5 ms·

Ubuntu Causes Girl to Drop Out of College [video] (2009)

24 points by antfarm 6y ago

antfarm 6y ago
This is from 2009.
- tutfbhuf 6y ago
  Reposts of older content happens quite frequently on HN.
  - mattowen_uk 6y ago
    Might need a [2009] tag on the title tho. To be fair, back in 2009, Linux was nowhere near as compatible with Windows apps as it now is. The counter argument is tho, once she got back online, Open Office would have been good enough to do her school work in.
    - lasagnaphil 6y ago
      Probably she would open one of the Word files on the online school website, and see that the formatting is broken enough to be unreadable...
    - m-p-3 6y ago
      It depends on the complexity of the document, and we're talking OpenOffice from 2009, which wasn't as advanced in term of compatibility.
  - andreareina 6y ago
    Given that 'antfarm is the submitter of the story, I don't think they're complaining that it's from 2009, but clarifying, i.e. they forgot to put [2009] in the title.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ksaho 6y ago
If we are going with humour posts I just want to add this link as a reply: https://youtu.be/WRWrmT0ovPE https://youtu.be/WRWrmT0ovPE
- mewpmewp2 6y ago
  Woah, that's fucking brilliant.
AntiImperialist 6y ago
If you think this news was randomly picked by reporters and has nothing to do with Microsoft's PR machine, you have a lot to learn.
- imtringued 6y ago
  ksaho's comment links to a video where the Youtuber heavily implies that the reporter just wanted to meet a young and helpless woman and be a hero in front of her.
  - AntiImperialist 6y ago
    Ethan doesn't know them personally. He's just speculating for comedic effect. I remember VERY SIMILAR stories that started circulating in the news when Chromebooks started to take off.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
fleetingmoments 6y ago
Omg, is that how Americans pronounce "Ubuntu"? It's Oo-boon-to!
- garmaine 6y ago
  No, it’s how ignorant newscasters read a teleprompter. Nobody familiar with the distro says it that way.
dkdk8283 6y ago
Reminds me of a old tech support story where someone called support when the power was out and the rep said “Do you still have the box? great, return it. You’re too stupid to own a computer.”
karmakaze 6y ago
There's nothing funny about this story. It's very plausible and could still happen today to anyone not aware that a PC laptop might be sold with something other than what they're used to. It's really a story about how crappy Dell was, first putting a 'Recommended' tag on an enthusiast configuration, then support tricking the consumer to keep at it until it was too late to RMA. On top of all that, it makes both Linux and Dell offering a Linux configuration seem bad and that's the worst part from my perspective.
- lrvick 6y ago
  The issue was with a consumer unwilling to learn how to use a tool that was totally adequate for the job. This same story could of been made about an Apple computer the windows internet setup cd didn't work on. I once had to go use a library computer to learn how to get the computer I had at home online before. There is always a choice other than whining to get other people to solve your problems for you.
lrvick 6y ago
I too dropped out of school because of Linux. Mandrake quickly led me down the rabbit hole to Gentoo where I got to learn how operating systems actually work hands on by tuning and building my own from source. My college was still trying to teach me that no computer needs more than 64MB of memory (misquoting bill gates), and the CS teachers didn't understand computers enough to use anything but windows XP. I dropped out and continued learning software engineering, sysadmin, and security engineering on my own. Three topics no college had any current or relevant courses on at the time. Dell was right to steer people towards operating systems that give users freedom. A subset of those users will take advantage of that freedom to learn far more about technology than their coursework will cover. Will that make them different? Will being different require them to solve more problems themselves and rely less on others? Yes and Yes. That is a feature, not a bug.

24 points by antfarm 6y ago

antfarm 6y ago

This is from 2009.

tutfbhuf 6y ago
Reposts of older content happens quite frequently on HN.
- mattowen_uk 6y ago
  Might need a [2009] tag on the title tho. To be fair, back in 2009, Linux was nowhere near as compatible with Windows apps as it now is. The counter argument is tho, once she got back online, Open Office would have been good enough to do her school work in.
  - lasagnaphil 6y ago
    Probably she would open one of the Word files on the online school website, and see that the formatting is broken enough to be unreadable...
  - m-p-3 6y ago
    It depends on the complexity of the document, and we're talking OpenOffice from 2009, which wasn't as advanced in term of compatibility.
- andreareina 6y ago
  Given that 'antfarm is the submitter of the story, I don't think they're complaining that it's from 2009, but clarifying, i.e. they forgot to put [2009] in the title.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ksaho 6y ago

If we are going with humour posts I just want to add this link as a reply: https://youtu.be/WRWrmT0ovPE https://youtu.be/WRWrmT0ovPE

mewpmewp2 6y ago
Woah, that's fucking brilliant.

AntiImperialist 6y ago

If you think this news was randomly picked by reporters and has nothing to do with Microsoft's PR machine, you have a lot to learn.

imtringued 6y ago
ksaho's comment links to a video where the Youtuber heavily implies that the reporter just wanted to meet a young and helpless woman and be a hero in front of her.
- AntiImperialist 6y ago
  Ethan doesn't know them personally. He's just speculating for comedic effect. I remember VERY SIMILAR stories that started circulating in the news when Chromebooks started to take off.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

fleetingmoments 6y ago

Omg, is that how Americans pronounce "Ubuntu"? It's Oo-boon-to!

garmaine 6y ago
No, it’s how ignorant newscasters read a teleprompter. Nobody familiar with the distro says it that way.

dkdk8283 6y ago

Reminds me of a old tech support story where someone called support when the power was out and the rep said “Do you still have the box? great, return it. You’re too stupid to own a computer.”

karmakaze 6y ago

There's nothing funny about this story. It's very plausible and could still happen today to anyone not aware that a PC laptop might be sold with something other than what they're used to. It's really a story about how crappy Dell was, first putting a 'Recommended' tag on an enthusiast configuration, then support tricking the consumer to keep at it until it was too late to RMA. On top of all that, it makes both Linux and Dell offering a Linux configuration seem bad and that's the worst part from my perspective.

lrvick 6y ago
The issue was with a consumer unwilling to learn how to use a tool that was totally adequate for the job. This same story could of been made about an Apple computer the windows internet setup cd didn't work on. I once had to go use a library computer to learn how to get the computer I had at home online before. There is always a choice other than whining to get other people to solve your problems for you.

lrvick 6y ago

I too dropped out of school because of Linux. Mandrake quickly led me down the rabbit hole to Gentoo where I got to learn how operating systems actually work hands on by tuning and building my own from source. My college was still trying to teach me that no computer needs more than 64MB of memory (misquoting bill gates), and the CS teachers didn't understand computers enough to use anything but windows XP. I dropped out and continued learning software engineering, sysadmin, and security engineering on my own. Three topics no college had any current or relevant courses on at the time. Dell was right to steer people towards operating systems that give users freedom. A subset of those users will take advantage of that freedom to learn far more about technology than their coursework will cover. Will that make them different? Will being different require them to solve more problems themselves and rely less on others? Yes and Yes. That is a feature, not a bug.