It doesn't really have jack shit to do with gender in any way other than the historical imbalance in the IT space meaning the person here is more likely to be male (and frankly - that's changing somewhat, as well it should).
The same type of posts pop up for grandparents all the time, and kids, and aunts/uncles/extended family.
It's not about "controlling his wife" it's about doing literally the exact thing you wanted:
> "teach her best practices, from a place of love, to empower her."
That's literally this post. He's trying to make a tech decision he thinks is correct (whether it is or not is moot), when he's clearly been placed in a spot to make those decisions, since it seems like he's setting up the machines and making the purchases (and his first suggestion of "update to an ssd" was vetoed.)
He's then working to ease the pain points of that choice by asking for a more coherent and less jarring way to do it here.
Did he make the right choice? Who gives a fuck - that's a conversation for him and his wife. Is this post creepy? Hardly.
This is exactly what someone who is addicted to Windows would say.
I bought a Woot special laptop a few weeks ago and I was absolutely floored to see the number of ads in the default installation of Windows! (Not really, I've been randomly wandering back to Windows a few times over the last 20 years, and I'm mostly desensitized to it by now, but I still notice)
It came with Windows on it, and it came with thermal issues. As soon as I had it running for more than 10-20 minutes, the CPU (an 8-core) would top out at about 12%, limping along on a single core's worth, with no other visible indication of any problems.
I tried everything I could think of, including a new application of thermal paste on all the internal components, and basically everything short of sending it back all to no avail. But then I thought to install Linux... which actually allows the CPU to idle when you're not trying to do anything, and if there still remains any thermal problem, well, it's frankly undetectable to me while running Linux.
This is an anecdote, but I bought this laptop for my wife, (with Windows on it, on purpose, as I knew that's what she'd want) as a replacement for a more expensive laptop (which is not that old and also runs Windows, but is already "aging" (WTF?)) and it already feels like a piece of trash, until I remove the "virus."
I'm already Mr. Tech Support, there's no escaping it. The best practice to me is not to run spyware on your computer. This is something I'll be doing to empower her. She is a biologist and and ecologist, and she already started learning Git on her own to collab better with more HPC-focused data-science people. (I'm very proud of her, if that's not already obviously oozing out.)
This is exactly what a GNU/Neckbeard would say.
Addiction to an OS? Come on. It's not crack cocaine and it's not tik-tok. It's a tool that let's people do work and fun.
I'm a huge Linux nerd myself but computing for most people is best when it involves the least amount of friction and zero learning curve.
I tried migrating people to linux and it rarely went well:
"Oh yea, now we can't read your external HDD because that's NTFS and Linux kernel doesn't have drivers for that yet, we can add them manually", "Oh yeah, that tearing you see is because you need to enable tear-free in the config file, haha, don't worry, it will be smooth like Windows when we finally switch to Wayland"; "Oh yeah, your laptop's fans now scream when watching YouTube because Chrome doesn't have GPU acceleration by default enabled and your laptop has an Nvidia chip who's drivers don't play well with linux but don't worry, that's not Linux's fault, that's Google's and Nvidia's fault haha. The fix is quite simple you see, we just go in Chrome config flags and then to the Arch wiki and modify these command line inputs to ..."
She doesn't, that was where we started. She knows (thinks) she has to use it, but the things she is doing can all be done on Linux, and she is only ever complaining about the computer. RStudio Cloud works just as well on Linux.
What do you call it when someone has a thing they do every day for many years, in spite of the obvious drawbacks, knowing that there are well-trodden alternatives, and without ever having seriously considered trying the other options?
If it's not "real addiction," then it's definitely another word which I'd associate with unhealthy behavior.
I've been a computer people forever. I bought a $500 machine that is perfectly good, and there's no reason for me to send it back just because Windows seems to have an issue. It's less than 3 years old from the manufacturer, refurbished. There should be no problem, and without Windows there is no problem.
But we get people with replies like this:
> get her the best windows laptop you can afford, make sure it's secured properly with updates and such and that it "just works"
$500 is plenty. Why should I spend more than that on a laptop? (Hell, they gave me back $75 just to try applying the thermal grease myself, if I can save that kind of money by being resourceful, I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna show as many people as I can that they can do it too.)
By the way, I should have definitely laughed at GNU/Neckbeard. That one is going in my pocket for later... LOLOL
Can I have gripes about the quirks and how some things could be better? Sure. Is it worth throwing the baby with the bathwater and learning something entirely new? Highly unlikely.
This is exactly how I felt after about 20 years of using Linux since the age of 14. Windows 7? 8? 10? 11? No thanks, I don't want to learn it, I've already had 3.11, 95, 98, 2000, XP, I enjoyed it throughout my childhood, (and then I became a man and put away childish things.)
That's plenty of time for me to consider whether I really want to leave Windows or not, and I don't regret switching to Debian, it does basically everything I need. 20 years later, I've had lots of time to think about it, and I'm definitely still a Linux user. (And a Mac user... anything but Windows really.)
Most Average Joes that haven't had this Linux baptism through fire from an early ages definitely won't see eye to eye with you on the greatness of Linux.
They just want their known shit to work out of the box. They don't want to format USB sticks with ISOs ("I can't find any 'Linux', is Ubuntu 'a Linux'? What is an ISO?), format and portion their disks, install and learn a new OS, figure out which command line commands enable HW video acceleration in Chrome, figure out why their screen is tearing, figure out why the webcam now doesn't work, etc.
That's why Linux PC market share is still insignificant in 2022.
At that time, the main bragging right was at lan parties – I wasn't getting any tearing, in fact if I ran Quake 3 in Windows, there was a noticeable lag while the (whatever it was) was (doing something in the background) that was definitely not present on Linux.
Baptism through fire is a good way to put it. Back in my day, we had one-way cable modems and you still had to dial in for your upstream! It was on the ISA bus, have you ever seen an IRQ? trailing off...
I have a feeling that's not what you mean when you say gaming though
Imagine how obnoxious your position would be if you were a vegan or keto dieter trying to wean her off meat or carbs?
Funny, she is the vegetarian/keto and I'm for sure the one who's overweight. Maybe she should try this with me!
I'm not saying anyone must run Linux, but I am saying that people are resistant to change until you show them how easy it is, and what all they do have to gain.
And maybe it's not so easy, and maybe you're right. Not all things are for all people, some people might genuinely need some Windows software. But if you're a person who is interested in Open Source and using programming languages, you could do much worse than a Linux install (and I'd argue that Windows is squarely in the "much worse" bucket.)
Maybe OP's wife is not that person (my wife definitely is).
If someone was "weaning me off meat" by feeding me Impossible Burgers, I'd be all in.
The ads are terrible and the settings need some configuration for me too but thats a one time configuration.
Might have needed a clean Windows reinstall.
shrug I'd love to say it's working well for her, but we haven't really gone all the way down this road, I know it will work to use Linux, but it still sits on the shelf and she's still dealing with Windows, (on the more expensive slightly older laptop which also has problems.)
He's getting asked to purchase a laptop for her - that means this is a place where she's already deferring to his choices on tech (likely for good reason - he's probably the domain expert in the family, whether he wanted it or not).
> "she has a lifetime of legitimate experiences and is at the wheel of her ship"
I utterly agree - so she can go buy her own laptop and set it up herself if it's really bugging her. If she's defaulting to him for these chores... then she gets the output he gives her.
If you ask someone to buy you a clock and they buy you a watch because they think clocks are outdated and they prefer watches even though they know you prefer clocks. You would be annoyed.
If she knows what she wants - why ask him at all? Just go do it.
If she doesn't know what she wants - then be prepared to get his full input (in this case - new hardware plus try linux). Should she be able to ignore his input? Sure. She's a grown up, she can do the chore herself in any way she wants.
Basically - don't expect to force someone to be your free tech support because they happen to be your husband, and then also force them to do your tech support your way.
In the same way that you shouldn't trust a friend to get you "exactly the clock your want" if you ask for it for your birthday or christmas - a lot of times you'll get a watch instead, because it's close enough and they got to pick it using their own expertise.
You can make all sorts of assumptions about their relationship and whether this is a good idea or not, but we aren't them and we don't have the answer to that (who the fuck knows - it's unlikely - but maybe she'll end up loving it. Or maybe she hates it and divorces him. Or maybe she acts like a grown up and installs windows on it herself afterwards.)
You would only get a watch if the person is A is a jerk and thinks they know better or B they made an honest mistake or that was all that was available. If you don't understand that part then I don't think there is a need to carry on.
And that's the root of this whole conversation - she's asking for his help here because she thinks he knows better. So if she's dead set on avoiding getting that advice - Great! She can buy the computer herself. Like a damn grown up...
I'm also not going to say that he's making a great choice here - WE DON'T KNOW! Two weeks from now he might be installing Windows for her and apologizing for putting Linux on it...
I'm saying it's utterly inappropriate to judge their relationship and his post based on that assumption.
It's entirely fair to ask a partner to try new things - and it's NOT fucking malicious. It can be - if you do it all the time and it's not reciprocal - but it can also be a fantastic way to bond, try new things, and have new experiences. Or it can be a minor annoyance tolerated because they enjoy other aspects of each other.
To assume otherwise... is frankly a juvenile approach to relationships. Basically - you don't get to determine how they interact, and it's up to him (and his wife) to determine if this interaction is appropriate, enjoyed, or hated. It can be any of the above, and nothing in the post hints either way.
Would you think it condescending and a jerk move to ask someone to try a new food? Or a new book? Or a song from a genre of music they don't like?
This approach to helping people is kinda what others are trying to point out is problematic. It's either you do things my way or you get no help at all. A scenario you've probably experience. You're building something technical and run into an issue so you seek help and the people you ask prefer another technical solution and their only response is you should redo everything and do it their way and don't tell you how to achieve your goal using the technical solution you're using. That probably annoyed the hell out of you.
No. But if they say that they're not interested in trying that new food or book or music, I think it would be a jerk move to continue to try to push it on them.
A good relationship means "you're going to get it done my way" includes compromise and conversation. This one clearly already has - since the initial suggestion of a simple ssd upgrade was vetoed.
Is he making a mistake? Maybe - who gives a fuck. That's for him and his wife to discuss afterwards.
Why are you so eager to assume malicious intent here?