Yeah. A typical non-tech person is just as likely to say their PC is running on Microsoft or Google. Maybe they'll say Edge if they are really knowledgeable.

While I don't disagree with this in principal, it's important to distinguish between stupidity and ignorance. Most people don't know about OSes because they've never needed to learn more than how to do basic tasks, and so are ignorant of how they work, what alternatives are out there, and why someone might choose one. This is very different to being incapable of those technicalities if shown a good reason to do so.

I always think about the effort to create a bear proof trash can in Yosemite that gave us the phrase “there is significant overlap between the smartest bear and the dumbest tourist”.

gotta add the babbage classic :

On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

written in holy C

And they don't even understand their phones.

One dude just got his phD in computer science and admitted to me he cannot even use his phone. Wish I was joking

I mean, computer science is basically the mathematics of computation. It's not like the people working on knot theory or topology are great with 3d art or knitting

Most cs degrees I've seen, including my own include an operating systems course.

"How a computer works"

It really depends what you mean, and at what depth; theres a tone of stuff in there. Even then I think your mostly wrong, you just notice/remember the ones who are inept at using their computer.

If you mean run program x on os y, well then sure

I work in the IT department at a university. Can confirm that many comp sci majors have no idea how a computer works, or even how to install an operating system. They sure know how to write code though.

"The average person probably only knows systemd and one or two generations of sysvinit" "and upstart of course" "of course"

The average user installs fucking TikTok on their computer

I wouldn't take a developer who can't write git commit from command line seriously

Working as a dev, I have the same experience. The few times I've tried to bring Linux up as a viable option to the OS we're all forced to use at work, and most of us hate using (Win11), there's little to no interest. There's a few Mac users on my team, but that's about it. I think it's that the majority of folks, even if they're working in tech, simply don't have enough of a reason to try something unfamiliar, which might cause them new and unknown problems, or require them to rethink how they use computes, on their own machines. Even though I'm pretty sure that most would prefer it, given some time.

Just show them where the web browser is and done!

My dad has been running Linux Mint for almost 10 years now and he doesn't know that LibreOffice isn't "Linux."

oh mine is a "dy"

Yeah but you're probably using a custom Linux distro (I forgot what it's called now) to investigate either a Windows or a Mac system because that's what everyone else has, and you're not investigating yourself.

I jokingly threatened to install Hannah Montanna Linux on my wife's windows gaming rig, and she said she wouldn't be mad.

If only that version wasn't deprecated.

B (Berkeley), S (Software), D (Distribution).

A Unix based OS, developed at Berkeley.

A separate family of operating systems. It's a direct decendant of the old UNIX. FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD are the most common distributions.

It shares a lot of the same userspace tools as Linux (the GNUserspace, if you will), so if you're used to the command line, a lot will seem familiar at a first glance. However, the underlying mechanisms can feel a bit strange at first once you try it out.

I used FreeBSD as my daily driver back in the day, but now I'm also on Mint, mostly because I used linux more at work.

I've been meaning to check out BSD these days to see how far it's come since I last used it 20ish years ago, I just haven't gotten around to it.

I also remember hearing someone say that there are two things from Berkley that messes with your head: BSD and LSD.

i am pretty sure quite few people would not notice at all if you changed their windows for kde, as long as the same icons were on the same place on desktop.