The majority of people I know who have major computer problems solve them by buying another computer
I’m not even that tech illiterate, but I almost did that… My laptop was being slow, and I still had like 4k€ in overtime hours that I could buy Hardware from at work (it’s a great deal because I neither have to pay VAT on the hardware nor income taxes on the money from the overtime), so I was like, eh, might as well get a new laptop.
So then I read up on what laptop brands are out there, found out about Framework, and when I excitedly told my electrical engineer husband about it he was like “You knooow that you can easily replace parts in any laptop, right?”
Well, I didn’t know that (just kinda assumed laptops were more like phones than they are like desktop PCs), so I ended up just ordering a new SSD and new RAM for my laptop. It’s back to being butter smooth, but I have a hunch that cleaning the dust from the fans while I was in there was a very large factor in that haha
I see you used to have an HDD in there. That alone would’ve made it painfully slow in Windows especially, but even with Linux.
Now it should stay fast for longer.
I mean, asterisk. Most laptops let you swap the storage and RAM and many let you swap the battery. Beyond that it usually gets difficult.
Framework let you swap everything, which is a major difference. But of course you pay for that privilege; modular design has its costs.
Still, good on you for getting a cheap upgrade. No need to throw away a perfectly good laptop if you can make it work fast again with a new SSD.
Framework let you swap everything
I think there’s still a pretty big asterisk on that, because laptop parts are generally not built to be swappable… So I don’t think you can swap the CPU without the rest of the mainboard, and some parts like the CPU cooler are probably tied to the specific variant of mainboard and need to be swapped together if you want to switch CPUs.
They do let you swap out parts that are reasonably swappable, so it’s pretty much a guarantee you’ll be able to upgrade storage and memory, and even where you can’t swap to different parts they make sure you can replace broken parts more granularly, so it still seems like a good deal.
The logic board has the CPU built in, that’s true. However, the Framework 16 has a swappable GPU and all models make the ports independent of the logic board through a USB-C-based expansion module system. So that’s even a few parts other manufacturer might consider unreasonable.
(Also, to be fair, I forgot one other thing most laptops let you swap: The WiFi/BT card, if only because it’s cheaper to have that on a swappable module.)
Wow that’s an amazing amount of dust. I think that’s the most I have seen in a computer and my only source of laptop used to be old things from recycling centers
Could be explained by the fact that my favorite position to program is on my bed, like a teenage girl from a mediocre 2000’s movie writing in her diary. The laptop fans get a taste of all that good good bed sheet fiber.
My back hurts thinking about this.
Ah I see you keep your laptop well fed. I try to keep mine anorexic lol
If you’re a half-decent person you doged a bullet there:
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/14/framework_linux_controversy/
I think the issue is not having a desktop-type computer at all and having a tablet/phone that’s so locked down the kid isn’t given the opportunity to explore or troubleshoot.
Tinkering is how you learn to solve problems, which requires having something tinker-able without having to go down a hacky rabbithole.
I think the issue is not having a desktop-type computer at all and having a tablet/phone that’s so locked down the kid isn’t given the opportunity to explore or troubleshoot
True. That being said, I’m pretty sure that a Mac is roughly at the middle point between that and a Windows PC, with Linux users being way more tech savvy still.
In fact, so much exploration and troubleshooting being REQUIRED to make most if not all Linux distros do what you want is (along with game compatibility/availability) the main reason for many people who are sick of Windows to be hesitant to make the switch, myself included.
You don’t really need to tinker too much tbf, install distros like Bazzite and you have all done pratically
I’ve been told that exact thing dozens of times with different “just install it and it does everything for you” distro recommendations, and it hasn’t been the case with any of the ones I’ve tried.
I’m not saying that people are lying to me or anything like that, I just think that people underestimate how used they are to using Linux and thus overestimate how easy it is for people who aren’t.
Right now, I have Zorin OS on my laptop since that’s supposed to be THE easiest one for refugees from Windows to use, and while I’m liking it so far, I’m nowhere near being ready for it to replace Windows on my desktop yet.
I don’t even use Linux often, since my institution require me to run windows i use linux rarely.
Zorin OS has just a better ““marketing”” than other distros, the only plus it has is having a familiar GUI and a big community.
some features of bazzite (you can check everthing in bazzite.gg)
- Roll back: after every update the previous version of the operating system is retained on your machine. Should an update cause any issues, you can select the previous image at boot time.
- SELinux (a more secure version of Linux, it was originally made by both the NSA and redhat) with Secure Boot support
It’s more focused in gaming but it work well even in non-gaming situations
Also, it should be harder to break but i think you need to install apps from flatpak (a software store) instead of the package manager tho, i don’t remember well.
I don’t say it’s the easiest one, i just say it’s the one i suggest, do what you want, try what you want.
the only plus it has is having a familiar GUI and a big community.
Those are exceptionally good plusses, though.
In fact, it’s the number one and number two requirements for easing the passage between systems, which is why I chose Zorin.
Thought, those plus are more common than what you think (usually because making a good looking GUI is easy on Linux and because most of the distros are derivates of Debian, Arch, Fedora or some other famous distro) so yeah, i wouldn’t say it’s the best one for begginer, thought i admit it’s polished and i would probably use it
Seconding a rec for Bazzite, but please don’t make people think that distros this are a silver bullet. I’ve been running Bazzite for months, and while my experience is MOSTLY issue free, I did have to spend quite a while trying to figure out why certain flatpack apps refused to run sometimes on boot. Still don’t know what I did to fix my issue, and it’s working reliably, so I’m not going to touch it…
It’s not issue-less but it’s pretty much a “work out-of-the box” expirience , you will have 2/3 problems like in EVERY other OSes, you can’t say that you didn’t had some problems on Windows or macOS
Witnessed a radiology resident typing her password into a computer and for each uppercase letter she would press shift-lock, type the letter, then press shift-lock again.
I couldn’t figure it out until my mom pointed out she probably only ever used a phone or tablet.
Which is crazy, because I can’t imagine getting through high school, college, and medical school without ever working on a desktop computer.
Exactly.
A background of tinkering with stuff without fear of the consequences of breaking it (which is a common mindset mainly amongst kids and teens) is the difference between a tool-maker and a tool-user, IMHO, and thinkering is far more natural to start doing and to do much further with an open system than with a closed system.
the iphone was the beginning of the downfall
striping menue options down for usability and “natural gestures” like swiping caused a whole generation to be able to partake in internet discourse without having a basic understanding of how they got there
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Vic-20 here. What a time to be alive.
TRS-80 then IBM PCjr here. Both hand-me-downs though.
Mom wouldn’t let me on the 386 until I could touch-type and write a program in BASIC. She was a Cobol and IBM RPG programmer.
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I started on an Antikythera mechanism, you kids that started on a modern machine were coddled.
C64 gang, represent!
Seriously though, I feel like that generation of machines was the last time you could look at hardware and say “yeah, I understand literally everything about how this works” and that knowledge has made even some of my (tech sector) coworkers think I’m a wizard
I had a GUI - windows 3.11
But it was so slow. So I made my own gui/menu system that ran in dos. I was between 9-11 I reckon.
Not sure where that lands me on the spectrum of coddledness
Yeah, it was just MSDOS. I saw “Abort, retry, fail” so many times, and I didn’t even know what it meant because I was four and I just wanted to play Family Feud with my brother.
Are you joking? C64 was the bomb back in the day! My Atari and Amiga mates were enjoying colors and music and games while I had sat there on my colourless, mute PC. All I had was Flight Simulator 2 in black and white. And DrBrush for drawing in Hercules “graphics” mode.
Apple ][e was my first. We also had an XP machine for internet (Neopets) but I didn’t have to fight for turns on the Apple.
I had an Apple ][e I could use at school. It was preferable to the ][c for the same reason.
I know you’re joking but this is how a lot replies here feel. Kids don’t even know how to program using punch cards anymore smh.
40 years from now the newest generation will be saying “Grandpa doesn’t even know know what a Cyber Tibulator Strip is let alone how to use it. If you need him he’s out back yelling at clouds.”
Don’t get me wrong here, tech literacy is low but when has it not been?
If you’re using Lemmy there’s a good chance you’ll be excluded from the study. Some of the largest Lemmy communities are Linux related.
Upvoted from my iPhone
Good grief! The word is excluded. Holy shit.
probably a Windows user
Hot take: macOS, being Unix like, fosters more tech literacy than Windows.
It’s much better now with windows terminal and winget, but a decade or so ago even basic things like installing python and adding it to PATH were infinitely easier on Unix-like environments.
For those privileged to have programming classes, the first 2-3 sessions were the teachers going round doing tech support just to install python on shitty locked down Windows laptops.
Windows being terrible makes you learn a lot of stuff, but so much of it is untransferrable.
I started with DOS. then windows. I didn’t use Linux until I was in my 20s, and not heavily use it until my 30s.
I just started using a Mac for work because it’s “Unix like”.
Mac’s are fucked up man. I don’t know how anyone gets shit done on them. the UX is developed like it’s for stroke victims with permanent brain damage.
I would rather use W11 than a Mac and I fucking loathe Microsoft and their horrible AI bullshit.
This. So freaking much this.
Mac is unix in the same way that Android is unix or my car’s infotainment system is Unix.
Yes, there’s unix under the hood, but there’s such a bunch of garbage on top that the unixity really doesn’t help much at all.
I am still using windows 10.
Jokes on you i started on system 7
There are dozens of us!
My trajectory was win 3.11, then macos 7 & 8, then windows 98… Windows 7 > macOS again as a dev > Linux when I finally got to pick my own software and IT wasn’t what paid the bills.
Windows was always broken so you had to learn to fix shit
Mac never did quite what you needed so you had to work around stuff and try harder
… Next/Mac got me very literate with Unix
… Linux is just kinda what I know.
But Unix based macos really is an excellent os. It’s just a shame its so locked to their hardware.
I think this is pretty reasonable and shouldn’t be a hot take. IMO, what macOS does better is to provide a simple UI that protects less experienced users well enough from themselves while keeping developer tools accessible and close enough to standard Unix stuff. It’s easy to get into but not too hard to move past the basics once you need to. In Windows, I often feel like the opposite is true. The UI is a complicated mess of three different UIs that doesn’t even protect users all that well, and developer tools are often separate products with their own learning curve that are aggressively Windows-specific.
A mac is the only non linux machine I’ll willingly use if I didn’t have the choice of linux
There was a fairy large era of macs that were way more open to customization then windows. Probably still true because Microsoft has gotten a lot more aggressive about locking down their os and the average gamer has no clue how to install mods if it isn’t from the Steam workshop.
In a previous relationship I gave my partner a small tour of the terminal application preinstalled in her Macbook. She had no idea it was even a thing in her computer. The list of commands used was ls, cd, and on a whim I was surprized to find Emacs was preinstalled as well. Her parents saw literally everything I did and still told her I hacked her computer. 🙄
I started on Mac (the Macintosh Plus), then went to Windows, and now Linux (for about two decades by now). 🤷♂️ Work as a software engineer… Nothing to see here, folks.
I started on Mac, went to Windows, then Linux, then ChromeOS, and now back to Linux and Mac for work. I work as a web dev and my contribution to my team is my extreme ADHD
You guys are contributing to your team?
Try it sometime! It really hits them endorphins.
I do, occasionally. I came from a team where I was the top contributor and am now on a team where I’m just trying to keep up. I’m learning a lot, but it’s definitely been a blow to the ego.
Hang in there! I believe in you!
Very kind.
Technically started on Apple II at school, at home we first got a 286 PC compatible running Windows 3.1 and some version of DOS, then in 5th/6th grade had a little exposure to Macs at school before switching to schools where everything was Windows. Didn’t touch a Mac again until college and it was another 8 years or so before I got comfortable with them. Now I barely touch Windows and am starting to get into Linux and have my eye on potentially trying some variants of BSD also.
I started with a Macintosh Plus when I was 2 years old. 😅 Didn’t do much else than move the mouse around and played a clicking game where you clicked balls with numbers in sequence.
I’d take macOS over Windows anyday if those were my only choices. It’s UNIX so a ton of Linux knowledge is transferrable.
(At least starting in 1999, prior Mac OSes weren’t Unix based but still IMO pretty neat)
I think that being forced to learn about WINE at a young age may have been beneficial actually (if extremely unpleasant)
So unpleasant.
There are dozens of us
I remember when Wine was in alpha for twelve years (and then beta for three more). Was surprised to learn that it finally exited that stage, some time ago already.
As always, this is a relatively tech-knowledgeable platform. 99% of people didn’t know shit about computers before or after the advent of the iphone, and even before that, building a PC wasn’t on the radar for most.
OTOH fixing issues with computers, PC users would know way more than a Apple user because PCs had way more issues. Not really a flex, but certainly relevant to the discussion.
PCs had way more options, as it was an open hardware system sort of (any company could make the hardware). If your apple broke, there was just nothing you could do too.
Sure. That was the pro and con for PCs. You could do whatever with them, but it meant that in doing whatever there was plenty of opportunity to break things or discover incompatibilities. Apple otoh was fuck you, you’re only doing what we let you do. I despised the walled garden, so I’ve been PC/Windows/Linux forever.
Exactly, and I can’t stand the walled garden either ☺️👍🏻
If someone has a PC they may be more likely to use it to game and also to pirate games and mod games. That can actually lead to learning quite a bit about computers when it comes to the file system which lot of people don’t understand these days, and also following instructions when it comes to completing computer tasks. That sets a pretty good basic starting point. It can also lead to wanting to build their own PC and watch more tech related content.
So can push people from just a simple media consumption device to wanting to tinker.
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honestly i think part of the reason i’m a computer tinkerer now is my formative years were spent trying to run specific minecraft launchers, n64 emulators and other stuff on the family mac
Yeah the mac or pc part doesn’t really matter if youre curious and like learning. You can do a lot with mac. However on the surface I would say its a little more simplified.
used Solaris at 11
Plays factorio
Yeah I might be autistic.
Ummm how do kids turn out if you install Linux Mint on a cheap laptop and give it to them to screw around with? Asking for a friend.
My cousin became an IT tech. I set her up with Ubuntu on a cheap desktop when she was about 12.
One of us.
My 8 and 9 year old kids use xubuntu on a 2013 macbook air. They use it for writing stories, making a lot of pixel art with Piko Pixel, and some code block style programming with Lego Spike. They are learning about multi-user systems, file management, etc. I’m keeping an eye out for a cheap pc that can run Minecraft (lots of those right now since people are just trashing old win 10 machines) because the older kid wants to learn how to make Minecraft mods.
What about people who started on DOS?
They are either database administrators or completely oblivious to modern technology
Lies and slander.
I am a system administrator and a network administrator. I abhor database management tyvm.
Heh, me too. DBAs are to sysadmins what sysadmins are to devs
Or AmigaOS?
