What's the most common complaint I've heard about Linux?
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What's the most common complaint I've heard about Linux?Not the installation process.
Not finding a distro.
Not getting programs to work.
Not troubleshooting.
Not hardware compatibility.The most common complaint about Linux I've seen is this:
For a normal computer user, asking for help is just about impossible.They ask a simple question and:
People respond "Did you Google it?"
People respond "RTFM"
People get mad??? at them for making an easy mistake.We can't expect people to know to, or even know how to deal with any of that stuff.
Search engines these days are awful, manuals are hard to read for most people (especially stuff like ArchWiki), and normal people make mistakes we think are easily avoidable.
The solution to making Linux more popular is not ruthless promotion. The solution is to actually help the people who are trying to use it.
@Linux_in_a_Bit Manuals don't kill enthusiasm, assholes kill enthusiasm.
This kind of communication can be seen in any environment with systems specialists. -
What's the most common complaint I've heard about Linux?
Not the installation process.
Not finding a distro.
Not getting programs to work.
Not troubleshooting.
Not hardware compatibility.The most common complaint about Linux I've seen is this:
For a normal computer user, asking for help is just about impossible.They ask a simple question and:
People respond "Did you Google it?"
People respond "RTFM"
People get mad??? at them for making an easy mistake.We can't expect people to know to, or even know how to deal with any of that stuff.
Search engines these days are awful, manuals are hard to read for most people (especially stuff like ArchWiki), and normal people make mistakes we think are easily avoidable.
The solution to making Linux more popular is not ruthless promotion. The solution is to actually help the people who are trying to use it.
@Linux_in_a_Bit As someone who has been involved in open source for almost 3 decades, this is it right here. It's actually among the reasons I don't participate in open source. The communities tend to be hostile.
As I saw someone put it not long ago: If one is going to push someone to use linux, one needs to be prepared to be that person's tech support. If one is unwilling to take on this role, don't push people to linux.
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@Linux_in_a_Bit Asking for help with Windows doesn't really work much better. I think the problem is people in general, not Linux people specifically.
I'm on a educator edtech email list where at least once a year, without fail, someone complains about how many emails they get and demands to be removed from the list.
Or, they are polite and ask for help unsubscribing.
It often becomes a wave of people replying, also wanting to unsubscribe.
There is literally a small area at the bottom of EVERY email explaining how to unsubscribe and giving a link to click to unsubscribe.
The problem is usually people.
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What's the most common complaint I've heard about Linux?
Not the installation process.
Not finding a distro.
Not getting programs to work.
Not troubleshooting.
Not hardware compatibility.The most common complaint about Linux I've seen is this:
For a normal computer user, asking for help is just about impossible.They ask a simple question and:
People respond "Did you Google it?"
People respond "RTFM"
People get mad??? at them for making an easy mistake.We can't expect people to know to, or even know how to deal with any of that stuff.
Search engines these days are awful, manuals are hard to read for most people (especially stuff like ArchWiki), and normal people make mistakes we think are easily avoidable.
The solution to making Linux more popular is not ruthless promotion. The solution is to actually help the people who are trying to use it.
@Linux_in_a_Bit Thank you, I have been reading this thread with interest,as a Linux N00B. I like your final couple of lines.
I have a couple of decades working in IT.
Reading the Fine Manual is a solution if you have read the manual from cover to cover and comprehend the contents. It is hard to find a solution to your problem in chapter 19 when the manual is assuming you have the knowledge from the previous chapters 1-18.
Asking for help. Firstly, and I am suffering with this myself, you cannot ask a sensible question if you don't know what it is you are asking for. I've recently had problems in setting up an external drive for back-ups. I went through all the forums before I discovered it was a permissions thing - I think.
Secondly, answer givers, don't always respond to the poor question you asked but give you the answer to a question they think you asked. Also, the response maybe at a technical level beyond that of the person asking the question. One of my stumbling blocks, now, is understanding how to carry out even basic functions in terminal. I am scared to ask questions right now.
What, am I doing about my lack of knowledge. I've got as far as chapter 2 in the fine manual. I now know I'm am definitely not in Kansas anymore
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What's the most common complaint I've heard about Linux?
Not the installation process.
Not finding a distro.
Not getting programs to work.
Not troubleshooting.
Not hardware compatibility.The most common complaint about Linux I've seen is this:
For a normal computer user, asking for help is just about impossible.They ask a simple question and:
People respond "Did you Google it?"
People respond "RTFM"
People get mad??? at them for making an easy mistake.We can't expect people to know to, or even know how to deal with any of that stuff.
Search engines these days are awful, manuals are hard to read for most people (especially stuff like ArchWiki), and normal people make mistakes we think are easily avoidable.
The solution to making Linux more popular is not ruthless promotion. The solution is to actually help the people who are trying to use it.
@Linux_in_a_Bit one hack I found was not to ask how to do something, but where to find an answer in the manual.
Often the people who normally would go rtfm can't find it either and someone actually gives the answer. -
What's the most common complaint I've heard about Linux?
Not the installation process.
Not finding a distro.
Not getting programs to work.
Not troubleshooting.
Not hardware compatibility.The most common complaint about Linux I've seen is this:
For a normal computer user, asking for help is just about impossible.They ask a simple question and:
People respond "Did you Google it?"
People respond "RTFM"
People get mad??? at them for making an easy mistake.We can't expect people to know to, or even know how to deal with any of that stuff.
Search engines these days are awful, manuals are hard to read for most people (especially stuff like ArchWiki), and normal people make mistakes we think are easily avoidable.
The solution to making Linux more popular is not ruthless promotion. The solution is to actually help the people who are trying to use it.
Who are normal computer users? This is a genuine question. Don't forget that non-normal computer users don't magically know the answers to all your questions. They search, read the ArchWiki, and draw on past experiences.
#linux
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What's the most common complaint I've heard about Linux?
Not the installation process.
Not finding a distro.
Not getting programs to work.
Not troubleshooting.
Not hardware compatibility.The most common complaint about Linux I've seen is this:
For a normal computer user, asking for help is just about impossible.They ask a simple question and:
People respond "Did you Google it?"
People respond "RTFM"
People get mad??? at them for making an easy mistake.We can't expect people to know to, or even know how to deal with any of that stuff.
Search engines these days are awful, manuals are hard to read for most people (especially stuff like ArchWiki), and normal people make mistakes we think are easily avoidable.
The solution to making Linux more popular is not ruthless promotion. The solution is to actually help the people who are trying to use it.
@Linux_in_a_Bit I'll be honest...as a complete 100% Linux user now, I put it off for decades because of being crapped on as a newbie. The advent of Mint finally let me make the switch and still get work done while I figured things our for myself. That, and never looking at Reddit for advice.
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Who are normal computer users? This is a genuine question. Don't forget that non-normal computer users don't magically know the answers to all your questions. They search, read the ArchWiki, and draw on past experiences.
#linux
@nawanp @Linux_in_a_Bit i found out that somekind of limit is: have you ever changed the devices operating system? There are a lot of people who have never opened BIOS or UEFI to change boot settings. Installing new system is not hard these days. Click Ok and move on right? But that seems to be some form of devision of "user category"... if that made any sense ?
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What's the most common complaint I've heard about Linux?
Not the installation process.
Not finding a distro.
Not getting programs to work.
Not troubleshooting.
Not hardware compatibility.The most common complaint about Linux I've seen is this:
For a normal computer user, asking for help is just about impossible.They ask a simple question and:
People respond "Did you Google it?"
People respond "RTFM"
People get mad??? at them for making an easy mistake.We can't expect people to know to, or even know how to deal with any of that stuff.
Search engines these days are awful, manuals are hard to read for most people (especially stuff like ArchWiki), and normal people make mistakes we think are easily avoidable.
The solution to making Linux more popular is not ruthless promotion. The solution is to actually help the people who are trying to use it.
@Linux_in_a_Bit some of the techbros also have wildly-wrong ideas about how guys on github actually document their code, oe executables.
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What's the most common complaint I've heard about Linux?
Not the installation process.
Not finding a distro.
Not getting programs to work.
Not troubleshooting.
Not hardware compatibility.The most common complaint about Linux I've seen is this:
For a normal computer user, asking for help is just about impossible.They ask a simple question and:
People respond "Did you Google it?"
People respond "RTFM"
People get mad??? at them for making an easy mistake.We can't expect people to know to, or even know how to deal with any of that stuff.
Search engines these days are awful, manuals are hard to read for most people (especially stuff like ArchWiki), and normal people make mistakes we think are easily avoidable.
The solution to making Linux more popular is not ruthless promotion. The solution is to actually help the people who are trying to use it.
I spent years doing linux support, as a job and as a hobby. I may be old and tired, but I am still here and happy to help. I will continue.
Dealing with assholery is difficult.
Both to repress it within oneself, and to figure out how to prevent assholes from playing their disruptive, destructive role.
This is true in many fields.
But we have an obligation to others, to treat them well and make sure that others treat them well.
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What's the most common complaint I've heard about Linux?
Not the installation process.
Not finding a distro.
Not getting programs to work.
Not troubleshooting.
Not hardware compatibility.The most common complaint about Linux I've seen is this:
For a normal computer user, asking for help is just about impossible.They ask a simple question and:
People respond "Did you Google it?"
People respond "RTFM"
People get mad??? at them for making an easy mistake.We can't expect people to know to, or even know how to deal with any of that stuff.
Search engines these days are awful, manuals are hard to read for most people (especially stuff like ArchWiki), and normal people make mistakes we think are easily avoidable.
The solution to making Linux more popular is not ruthless promotion. The solution is to actually help the people who are trying to use it.
@Linux_in_a_Bit Oh, shaming people into using Linux, trolling, laughing at them and being an arsehole to new users does not help?
That's certainly news for some noble knights fighting the "good cause" here.
Just be helpful and nice to each other.
If you have nothing helpful to say, don't say anything.
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@deathkitten @CedC go for it, the notion that an LLM has an internal representation of *anything* is, um, crackpot at best tbh
@deathkitten @CedC did you find those papers mate?
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What's the most common complaint I've heard about Linux?
Not the installation process.
Not finding a distro.
Not getting programs to work.
Not troubleshooting.
Not hardware compatibility.The most common complaint about Linux I've seen is this:
For a normal computer user, asking for help is just about impossible.They ask a simple question and:
People respond "Did you Google it?"
People respond "RTFM"
People get mad??? at them for making an easy mistake.We can't expect people to know to, or even know how to deal with any of that stuff.
Search engines these days are awful, manuals are hard to read for most people (especially stuff like ArchWiki), and normal people make mistakes we think are easily avoidable.
The solution to making Linux more popular is not ruthless promotion. The solution is to actually help the people who are trying to use it.
@Linux_in_a_Bit
Lots of interesting replies here - some that are encouraging, some, well, not so much. I have been wanting to take the plunge for over a year now, but have zero skills.
Now I have an old laptop which I will play with first, and if I brick it I’ll leave my pc alone. -
@Linux_in_a_Bit
Lots of interesting replies here - some that are encouraging, some, well, not so much. I have been wanting to take the plunge for over a year now, but have zero skills.
Now I have an old laptop which I will play with first, and if I brick it I’ll leave my pc alone.@ThorsdaysChild @Linux_in_a_Bit feel free to ask for help (though I dunno how efficient it'll be over mastodon
) -
What's the most common complaint I've heard about Linux?
Not the installation process.
Not finding a distro.
Not getting programs to work.
Not troubleshooting.
Not hardware compatibility.The most common complaint about Linux I've seen is this:
For a normal computer user, asking for help is just about impossible.They ask a simple question and:
People respond "Did you Google it?"
People respond "RTFM"
People get mad??? at them for making an easy mistake.We can't expect people to know to, or even know how to deal with any of that stuff.
Search engines these days are awful, manuals are hard to read for most people (especially stuff like ArchWiki), and normal people make mistakes we think are easily avoidable.
The solution to making Linux more popular is not ruthless promotion. The solution is to actually help the people who are trying to use it.
@Linux_in_a_Bit That's not my experience. I first tried Linux (Zorin
in 2014 when XP went EOL. I then tried Ubuntu Mate but settled on using plain Ubuntu (LTS) for 8 years till 2022 when I returned to Windows (10 now 11). I never saw or read any manual, but the support from the Ubuntu One community was outstanding. ItsFoss was also extremely helpful. If they ever fix the Snap package manager I might return.
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@deathkitten
You are going to make me soud like an AI fan, which is not the case, but your statement is incorrect.Yes AI is a prédiction engine, but so are we.
If you make a llm play chess, which is not what it has been trained for, we now have proof that it _does_ create an internal representation of the board and its pieces event if it is not supposed to "know" the rules.
1/2
@CedC sounded like an AI fan in your first post. Block.
People need to be able to trust each other to get and give technical help that can affect quality of living.
Trust is broken when someone in the conversation tries to promote chatbots and bullshit coding programs in lieu of the understanding, sympathy, and patience requested in the top of the thread.
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What's the most common complaint I've heard about Linux?
Not the installation process.
Not finding a distro.
Not getting programs to work.
Not troubleshooting.
Not hardware compatibility.The most common complaint about Linux I've seen is this:
For a normal computer user, asking for help is just about impossible.They ask a simple question and:
People respond "Did you Google it?"
People respond "RTFM"
People get mad??? at them for making an easy mistake.We can't expect people to know to, or even know how to deal with any of that stuff.
Search engines these days are awful, manuals are hard to read for most people (especially stuff like ArchWiki), and normal people make mistakes we think are easily avoidable.
The solution to making Linux more popular is not ruthless promotion. The solution is to actually help the people who are trying to use it.
@Linux_in_a_Bit The biggest problem with getting people to use linux is people like you pre-emptively yelling at all linux users to never suggest anything or try to help.
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@deathkitten @CedC did you find those papers mate?
This is a good start:
A general-purpose language model is capable of playing at a fairly good level (>1750 Elo) by exploiting its native capabilities, as Matthieu Acher shows on his blog:
https://blog.mathieuacher.com/GPTsChessEloRatingLegalMoves/ -
This is a good start:
A general-purpose language model is capable of playing at a fairly good level (>1750 Elo) by exploiting its native capabilities, as Matthieu Acher shows on his blog:
https://blog.mathieuacher.com/GPTsChessEloRatingLegalMoves/LLMs can develop internal representations that enable forms of emergent reasoning, even if imperfect:
• Othello-GPT: the model reconstructs the state of the board without explicit supervision, see https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.13382
• Chess & LLMs (2024): GPT-4 achieves ~1700 Elo with structured prompts, see https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.15498 -
What's the most common complaint I've heard about Linux?
Not the installation process.
Not finding a distro.
Not getting programs to work.
Not troubleshooting.
Not hardware compatibility.The most common complaint about Linux I've seen is this:
For a normal computer user, asking for help is just about impossible.They ask a simple question and:
People respond "Did you Google it?"
People respond "RTFM"
People get mad??? at them for making an easy mistake.We can't expect people to know to, or even know how to deal with any of that stuff.
Search engines these days are awful, manuals are hard to read for most people (especially stuff like ArchWiki), and normal people make mistakes we think are easily avoidable.
The solution to making Linux more popular is not ruthless promotion. The solution is to actually help the people who are trying to use it.
@Linux_in_a_Bit this is a good chance for the LUGs (Linux user groups) to start a public help desk kind of thing.
There are LUGs in nearly every city all over the world (except perhaps DPRK) and in many towns. But often they are suffering from the deep niche nerd factor, discussing the ugly nitty gritty of packaging or highly specific server questions, wrapping and unwrapping docket containers, k8s, etc, stuff that a homey migrating away from MSFT doesn't (yet) really care about.
Adding a helpdesk in the "Linux for Dummies" style would be a good start. #EndOfTen is a very good example.
Ping @xtaran and friends.
