't know if I should call myself a non-techie or an uninformed techie. I am basically a beginner at Linux and chose Mint since I thought it would be an easy way for me to ease into the Linux world, an expectation which I have found to be generally correct. My grandfather was definitely a techie, as he was employed in a technical, radio-related field, and was an enthusiastic amateur radio operator who had MS-DOS running on a computer in his ham shack when I was a little kid (don't know when he bought that computer, but he certainly had it in the very early 90s and still used it even after buying an additional computer which ran Windows 95.) I was born in 1987 and my grandfather would let my brothers and me play games on the MS-DOS rig when he wasn't using it. My older brother was smarter by virtue of being three years older and learned enough about the MS-DOS computer to become what I would call a techie, and he started using Linux a few years ago after frustration with Windows 10 and a desire to learn more about programming, after having taken more technical classes in college than I did.

I thought about getting Linux around the time he switched over, especially since one of my friends was using it at the time, but wasn't very well informed about it. I just thought it was a neat idea at the time. I then read more about open source software, and also grew increasingly irritated about some stuff which we might term political, so I won't go into it except to say that I went from 'fine with proprietary software but willing to use open source depending on need' to 'fine with open source but willing to use proprietary depending on need.' It was also around the time my laptop was starting to give up the ghost, so since I was considering buying a new computer anyway, I decided to go with Linux Mint as the sole os on the device I bought and see how long I would stick with it. I bought the computer sometime around May or June of 2020 and am still here. My brother is better at the command line stuff than I am but I know some basic commands and the gui on Mint generally is fine for my purposes.

My mother is definitely a non-techie and was able to get by for a few weeks on an ubuntu install on a computer my brother lent her after her old computer broke, since all she really does is look at a few websites on whatever browser is installed by default on the computer she is using. However, my dad loves Apple and bought her a macbook air.

[Seax]

from my observations, at least,
there is an considerable numbers of non-techie types,
that have then found the World of Linux & then found our LinuxMint System.


there does have to have been an Reason,
for them to have to Start looking for Windows System Alternatives, though.

well for me it started a few years ago with Raspberry Pi's, then i replaced Windows on my servers with TrueNAS and my new system eventually got Mint because it looks sexy. so much better. i still have a Windows machine for that one app keeping me tied to Windows 10, Fusion 360.
its only been 4 days but i got it coming together...

[Portreve]

I want to single out ivar's comment above about the Raspberry Pi and Arduino because that sort of "free spirit" and spirit of discovery of what is possible, along with the tendency of a lot of folk to use it to do purely fun (sometimes rather funny) things truly harkens back to the ethos of the computer world I've talked about back in the 80s.

The nature of technology (in the very broad sense) and the embedding of it in global society, has advanced the aspirations of folk in positions of power in ways beyond their wildest wet dreams. And, let's face it: there's a LOT of things which could potentially be talked about here which are KNOWN and ESTABLISHED and so aren't the stuff of tinfoil hat conspiracy theory because of being factual topics, none of which do I desire to bring up here, but all of that, such as the control I've talked about up-thread, really requires push-back from the general public. Not just "Corporate America" but Corporate Worldwide is utterly and ultimately culpable as well.

So, for me, it's the ethos of the Linux world which keeps me here (along with the other technical factors) and of course makes me want to further my knowledge and remain a legitimate techie.

[redcarrot]

Technology has the power to completely change the world for the better,
However, to see it in control of traditional 'Profit-making' systems and 'power-structures' is disheartening.
It is enormous wasted opportunity.

[Petermint]

The biggest bunch of non techie Linux users are the Android phone users followed by the Raspberry Pi 8 year olds. Raspberry Pi outnumbers Apple computers but the Raspberry Pi people make only $0.1 profit per device profit instead of $1000 or $3000, which means they are not Apple or Tesla level of glamorous and you are never mentioned in the media if your are not not rich or glamourous.

I know some non techies who used Linux after an upgrade they were not told about but their next laptop had Windows installed and they did not know the difference. LibreOffice, Thunderbird, and Firefox do not care about the OS. If there is a roadblock, it is something like Scribus not importing from Publisher.