The people I know who think of themselves as “bad with computers” are generally worried that they are going to destroy hardware, software, or data files if they make a mistake. They know enough to know that, in the abstract, they really can do severe damage with a few button pushes, but they don’t know precisely where the danger areas lie. It’s an area in which people have a strong incentive to pretend to know very little so they can more easily convince knowledgeable friends and relatives to help them.
My mother is one such person, and one thing that has helped her a lot was for me to set up an admin account on her laptop and to explain how she should always use her non-admin account, but the admin account would pop up when she needs those privileges. It’s a flag for her that, if she doesn’t get asked for her admin password, the most harm she can do is delete files, and even those might be recoverable.
The fear is well grounded. When I first tried to install Linux, I figured I was being safe by doing dual boot and only putting Linux on a tertiary hard drive rather than the main. (And so I’d access it by choosing to boot from that nice, modular component on startup.)
Result: Locked out of entire computer; cannot get past bootloader. Higher distaste for existence.
I did that once! Without the sudo, so it was even worse because I was logged in as root. Oops? Now every time I do anything as root I triple-check it. Destroying my system wasn’t really fun, but it taught me a really valuable lesson.
The people I know who think of themselves as “bad with computers” are generally worried that they are going to destroy hardware, software, or data files if they make a mistake. They know enough to know that, in the abstract, they really can do severe damage with a few button pushes, but they don’t know precisely where the danger areas lie. It’s an area in which people have a strong incentive to pretend to know very little so they can more easily convince knowledgeable friends and relatives to help them.
My mother is one such person, and one thing that has helped her a lot was for me to set up an admin account on her laptop and to explain how she should always use her non-admin account, but the admin account would pop up when she needs those privileges. It’s a flag for her that, if she doesn’t get asked for her admin password, the most harm she can do is delete files, and even those might be recoverable.
The fear is well grounded. When I first tried to install Linux, I figured I was being safe by doing dual boot and only putting Linux on a tertiary hard drive rather than the main. (And so I’d access it by choosing to boot from that nice, modular component on startup.)
Result: Locked out of entire computer; cannot get past bootloader. Higher distaste for existence.
I’d agree that many people have a learned helplessness when dealing with computers because of a fear that they can easily break their computer.
I disagree that really destroying your computer is a very easy thing to do (sans going into the BIOS or touching the actual hardware)
rm -r /
sudo rm -rf /
sudo rm -rf / &
It’s no fun if you can just C-c to stop it.
I get a creepy feeling just looking at that.
No kidding. It’s like saying ‘Zeeky Boogy Doog’ out loud.
I did that once! Without the sudo, so it was even worse because I was logged in as root. Oops? Now every time I do anything as root I triple-check it. Destroying my system wasn’t really fun, but it taught me a really valuable lesson.
Edit—please disregard this post
I had a boss who did that to an entire lab of computers just after a coworker finished reimaging them.
Yeah, but who’s going to accidentally install linux? ;)
It’s like falling and missing the ground. Happens all the time. For some reason people don’t let me borrow their computers anymore.
Video.
The ‘f’ switch helps!