this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
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Duality of Linux community. On the one hand people can be extremely helpful and nice; I'm way more likely to find a solution to a problem, niche or otherwise, for a Linux system than Windows. On the other hand the community can be unbearably toxic and gatekeep like no other.
My feeling so far is that there are few meaningful generationalizations that can actually made about the online Linux community. It's a very diverse set of individuals. To me the gatekeeping elitists seem more like a vocal minority, but I'm sure that varies a lot by distribution and forum.
The main thing I encountered has been gatekeeping the OS itself. I.e. you have to be a Linux nerd/expert to be allowed to use Linux. I personally haven't seen that type of gatekeeping for other OSes. It's literally just an OS. There are dozens of distros one can choose from. There's something for everyone. I'm sure it's just a vocal minority, but they do exist.
I've pretty much seen the opposite. Windows fanboys love to come up with excuses for why they COULDNT POSSIBLY switch to Linux but most of the Linux users I've seen are constantly trying to convince people that it's NOT that intimidating and that you DON'T need to be a super genius or nerd to use it.