Depending on his age that may or may not be acceptable. My parents used to have a charging station away from bedrooms. The rules was that tech went on the charger at a certain time.

Third party software can also use Windows update as I’ve done it in the past

You could ask him what he wants

Best way to engage kids in tech is to give them options.

I like Chromebooks

I would use one if it wasn’t a privacy and freedom nightmare. I think it would be cool if there was a distro that was rootless by design and unbreakable as possible

I like Chromebooks

I would use one if it wasn’t a privacy and freedom nightmare. I think it would be cool if there was a distro that was rootless by design and unbreakable as possible

Honestly that’s a pretty good comparison

Makes sense

I think the troll users are getting old and grey at this point. People people are willing to help.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Windows XP has higher market share than Windows 8 when you account for air gapped devices.

Every old iOT device seems to to run XP

My guess is that they are using a KDE distro that doesn’t properly package gnome stuff

That’s just a guess though

You might be able to do that with Windows Update

Last time I checked there wasn’t an easy alternative. Linux might work for some things but it isn’t straight forward to manage and maintain.

Honestly Active Directory is so underrated. I think having the ability to run all your machines Inna shared collective with group policies and high controls really helped Windows adoption.

Even today there isn’t anything quite like Windows polices. Sure you can get the same effect on Linux but it takes a lot more work and requires more scripting and customization. I think Apple and Android have equivalent management tools but I don’t really know how they compare in practice.

It is best to try and keep Geopolitics out of software

You can’t get rid of Windows as it is deeply entrenched and heavily depended on.

It is fun to talk to older people who have never used anything but DOS/Windows

They insist that they need a GUI as they keep trying to use CLI tools like it is 1980.

It depends on what you are doing

As it turns out, there are a lot of tools that work best on Linux because they were intended to be used on a Linux system. Same goes for Windows stuff that is meant to be run on Windows. You can make it work but for the most polished experience it is best to stick with something well supported.

Windows has the excuse of being preinstalled everywhere. It makes it very hard to break system or to use the system in a way not blessed by Microsoft.

Linux is fairly easy to learn and gives you lots and lots of power.

What tools?