Original Comic: https://thejenkinscomic.wordpress.com/
install gentoo
I installed Linux on my gfs (now wife) old laptop years ago when the begginger distrod was way less user friendly. When I asked on a forum for help it was just the sound of crickets. When she made her first post starting with “my boyfriend installed Linux and I don’t understand how to…” They fucking fell out trees to answer her questions
Let us know if she still needs help
No. But she loved ved the reply :)
lol bunch of thirsty incels.
Is your wife single?
Unhelpful Linux User Archetypes:
The Configurator: All problems are configuration problems. The fact that a user has a problem means they configured their machine incorrectly. All help requests are an opportunity to lecture others about configuration files.
The lumberjack: Insists on logs no matter how simple or basic the question. “How do I get the working directory in the terminal?” -Sorry, I can’t help you unless you post your log. “What does the -r flag do?” -You need to post a log for me to answer that question. “Is there a way to make this service start at boot?” -We have no way of knowing unless you post your log. When a user posts their log, the lumberjack’s work is done. No need to reply to the thread any further.
The Anacdata Troubleshooter: Failed to develop a theory of mind during childhood. Thinks their machine is representative of all machines. If they don’t have an issue, the user is lying about the issue.
The Jargon Master: Uses as much jargon as possible in forum posts. If a user doesn’t know each and every term, that’s on them. If you did not commit to mastering every aspect of a piece of software before asking for help, were you even trying to solve the problem?
The Hobby Horse Jockey: All problems are caused by whatever thing the contributor does not like. Graphics driver issue? Snaps. Computer won’t post? Obviously, Snaps. Machine getting too hot? Snaps. Command ‘flatpack’ not found? Oh you better believe snaps did that.
The Pedantfile: Gets mad because everyone asks their questions the wrong way. Writes a message letting the user know they asked their question wrong. Message usually appears within a minute or two of someone providing a solution to the user.
See most of these on the Arch forums
The Repeatophobic: If a question vaguely reminds them of a previously posted question, they become enraged and insist the new thread be locked.
It’s infuriating how many times I’ve seen a locked thread with no answer linking to a similar yet different problem that doesn’t solve my issue.
These types exist for most any technical problem. The last one is the whiny one who also slams someone with a solution they don’t approve of. Even if the solution satisfies the person asking for help or perhaps because it satisfies them.
So you’re saying that there are some asshats out there? Those are everywhere.
The open source community, and Linux community in specific mostly is a very positive and helpful bunch. I’ve been on IRC and fora for years and yes, yes, sometimes somebody says something negative, gee wiz.
So far the most negative types out there seem to be in this post all complaining about how negative everyone is while in reality it’s not that bad
Bonus points if the lumberjack doesn’t specify what logs they want or how to get them.
This is the year of the linux desktop
I’m a proponent of RTFM, (it’s there for a reason, it has a lot more thought put into it then some random response you would get on IRC or a mailing list, and it’s rude to ignore the effort the documentation author put into real documentation) but I always link the user to the appropriate documentation instead of just telling them off.
If you want to support that, a good first step would be to improve TFM, because much of it is far too dense to actually read. Technical writing, knowing how to summarize things through human knowledge, is a critical skill for tech businesses, and most open-source programmers lack it.
The closed-source devs I’ve worked with also lack it.
This is why the humanities are important.
Always be a helpful penguin
Yeah, I keep seeing this and it’s never been my experience in 20+ years of desktop Linux.
Yeah, every now and then there is the asshole and troll. Go to a supermarket and you’ll find them too, go to your job and you’ll find those too. I don’t call all supermarkets asshole conglomerates, it’s simply the world, there are asshats in the world.
I’ve talked directly to main developers of many systems like LVM, PHP, and so on who spent time to help me fix my issues. Who ever got to talk directly to an Apple dev or Microsoft dev?
It’s not just Linux, it’s like that with all open source. Yes, there are negative players everywhere, but mostly it has been a very welcoming and helpful group
I’ll second this. Maybe they’re coming from Reddit? I’ve seen some pretty awful screenshots from there. And I’ll also second the helpfulness of the FOSS devs - I’ve reached out to the OpenSSH maillist to try to better understand the functionality of cert auth and they were super helpful.
Agian, I’m sure there are asshats out there, maybe even just people having a bad day, but generally people in the Foss community are helpful and super nice. Just my experience
This kind of behavior mystifies me. I get that it can be frustrating to deal with lazy folks, but especially with how shit google/ddg are nowadays, when people are looking for help and are met with this kind of treatment it’s pretty discouraging! I’ve been an Arch user for about a decade, and sometimes I run into problems that should be googleable but aren’t.
It’s especially concerning, considering how tech illiterate the next generation is. They’re very used to walled gardens, and if they can barely manage a MacBook, they’re going to really struggle starting with things like the command line.
Lighting a candle leaves you with two lit candles. There’s no reason to gatekeep knowledge.
If 10% of newb questions were just answered plainly in forums then google would index those and these easy solutions would be actually google-able. Nerds gatekeeping basic info by forcing people deep into man pages to find the needle in the haystack argument that is used for 99% of commands surrounded by a bajillion arguments that are basically dev-tools used for bash scripts make adopting to a CLI mega frustrating.
Most forum advice is about obscure driver issues for some random piece of hardware or “help! update broke my shit” type of posts.
That being said, just yesterday I looked at the man page for gcc because I wasn’t sure how to use a specific option and it was very useful. Gave me exactly the info I needed.
Maybe there is some merit to simply reading the documentation instead of asking to be spoon fed… I’m prepared to be downvoted to oblivion for this opinion.
There is a lot of merit in reading man pages - as long as you understand what they are talking about. Something most newcomers lack. I’ve read more than one man page that was so poorly written that unless you were a top developer, I was worse off than before I started.
Technical writing is an art form and very few in the FOSS world, (and even the rest of the world), are really good at it. It always pays to be mindful of just how unskilled your audience is.
True but people need to know to look to the documentation, it’s not something we’re born with. People learn to ride a bike, to drive a car, use their TV, etc without reading much documentation. We should educate people on how to figure things out rather than shame them for not knowing as much as you.
Don’t assume everyone can learn as easily as you can or has a background that would facilitate their grasping of the topic. Here you are casually saying “just read the man page” and referencing gcc, it would take my mom a week of education to get to the point where she’d be able to understand what gcc even is and why it has a man page.
And if you don’t want to help them, ignore the noobs, don’t push them away.
to be fair, the documentation that came with products used to be alot better, Ive had plenty of “manuals” come with products now that just say how to start the device and follow a setup wizard.
I mean, if you are already know you’re using GCC, knowing to browse the manpage for info is easier.
The problem with manpages is, in my experience, they are vastly ill-suited for the “modern” / desktop-like workflow of the distros. They’re point is they’re not the tool for that, they are reference manuals focused on the tool, not training pamphlets focused on the use. Like, what is the manpage for “my desktop icons disappeared”? Even assuming there’s one. Or for “my desktop is in Italian but my start menu is in Swahili”? Or for “after video driver update and reboot my screen is monochrome”? Heck, for most of those even figuring out a proper info page (the “competitor” of man page) would be next to impossible.
So, there is of course merit to reading the documentation. But for that someone has to first isolate the workflow and write that documentation. I’m not interested in the man page for “steel” or for “lacrimals”; I need the usage pamphlet for “Slicing onions with a kitchen knife”.
I’ve found Lemmy’s Linux community to be extremely helpful I hope it stays this way
It’s one of the things that I like the most about lemmy over reddit. The reddit linux community was toxic, insular and gatekeepy, even as a moderately experienced linux user I had difficulty getting help.
“Learn how to Google noob!”
Fuck sakes, I just spent several hours deep diving forums and Web search results looking for an answer to my question, and the only thing I could find that was exactly my problem was concluded by OP editing their post to say “Ah, never mind, figured it out.” And not including the solution…
It should be legal to hunt that person down and clamp a lobster to their nipples.
Oh there’s a special place in hell, where Satan from the movie Little Nicky is, waiting for these people…with lobsters and a pineapple.
I asked about servers once and they told me don’t host a server under any circumstance.
“If you don’t know to do X, don’t even bother learning.”
“Don’t learn anything, just give up.” Great, thanks, guys.
probably because lemmy’s pretty small compared to places like reddit and because everyone sees the same content with the same sorting, places like reddit make a few “help” requests visible and make them feel unimportant
We should do our part in reporting unhelpful users. Especially those that recommend Arch or more advanced distros to beginners.
X is deprecated, you should have moved into systemd-Y
You should change to Arch, I don’t use X but Arch is better.
Oh fuck you… take your upvote and know that you have hurt my soul and I love you for it.
X is deprecated, you should move to Wayland.
You should use Wayland, not x
Don’t forget Pulse audio!
Pipewire’s the new hotness
If I want to run games in Steam on NVidia GPU, with KDE and Wayland, what distribution would you recommend?
Garuda. Gaming/perf focus, with lots of built-in niceties (like btrfs snapshots on upgrade, proton GE, etc)
I just use Debian, KDE is an option during install and I use it. However, my brain lacks wrinkles so I’m sure it could be “better” on a more purpose built gaming distro. Over the decades of on and off Linux use, I always end up on Debian because it feels like solid ground to me
Windows XP
Check out one of the Fedora spins if you want to go Wayland.
I have Fedora KDE Plasma 40 on a laptop with a nVidia chipset, (I need to have it defaulted to Nouveau and the base Intel chipset). Maybe by the middle of next month they MIGHT have something cobbled together to get a decently working experience for the majority of users. Otherwise, don’t be surprised if your screen flickers, has missing parts of your display, or just a black and blank screen.
Wayland and nVidia - two piles of stupid that are meant for each other.
Technically not a distro, but give Bazzite a try. It’s probably the most hands-off gaming experience on Linux. Valve employees also make contributions to it.
damn if this isnt an amazing format
What does he mean by X, x11 or xorg ?
Heh, i like that take more, I interpreted it as X as in a placeholder for any subject
How should he know? He’s a new user after all.
Don’t forget the “actually, it’s GNU/Linux” nerds
