this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2024
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As someone who is way into the idea of Linux, wants to switch, and is very gun-shy about the million little programs and extensions I might not be able to replace, let me tell you what is required of anybody who is actually genuine in their desire to see Linux gain the traction it deserves:
Don't ever tell anybody to read the manual again. Just answer the god damn question. It's good when answers to basic, common problems are peppered around the internet like that; it's dumb and wrong and weird to think of it as a thing to be avoided. If you'd like to put a link to the part of the manual where the questioner could have looked to find it, that's cool, too. Don't just leave the link--there's a good chance they didn't understand it and that's why they're asking. Maybe they just want a person-answer instead of a reference-manual-answer, and it's good when the answer exists in both forms. Every answered question is a contribution.
I would go even further: the version of reality where Linux beats Windows and ushers in an era of community-centric open source dominance is populated by a Linux community that considers "rtfm", "pebcac", etc to be borderline bannable offenses. If you are a small, weak person, and want Linux to be your way of thinking you're better than other people, you'll drive question-askers away, back to Inferiority Land, using your knowledge to dunk on them instead of help them, and call it a win. These are the ugly bridge trolls, who may as well be paid Microsoft employees, keeping people away from your community, and a serious change of pace might yield much smoother adoption. At the very least, the community owes it to their own work to see how much smoother.
As someone considering the switch seriously, the knowledge that I may have to deal with people like that is absolutely, 100% a factor, and I am someone who has no qualms about telling someone on the internet to fuck off, so it's gonna be more of an issue for many others who are more conflict-averse.
The Linux community needs to take very seriously whether it actually wants increased open source adoption, or if it wants to remain a tiny minority so that it has a nice, large majority to feel better than.
Without offenses but it's important to read instructions for anything in this life, the wash machine, robot cooking, your daily medication, etc., all of them have instructions.
Most people that says "read the documentation" is also tired of people that can't read instructions how things works, and in this open source world everything minimum popular is well documented.
I feel Windows users lacks many documentation and people are used to click to .exe that claims to do what they need to do, or they just follow some random user on a forum.
When someone asks me to teach them to learn to programming, I tell them to just read documentation. No need to pay for extra courses or YouTube videos, most of the time you can learn it better and up to date if you go to the documentation.
Then, after you did the proper search, it would make sense to open a post asking for help to gurus, telling them the steps you followed providing context and logs, if you don't do that, most experts would just ignore you if you can't spend time reading docs, they won't spend time solving your issue normally.
Even home appliances don't come with the full spec technical manual. They come with the user manual so you'd know how to use your appliance, not how to fix your appliance (with the exceptions being some easy to fix user errors). When people get technical errors on their home appliances they call a technician to fix those errors, because most people lack the technical knowledge to fix things themselves. And I imagine it's the same for you. I'm pretty sure you don't fix your own car. Now imagine if you went to a mechanic to have your car fixed and they say "Just read the fucking manual and don't waste my time". What are you going to do? Read the manual that you didn't even know existed until that point and you'd first have to spend some time actually finding the manual (because some of those technical manuals are a fucking pain in the ass to find, if they're even readily available), or find another mechanic that would fix your car? What if all the mechanics tell you to go read the manual? How much of your own time would you be willing to invest into fixing an issue you didn't want to fix by yourself in the first place? What if someone offered to replace your entire car for free? Would you still spend time fixing your car or would you go "fuck it, I just need it to work"?
And that's the average Windows/Linux user. They just want an operating system that works. They don't want to understand all the technical stuff that goes on under the hood and when something breaks they want "a technician" to give them a quick solution, because knowing the inner workings of Linux is not a priority for them. Maybe they're the car mechanic that would fix your car and they've spent their time learning the inner works of a few dozen cars. People focus their time and attention on different things so getting angry at someone not wanting to learn Linux is like a car mechanic getting angry at you for not wanting to learn how your car works or a personal trainer getting angry because you don't know how your own body works etc.. Just because you know how Linux works does not mean everyone should know how Linux works.
More or less is what I was saying.
I said that you should pay the professional instead.
Depends on what you buy there is more or less doc, things I often read is what to not do to not break it and how to get it ready and "running" correctly, as I would do with a microwave or to put air on my car wheels (I always open the book to read the correct values of air bar pressure for the wheels).
Most Windows users neither want to know the inner working of Windows, they pay experts to fix issues, or they click .exe files.
I didn't say that, I said that they need to get used how Linux works, because most people are used to Windows, and they all expect Linux to work like a Windows. But I know that I know a lot about Linux without asking anyone, just reading wiki, docs, git projects... some blogs or even YouTube videos. And now, as experienced user for more than 10 years with Linux distros, all this is really easy, I often do pretty amazing stuff as hobby at home and all that by reading stuff on internet how to do it. Thanks to my skill of reading docs, I am working with people with university degrees with the same salary/benefits as me, but I do not have studies more than the mandatory. If you are not into computers, you can keep using Windows or try to learn how Linux works to get used to it. The problem is the marketing, I'm sure all of us had a Windows machine much before we touched a Linux, rarely a person starts using their first computer with a Linux distro.
Summary: Expect a Linux guru to tell you to read the documentation as a car mechanic would tell you to do the engineering degree to fix your car.
If you have someone close to you that knows what happens to your car, and they tell you how to fix it, and it works, congratulations, the same would happen if you need to fix your printer drivers. But that person won't tell you how to fix your car motor engine (I mean more complex component), the same happens with the Linux guru.
🫤 Sorry but I don't really see the problem here more than the capitalism system that we have. Microsoft will never allow Linux to be popular, that's why 99% of computers comes with Windows, the money rules the world.