The only thing in Win11 user experience wise that absolutely drives me up a wall is the new right click menu forcing me to hold shift to get the usable menu instead of the "Win 11 is smart and this new menu UI is easier to use" menu.
Other than that, it feels like win 10 (and 7 for the most part) for anything else that matters (for a normal user).
All of that being said, yes, the experience of a naive consumer buying a windows laptop is awful, but not due to the OS itself, rather the amount of bloated useless shit vendors ship with the installed OS.
As the page notes though, the real problem for kids is the devices are of course locked down:
> Important: If you use your Chromebook at work or school, you might not be able to use Linux. For more information, contact your administrator.
> (in the traditional sense, not the modern security/jailbreaking sense)
As far as I can tell, the two senses have pretty much always existed side by side. Nothing traditional vs modern about it.
The hardware here is incredible, but it's crippled by not adequately supporting Linux, BSD, or any other properly open source kernel you can compile and install yourself. A good learning environment doesn't put up immovable barriers like "you need a kernel signed by apple", it lets you push away barriers when you're ready, like "Are you sure you want to turn off secureboot, or install your own secureboot keys"
Professional developers are not what this thread is about. It's about curious kids, about hackers, and that group does peek at kernel source code (as well as everything else).
I just don’t think this is what, like, nine-year-olds are looking for in a computer.
In any case, at least it’s good that they’re starting with macOS over Windows! Puts them on a good path to understanding that POSIX is the One True Paradigm and therefore makes them much more likely to compile their own kernel in the future.
My curiosity for all things computer related was boundless, but I eventually tinkered with Linux but only because I’d had been exposed to a *nix style command line from the comfort of an OS X desktop first.
By then I had started messing around with code but had only built toys and extremely basic tools and would’ve been lucky to write a moderately functional desktop program using high level libraries (which didn’t happen for several more years).
Writing drivers or poking around in kernel code was so far beyond the scope of capabilities at that point that you would’ve had better luck teaching your dog how to knit. I don’t think I could’ve had any chance at doing these things until at least my mid 20s.
I get the feeling a whole bunch of teenagers have written drivers to cheat in Fortnite/whatever other game - with that being said, probably not at 9 years old.
Yes they do in fact, it's called darwin XNU
Most people are using Windows or phones where that isn’t an option.
Yeah you can root or change the OS but that seems outside the spirit of the comment to me.
These are Macs. They run Xcode and you can develop apps for your iPhone for free with one.
Yeah you need to pay to distribute, but a computer to do it has never been cheaper.