• dirtypirate@kbin.social
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    2 months ago

    My elderly neighbor needed a computer to do accounting, I set her up with Mint on a T430 w/ LibreOffice and told her I’d giver her free support till the laptop died.

    5 years on and the only time I’ve had to fulfill my side of the bargain was when her printer was out of paper and she couldn’t find her eye glasses to read the error message.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      her printer was out of paper and she couldn’t find her eye glasses to read the error message.

      Hahahah, omg that’s awesome.

      To me this user exemplifies where Linux shines: in limited-use-case scenarios (not to say it’s inflexible, just that support increases quickly with increased use-case complexity).

      The more general-use needed, the more technical skill is required.

      This user has a small set of specific requirements, so it’s pretty trivial to get them running on a Linux distro, and it’s a great application of what Linux brings to the table. System management will be minimal.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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        2 months ago

        Linux is sadly very messy for a sysadmin.

        That “cathedral vs bazaar” thing didn’t age too well.

        Say, an OS with hardware and software support as good as that of Linux, but with cleanliness as good as that of OpenBSD (or at least FreeBSD) would probably have a bigger desktop and enterprise user share by now.

          • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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            2 months ago

            For people who don’t get the reference - messy as compared to any of BSDs. Documentation, configuration complexity, cleanliness of architecture.