Remember when DOS was limited to 640kB because they couldn’t imagine anyone needing as much as a megabyte? Good times, good times.

I went through half a dozen distributions back in 1999-2003, ended up in fedora. New releases twice a year keeps it at the cutting edge, which is helpful with the work I do. Likely as not things break with a new release, but usually fixable without too much trouble. For the last computer upgrade, I tarred my home directory and extracted it on the new machine, went better than I expected. I’ve got a couple of old computers sitting around, can’t bring myself to toss them in the trash.

A friend bought himself a Framework laptop, it was lighter than I thought it would be and was running Linux. When the keyboard goes, just replace the keyboard, there are 178 options. the whole thing is modular. I will likely go that way if I buy another laptop.

Ten years later my company shifted me to Windows and I stayed on Windows because of jobs and I didn’t want to pay extra for Macs.

In the 2000s I started programming for the iPhone on iOS Mac. By then the Mac UI had mutated into something different and for me unpleasant.

Now I’m weary of all the Windows spying, ads and upsells. I’m shifting gradually to Linux Mint.

It healed.

I had a Mac for 4 years, used it every day, and hated it the whole time. I don’t intend to go back.

This laptop goes for $589 on Amazon today, which is not bad considering the usual Apple premium. However, the features are all skimpy — 13″ screen, 8 GB RAM, 256GB SSD. It will do the basics. It’s marketed to college students and those on a budget who want a Mac.

IMO one is better off buying a refurb MacBook Air.

I took it to a tech at the local university. He said it was impossible to diagnose it if there was no life. I took it to another tech — same diagnosis. Three days later it started working. I had not charged it in the interim, or done anything else to make it work. Just one day it stopped and a few days later it started. After it started I took it back to the university technician to see if he could figure out what was wrong. He said he could diagnose the problem if it was working. I pointed out the Catch 22 nature of his two replies three days apart. He didn’t know what Catch 22 meant. But he did say my computer should be good for another 10 years. I told him at my age that was unnecessary and asked if I could get an advance partial refund. He didn’t think that was funny either.

So much for my recommendation for Mac computers. And the sense of humor of the younger generation.

They aren’t black sheep, I’m just worried about (both of) their career choices. And grandpa was an avid pilot too, but not one that did it for a living!

Horse hockey. They break just as much as any other computer.

– Your IT guy with 25 years of experience supporting Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and Linux.

I will allow that their issues tend to be less catastrophic (but that’s even more annoying….) than on a Windows system, but I am currently sitting next to a stack of 7 MacBooks that are broken beyond repair. And about 20 Windows machines too, accumulated over the course of a couple of years since we did our last “Greentech disposal.” 😉 And all this from a 180-headcount small business that only has 12 Mac users and the rest on Windows.

But still…. “Macs just work” is as big a myth as “Windows always breaks” or “Linux is for advanced users only,”