The indoctrination of windows is extreme. Windows is just as hard as linux, harder even with all the layers of obscurity.
And yet… linux is hard, and users decry RTFM as “not growing the userbase”
The indoctrination of windows is extreme. Windows is just as hard as linux, harder even with all the layers of obscurity.
And yet… linux is hard, and users decry RTFM as “not growing the userbase”
RTFM is not a working formula. Because most people skip reading the manual for one simple reason, the manual is hard to read.
I remember my early arch days when asking a question about an issue I’m having was always met with a wikipage I already read but did not understand.
Rather than pushing for a magic manual, the best is to provide sane default or point to tutorials.
The best is when people tell you to RTFM and the information you need just straight up isn’t there.
just google it and the google is just a reddit post that says [deleted]
Or “if you’re having trouble there is no manual, FAQ, or wiki, just join our discord troubleshooting channel” vomit
And after hours of troubleshooting, you give in and join the Discord where you’re promptly ignored.
Or if you’re really lucky, people are willing to help, so you spend hours more troubleshooting, often repeating many of the same steps, only for all of them to give up too. (As was my experience when I tried to switch to Linux Mint.)
What were you doing on mint that had that many issues? I am genuinely asking because I have always seen it basically be bullet proof.
Play audio through my mobo’s built-in 3.5mm jack (without a significant delay). For whatever reason, Mint just really didn’t like my mobo, and no one was able to figure it out.
Oh, I know this one! Make sure you’re using pipewire and use HDAJackRetask. You can reassign the ports to whatever, you can even swap mic and headphone if you want.
Thats really unfortunate. Hardware support on linux is really hit or miss and until it is seen as a worth while investment to make sure that products work well on linux by the manufacturers it will remain that way but I can not fault anyone for going back to windows when things on their system just will not work.
Or isn’t deleted but either has no replies or replies that didn’t help them either
Those cases where the users didn’t WTFM
It’s the same way you gotta ask if they turned it off and on again. Too many don’t even look up the manual, now yes. Some hostility is just plain hostility, but the phrase is there for a good reason.
Maybe if the people giving advice would RTFM, they’d know what isn’t in it.
That shit is the reason that I will never run vanilla arch again. So many people that are so sure that something that is not in the manual is in there for so many different questions.
Git gud
/s
man 1 git-gudPlus I don’t want to spend 30 minutes to wade through pages of documentation for a 5-word command that makes my speakers work.
Aaaand why is that? It’s hard to read because…?
We need individuals like you to help it out. It’s like wikipedia
It’s hard to read because people lack background knowledge. Man pages were horrible for my first 15 years or so.
Once you have the skills that you hardly need to read them they’re fine.
That’s why everyone wants to look it up on stack exchange, they want the answer, not an unending series of lessons
Man pages are still not great on Linux. Very few examples with common use-cases and explanations. I shouldn’t need to visit the Arch wiki.
OpenBSD man pages are a delight in comparison, and really all you need to learn how to manage the system.
tldris the application you need.They are hard to read because they are written to explain concepts to people who already understand them. Handy if you just need them for reference. Useless if you are trying to learn. Which is why RTFM is often bad advice
It’s hard to read because it’s a manual made for technical users.
On Linux most of the software is made by freelance developers who often forget that all users are not technical and even if they are they don’t want to be forced to interact with technical stuff. For the same reason I don’t want to daily-drive gentoo, sometimes I don’t want to read the manual.
I happen to be a contributor on multiple FOSS project and most didn’t have a docs directory in their repo or website, let alone an user guide. That’s fine for a CLI program to rely on wiki/manuals but graphical apps should have a user guide on their website. Working on documentation is a thankless job in FOSS spaces.
Then people need to be taught how to read better. Not Linux’s fault the education system was dismantled over the years.