Today at the grocery store a sweet older lady approached me and asked if I knew anything about computers. I said yes I do, and she produced a mouse saying that her son set up Linux mint for her and she was wondering if the mouse was compatible. It needed kernel version 2.6 or newer so I said that the mouse should work, guessing mint itself was probably newer than that kernel. Happy with my answer, we chatted a little, then she thanked me and left.

It was a nice experience, so I thought I should share!

  • RustedSwitch@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    114
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    2 years ago

    I don’t have any reason to not trust OP, but the likelihood of this conversation happening at ALL seems incredibly unlikely. Never mind that it is described as successful.

    If true, this is amazing.

    • ladyanita22@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 years ago

      I mean, it could be possible that the box of the mouse said something like kernel 2.6+. Considering that is older than 2011, OP’s answer was absolutely spot on.

    • KIM_JONG_JUICEBOX@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 years ago

      Why is this sweet old lady carrying a mouse around the grocery store asking about decades old kernel versions lol

      • TeddE@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        With the exception of a handful of titles, this is a quickly evaporating problem, due to Valve pouring millions of dollars into the development of the Steam Deck (motivated by wanting to separate themselves from being dependent on their computer Xbox/Microsoft).

        Valve recently passed 11,000 playable or verified titles for the Deck, and since the Deck is Linux, that means 11,000 playable games in Linux (with priority on the most played games)

      • WldFyre@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 years ago

        Do most newer fighting games work on Linux? I usually play multiplayer games and the anti cheats usually don’t work on Linux, but I’m not sure how modern fighting games are set up.

        • Rabu932@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          2 years ago

          I play Strive, SF6 and BBCF fine on my desktop linux PC. Had some technical problems with sf6 when I had a Nvidia gpu, but it wasn’t related to anti cheat. Works great with AMD.

  • pythonoob@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    49
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    2 years ago

    Today at the grocery store a sweet older lady approached me and asked if I knew anything about computers.

    Next on things that totally happened today…

  • Leviathan@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    30
    ·
    2 years ago

    Before I decide whether this story is real I need to know what OP looks like that some lady singled him out in public to ask a Linux related question. OP, do you wear a wizard hat in public? Were you buying Doritos and Mountain Dew? I must know.

  • ZeroEcks@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    2 years ago

    I did once have a very not technical mate ask for some help with their laptop, and it was randomly running edubuntu? I was like yeah no worries I got this but why TF are you running linux, they didn’t even really understand, apparently some random friend had set them up with it because they didn’t want to pay for windows lol.

    • Cornelius@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      2 years ago

      edubuntu

      An education focused Ubuntu distro, weird. Also getting into Linux because it’s free is a great reason to get into Linux, if you get comfortable with it now it can help you in many STEM careers in addition to your own needs and proposes.

  • pedalmore@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    2 years ago

    This is both very likely true while also being the peak male Lemmy user fantasy that will confuse future alien archaeologists the most. Thanks for sharing!

  • thepoaster@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    I worked retail in electronics for quite a while and all the linux people I encountered were turbonerds for the most part. Thankfully I think that is changing. I imagine this lady had one of her family members set her up of course.

  • JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    2 years ago

    Assuming this story is true, Linux is going to be a nightmare for that woman. It’s come a long way, but it’s still not as dead simple as it needs to be for non-technical elderly people.

    • xtapa@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      2 years ago

      tbh: she probably clicks on the thing that says “INTERNET” and thats it. I’ve been setting up a few computers in my family for people 50+ and they mostly don’t even know the name of the program they use and mix it all up. I then just install a program and prefix the shortcut with the service. Like “MAIL Outlook”, “INTERNET Firefox” so they know where to go.