I'll skip linux part because it goes nowhere without considering that specific case with someone on HN who failed. But doesn't your last sentence involve circular logic?
Well, I invite you to watch out for the linux comments next time such a topic comes up.
As written, my last sentence is indeed circular, and poorly phrased, yes :)
I was trying to say that this topic shows the skill useful, if not essential. What I said was that my opinion is clearly my opinion!
If you can't install linux in 2017, you can't really consider yourself technically able.
I said nothing about getting every piece of hardware going. I said nothing about tuning anything, I said nothing about resolving issues or fixing things yourself.
If, between the big distros (and particularly ubuntu) you can't even get it installed in 2017, when linux in various forms is so widespread, and the installers are really not much more complex than the windows one, you have problems. I've watched linux installs go from hideously complex beasts invokving typing in monitor tolerances and manually selecting arcane package-sets to try and make anything work to something supremely easy. Are you really going to argue that installing Ubuntu on generic hardware is sooooo difficult we shouldn't expect someone who is supposedly into tech and a capable programmer to be able to click through an installer? Really? Because to me that's an expectation on a par with writing fizz-buzz,the lowest possible barrier to entry.
The parent rant is trying to say that kids today don't need hex, and that it's a fuddy-duddy old man skill reserved for those who grew up coding in assembly on 8-bit processors. As this very topic shows,I don't think that's the case.