Original Comic: https://thejenkinscomic.wordpress.com/
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.
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
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.
We should do our part in reporting unhelpful users. Especially those that recommend Arch or more advanced distros to beginners.
I installed Linux on my gfs (now wife) old laptop years ago when the beginner distros 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
lol bunch of thirsty incels.
Is your wife single?
Let us know if she still needs help
No. But she loved the the reply :)
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.
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.
See most of these on the Arch forums
Bonus points if the lumberjack doesn’t specify what logs they want or how to get 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
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
I will, as soon as Pop!_OS moves to it.
It’s kind of stereotype, i’ve always find the help i needed on Arch, but yeah there’s bad guys everywhere
The quickest way to get the right answer in any community, in my experience, is to provide the wrong answer. People will come out of the woodwork to correct you.
Yup. This is known as Murphys Law
No, that’s the one where “everything that can go wrong, will go wrong”
You’re thinking of Godwin’s law
No, that’s the one with nazis.
You’re thinking of Moore’s Law
No. That’s the one where:
7 cups green cabbage , finely shredded (Note 1) ▢1 medium carrot , shredded (1 1/2 cups) DRESSING ▢1/2 cup Hellman’s mayonnaise (or other whole egg mayo) ▢1/2 cup sour cream or yoghurt, full fat is best ▢1 1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar (or sub with white wine vinegar) ▢2 tsp Dijon mustard ▢2 tbsp white sugar ▢3/4 tsp celery salt ▢1/4 tso black pepper
You’re thinking of Cole’s Law.
I like arch because it reminds me the most of windows
You must’ve gotten some bad weed friend.
deleted by creator
I’m not really into cancel culture but I can see that happening.
There is a single command on windows to install any software with using just words (like yay?)
There are administration tools available for system deployment but they’re generally closed source and limited to the software selection available.
Unsure about command line, but PC Decrapifier is useful for removing preloaded software.
Ninite is useful to install software in batch.
Ninite can also install Malwarebytes, which is quite useful.
Between Windows Defender and Malwarebytes I generally don’t recommend anything else. And then Malwarebytes, which is extremely effective for free, is the only security suite worth paying for if you want to “set it and forget it”.
On the Microsoft side of things, a great deal of software can be deployed via command line.
It’s possible to build an offline installer for Office and Office 365 for example via the office deployment tool.
Additionally, it looks like if you pay for Ninite Pro, it supports command line.
https://ninite.com/help/features/switches.html
Hmm TIL.
Ohh, i wanted to write just TWO words 😂😅 that two went missing
choco install widgetThere’s winget but it has almost nothing on it and no matter how new the iso it typically doesn’t work out of the box and you need to update it through Microsoft store. Tried using it instead of downloading stuff off the Internet. Only the most popular apps and not even all of them are there which is pretty annoying. It’s also so much slower that most package managers and tries the Microsoft store first unless you specify.
It’s an improvement but it’s not fixing any of the real issues with modern windows.
The original
appgetwas better, but Microsoft basically killed it.That sounds like an interesting read. Before I switched to Linux I thought of making an app that watches driver websites and either notifies or pulls updates for you to install.
Short of some sort of user maintained database of download links and support page links/product number (for database lookup), I don’t think I could have scaled it at any real capacity. I wonder if GitHub frowns on a project using it as a big database of yaml or json files.
There was a program called Secunia that did exactly this. It was amazing. Sadly they were acquired and ended the free offering.
An important context that’s missing from the blog post is Keivan Beigi is one of the core contributor of Sonarr, a popular app in the *arr scene. Microsoft probably realized it late after offering him a job, got cold feet and ghost him.
😂what a fun fact
Winget.run
Does this match your description?
😁that really looks very similar to yay
?
Arch has the best documentation. Most documentation is either too dumbed down or too advanced. Arch documentation splits the difference and gives you basic information along with general context that opens your curiousity about other aspects of the system without overwhelming you.
If you pull on a thread you want to find a rope instead of getting blasted with a firehose.
I try to help an be supportive to newcomers. There’s always someone who thinks shaming someone for using non free software or something like an Nvidia GPU will change their mind. There’s also people who disagree with you and respond to every comment but don’t offer a real solution in return. I love the people who say it works on mine without explaining what they did to make it work on their system.
Buy a different GPU
I’ll let myself out
He said X, not Wayland.
Ah yes, a perfectly normal thing to do after I’ve previously spent thousands on my NVIDIA GPU and am just getting into Linux. Love this comment when it comes up.
This is complicated. Firstly outside of Wayland Nvidia works pretty great and has worked great for me 21 years on the other hand the amount spent is kinda irrelevant using different hardware is often actually the correct advice. Often though the logical move is use Windows on your effectively Windows only laptop and if you want to run Linux buy something compatible next go round.
Some hardware just isn’t supported and given hostile to indifferent oems it will always be so
I agree, and it’s been a fine experience with nvidia on Xorg. “Buy new hardware” is not what someone getting into Linux should hear though if we want to increase the number of Linux users.
If your hardware isn’t supported what are people supposed to say? Gosh I’m sorry volunteers didn’t donate more free work to make that shitty laptop work let me now assemble a strike force of expert programs to crack that problem by next week? Labor is a finite resource especially free labor.
I mean, you wouldn’t buy a sports car and then a month later post to a forum asking questions about how to tow a 40 foot camper with it, would you? You would research this stuff beforehand, or deal with the fact that it’s not compatible for that job. We can’t put Nvidias thumbs into a thumbscrew and force them to offer more Linux support, so that’s what we’re stuck with.
The problem is that a lot of users aren’t building a new machine for Linux, but converting an existing Windows laptop or desktop. In my case, I’d already bought an Nvidia card about a year before I decided to switch to Linux for gaming. Not ideal, of course, but it work a good 95% of the time and I can’t really afford to get a different card right now. I’ll definitely keep it in mind for my next pc upgrade, though.
It isn’t wrong though. Don’t give Nvidia your money
