4 ms·

Yeah; switched my 50 year old mom to Linux three years ago. People still acting like every distro is Gentoo.

• contingencies 10y ago
  To be fair to Gentoo (which has it's share of problems[0] for sure)... it is still far more organized than older distros (Slackware, etc.) in terms of packaging, automation, currency, cross-compilation, security and community. Also, it supports more platforms and features. For Linux all around, the bar has steadily raised. The complexity of a modern system is staggering, Gentoo is the only platform I know that goes the extra mile to allow you to modify everything without sinking in a swamp of maintenance. Yes, there's a convenience cost - but there's a long term cost to not bothering that other platforms extract from you over time. [0] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=597804 https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=597804
  • lightbulbjim 10y ago
    Its rolling release nature can make it feel overwhelming if you don't surf the bleeding edge. I ran a Gentoo desktop back in the day and if I didn't `emerge world` once a week or so I'd find myself sinking into that swamp of maintenance that you refer to.
• lisivka 10y ago
  Switched my 68 yeard old mom to Linux five year ago. No complaints since that, except for video (so I upgraded CPU) and printer (cable or port is damaged, switched error handling to «cancel» instead of «pause»).
  • lightlyused 10y ago
    I feel old now. Running Linux since 1995, everyone in my family uses it.
    • lisivka 10y ago
      I saw Linux for first time in 1997 (SuSE 5), running it since 1999, so yes, you are old, thus I'm still young.