I am an older folk. You know, we've been using computers since the seventies. Not only do I know why Office 2016 doesn't work, I know quite well why it doesn't work. I also know how my hardware works, quite well. If I need to, I'm even comfortably modifying much of my software. I even know why, and how, to compile a custom kernel.

These older folks built the very things you used. As for the "definitely not going to understand" bit, there's a not insignificant chance that I understand it better than you.

Surely you realize you're the exception, not the rule.

There are a lot of us and the statement was "definitely not going to." It's not my fault that the post contained absolute statements.

Ok? And there's "a lot" of people in wheelchairs who mountainclimb... from the perspective of the 5 people who do.

It's immature word games at best, and insecure egoism at worst, to act this way in the face of overwhelming rhetorical truth. The vast majority of "old" people had zero use for the tech as we know it in their daily lives for most of their lives. As such, most of them have no idea what is going on.

This is common sense, well understood fact.

Yay! Ageism!

Again, anecdotal. You're an "older folk", talking on Hacker News. If I asked most older folk, or most any folk in general. They wouldn't have a clue about anything of what you just typed. I deal with end users all day. Most don't know copy and paste exist, or shift select, or how to add a printer automatically, or how to get to anything that isn't a silly mapped drive, or how to get to an internal website without a shortcut on their desktop, or "where did the internet go?" because the blue e isn't there. The vast majority of people, even ones who have been working on computers their entire life, are absolutely, undoubtedly clueless.

I'm glad you're capable, but please be realistic.

You may wish to edit your previous statement so that it doesn't say definitely. Even the missus is comfortable in Linux-land. She's not technical, even a little.

She's definitely technical, way more than the layman, if she's comfortable managing ANY desktop computer. Vast majority of people I interact with sit down, barely remember their own login password, and launch a single web app from a shortcut on their desktop. Outside of that, there is zero understanding.

I'm going to ask that you read this. It's potentially long. Please, do read this. It may very well change your views. I don't normally try to change views, but this is a time when I think I may be able to do so - as I can give some information.

I suspect you're colored by your biases but I'm not an expert in the soft sciences. I'm not sure who you consider old people, but many of us have been using computers since we actually had to make computers do what we needed - often with programming for our own specific needs.

I'm working really hard to be polite. I'm kinda tired of the generic statements about old people and the assumption that we're not technically competent.

Now, I'd like to take a moment to say that we both may have different ideas about what is, and isn't, old. Frankly, I consider anyone over 55 years of age to be old. (I'm well past that, if you're curious.)

We designed your Internet, wrote the programming languages that power your computer, determined the state of individual electrons so that we could make a CPU as you know it, and wrote the very mathematics that you base your works on today.

On top of that, we weren't unique - but stood on the shoulders of giants.

I'm going to reveal a bit about myself - if you don't mind. Do you travel? If so, you're probably doing so (albeit by extension) based on my work. I'm a mathematician and if you've ever dealt with traffic that's modeled (be it pedestrian or vehicular) there's a good chance that it was based on, or advanced by, my work.

That's right... Every day you drive to work, you're relying on my work. Specifically, I hold a Ph.D. because I advanced the art of mathematics in regards to working from the initial state - and assuming imperfect knowledge. If you've heard of chaos theory, I built based on that.

Now... To get back on topic, I hated computers. I hated them because I had to make them do what I wanted - I had to develop a means to use this calculating machine as I wanted. They didn't have stuff like downloads at your nearest URL.

You made a comment about the missus. She's a soft science major who worked for humanitarian goals. She's not even remotely technical, and not even more than a layman. It's not my fault that you've assumed the position where they're appliances and decided everyone who is old is unable to understand them. You're wrong.

That's pretty strong, for me. In short, you're wrong. I don't care who the "vast majority of people" are that you interact with. We call that selection bias, and probably more. I interact with (and I'm VERY much retired) people who used to work for DEC - designing and physically building modems. They are in their late 70s.

If the vast majority of old people you interact with are incapable of a bare minimal level of understanding, pick new people to interact with. I went to university with some of the founders of what you call open source - and my first attempt at BASIC was a fine example of open source programming.

I'm not special. I'm not unique. I pretty much HATED computers and only programmed because I had to. I only learned to understand because I needed to. There are millions of us.

Again, you're WRONG. We "older folk" may actually not only understand the technology, we understand why it is the way it is. To make a generic statement about all older folks, more so with a "certainly," is... Well, I have no way to put this? It's ignorant. You can pick one of two paths. I will leave that to you.

Very insightful, thanks. It's indeed time to realize that present day old people are actually those who built computers, not the ones who saw their kids tinker with them.

Also, being 35, I must say that I find retired people way more deep into technology, especially internet, than my generation. It's very common I talk with previous school friends and they say they don't have any social profile on the internet. The reverse is true for retired people, it's rare I hear them saying they don't have a least a facebook profile. But here too, I guess it could be "just the people I see".

Regarding how old people are seen, I wonder if there is not something larger at play. When I was a teenager in the 90', I was seeing old people as physically weak and mentally tired, and thought it was just the way it is. This summer, I went to the birthday of a friend's mother, and was shocked when I discovered she turned 70. And then, I realized her husband, their brothers and sisters etc were all about the same age. And here is why I was shocked : they were doing great. Actually, really great compared to what I remembered about that age, to the point it couldn't be just me growing older and having a more nuanced vision (like: most of the 90' 70ers were handicapped in a way or an other, almost none in the ones I saw at that birthday). And then, it stroke me : people in their 70 during the 90' were people who fought WWII.

Could it be that we tend to see older people as less potent just because we were used to old people who had been greatly diminished by a massive and painful conflict?

I don't know. When I was young, WWI vets still roamed the Earth.

And did you have the same feeling with them than I had with 90' old people? That is, seeing most of them sick or handicapped to the point they could not achieve much?

Obviously, this would not be proof : even if we accept the hypothesis that present day old people are indeed more capable than past ones, and it's not just an interpretation from me, for all we know it can be just healthcare progress or easier lifestyle. It would be interesting to find out how old people were seen before world wars, if they did any better than their children who fought them. The fact that such event could have lifelong impact does not seem far fetched, though, it could be an interesting hypothesis to test. If anything, it could help prevent preconception against old people who did not go through such events.

Again, regardless of any age, the subset of people familiar with computers is exceedingly small. Yes, there are people in every age bracket who are computer wizards. The majority of people are clueless. I know you're completely hung up on the age thing, because I mentioned "older folk", but I would also argue a greater percentage of "older folk", compared to "younger folk" don't know anything about computers. This will obviously shift, as the computer generation turns into "older folk". Suggesting that any reasonable percentage of people around, before the proliferation of the personal computer, are adept to using them, is just silly.

I get it, you know computers, other people know computers. Most people don't. That's the only point I was making. Thank you for your work in traffic modeling. The rest of the humans on Earth(I've traveled most of it for business), generally can only handle checking their email, if it's already been setup for them.

And, yet, billions of people check their email without assistance. Repeating your opinions doesn't make them more valid.

Neither does yours. You're getting off topic, this is about using/managing/setting up Linux as a desktop. Not checking Gmail. Moving on from this topic, have a good one.

I have migrated my parents from a slow laptop (windows XP) to a miniPC with ubuntu gnome. It was easy to say that there were less differences between their old "word" and open office than between their old "word" and the new one with the ribbon. It is 4 years ago. The main used applications are Chrome, thunderbird, microsoft powerpoint viewer (using wine) and the default video and picture viewers. They receive many mails per days containing powerpoint files (probably like many old people). The powerpoint viewer is free and works very well (slow start) on ubuntu. You just need to spend some time for file associations.

See, all of that setup, and configuration. For what? Just to have your grandparents running Linux? Trust me, I attempted this multiple times, no one wants to deal with it if something goes wrong, or setting up special configs, or using an emulation layer just to view a powerpoint. I applaud your patience, but I've got better things to do. With that said, I dropped an iMac on my fathers lap ten years ago, and without any instruction, both of my parents were up and running, and they used Windows their entire life.