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we need to be better than them

Wrong, Linux need marketing. If we weren’t doing it right then Linux wouldn’t be the most important distro on all world, even your router, car, smartphone antennas and most of the things u see when walking on street uses Linux. If you are saying the problem are those that doesn’t know how to search or use a computer, the problem is there, those people not learning correctly, as what you been saying “they don’t search for “beginner’s guide to (tool)”, let a lone a professional to teach them, they search for “vague terms describing what I want to do in non-technical terms”.”, this particular phrase can be applied objectively to the people and not the system, as it would happen on Windows if they were using it, right? (that’s why Windows users has more virus, it’s easier to write a blog to run a .exe to solve your problem and newbies will do it and get infected) So who needs to do it better? I don’t think the Linux community should do it better or anyone should tell them to do it better, if you think Linux community needs something, do it or help to do it, but don’t tell them “you should do it better” while is a system based on trust and contributions, and the biggest and most important system in this world.

There are many distros trying to make it easy for people, improving the “User experience”. I love KDE and as a user experience, I feel it’s the smartest and decent desktop environment that actually exists, Windows misses the features and speed of KDE (I can even access to my smartphone storage with Dolphin + KDE Connect), while with MacOS… MacOS lacks much more, you can’t even grid windows on corners, WTF…, and that’s a nice user experience? People got marketing and started to use it to learn how it works, MacOS is an awful system, GNOME is x100 times better.

Sorry for the late reply.

They don’t know what a command line is, they don’t know what a text command is, they know nothing of what we take for granted.

As I said, because Linux is not popular, it’s hard to know someone close to you that knows Linux to help you.

Now, with your example that you give here, let’s say you want to learn how to use the Windows PowerShell things. If you don’t have someone close, you would look for a professional to pay, if you don’t want to pay, you would check for a YouTube guide and there are full of guides about it.

If you want to do the same with the Linux terminal, is the same exact phrase: “let’s say you want to learn how to use the Linux terminal things. If you don’t have someone close, you would look for a professional to pay, if you don’t want to pay, you would check for a YouTube guide and there are full of guides about it.”

Most of the people wants to play on their PC and don’t want to mess with Linux, the people I know that doesn’t play on their PC are still using the Linux I installed to them. And your example is something easy, and there are many guides on YouTube and blogs about it.

If someone responds with a “rtfm”, should be because the question is about something complex not a common user do, what common people do on their computer it’s all on YouTube guides.

I think those people that kept with Linux are those that doesn’t play games or doesn’t reject the idea from the beginning (denying learning something new).

Telling people to start out with easy guides is good, but redirecting further questions to docs and git pages builds a wall.

But there are hard and easy guides, just go to the easy guides. The times someone said to me to read the docs, they were right. Often when I want to start a post asking for help or reporting an issue I realize that issue has been reported already or documented before I finish writing it, because I do my searches while I write my issue adding context of it.

If your skills aren’t good for that guide, start with something simple, I don’t know what kind of issue happens that what you are explaining.

Why should I do the reading for someone without pay? Because I can, I trust my understanding and I want to help them.

I do help anyone, no matter if they use Android, Linux, Windows, Apple… The best way to help them for me is to sit behind them and tell them what steps to take, often they ask me what to do, and then I tell them to read what is on the screen, the app window or the popup, and here I say, “just read, what does it say?” and the text they read is often the response to what they want to do.

this whole conversation isn’t about my personal learning

Sorry, I will use “a person” when trying to make examples not related with you.

If you don’t care

I’m super obsessed with Linux, I always tell people to use Linux, I try even the older people to get into Linux, I tell friends to install it and I try to help them. I’m really obsessed with Linux system, I really love it, and it hurts me when people just gets scared when I mention Linux (because that happened to me, some people don’t want to hear the “Linux” word).

public image of “complicated”

I think that’s what I was talking about Microsoft never going to allow to Linux be popular, they just want it to be a solution for programmers, they don’t want people to see Linux for a daily OS. The marketing and mass media is the main issue, if more users uses Linux, more companies will focus their apps for Linux. Until then, we need to read git source pages to see if they made the app for us (anyway, Wine should be able to run it if the app doesn’t have many requirements).

isn’t just acceptable, but the norm

It is possible to buy computers with Linux OS already installed, so you can just open the browser and search what you want to know what to do on Linux, for example video editing, you can use Kdenlive and many YouTube tutorials for Linux and you would do it also if you had Windows OS, unless you paid for a teacher, but when someone never touched a Windows, normally they need to seek for tutorials or guides, Windows and Linux has, but Windows is limited and Linux allows you to do much more.

whole point of FOSS to help each other out for free

The “F” in FOSS stands for “Free” and refers to free as in freedom, not just “free as in no cost.” You can commercialize your FOSS projects without problem, the whole point of FOSS is the freedom.

More or less is what I was saying.

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?

I said that you should pay the professional instead.

Even home appliances don’t come with the full spec technical manual.

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).

inner workings of Linux is not a priority

Most Windows users neither want to know the inner working of Windows, they pay experts to fix issues, or they click .exe files.

Just because you know how Linux works does not mean everyone should know how Linux works.

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.

Hello, you might be interested to this post I loved and enjoyed to read: https://www.arscyni.cc/file/take_my_money.html

I don’t get now where you want to go now. If you want to know about computers then read, if not… just keep using things that marketing sells you. If you want to ask without reading, then better pay for a professional (or ask for someone close to you that knows computers). Like all Windows users do when they have issues. And this would apply online, if you don’t pay them, why they need to read for you? Pay for the time professionals spend for you if you can’t read. Normally people don’t read complex documentation, they just need how to install some app or how to configure something from their desktop or printer drivers, pay or read how to do it, doesn’t matter if you are using Windows or Linux, because Windows also crashes and have issues also, Linux is ready for users.

If you make it easy

Anything new is hard, if they are used to Windows as most people, everyone would think Windows is easier than Linux, but it’s just because they are used to the other OS. Get used to Linux. Use it, read how it works. Start small. Don’t read complex documentation or even try to compile the kernel on your first day.

Learning to read docs is a skill itself that needs to be developed separately

I think that is what you need to do to learn anything on computers… It’s a skill, yeah, you need to improve it and not get scared, I remember those feelings a time ago, and now I realize everything fixes if I just read the docs/issues. No need to ask, so I wish the best for you and remember always to read the docs before posting/asking.

Are those docs written or proofread by noobs?

Depends, if a noob tries to do something complex they won’t be able, let’s use common sense also here. Don’t try to do your own distro, but you can learn how Kdenlive works to edit a video or use --help on a command if you are not sure what it does or can do.

techies do want those details I’d have to omit for non-techies

If you don’t understand the technical details of the documentation, or you search for what are those technical details (that can solve your issues) or you are on the wrong documentation.

For a common user, if they want to play a game they just need to install Steam and enable the option to play Windows games on Linux, that would be the same as doing it on Windows, if the user doesn’t know how to do it, they search and some user or doc explains to go to the settings and enable it, or install steam via commands or using GUI.

If the application Kdenlive stopped to work without any error message, then you can go to the source git page and look for issues related, and you would appreciate a lot to find all the open source programs and dependencies with their own git pages to find recent issues reported (on Windows is harder as most stuff is hidden and closed).

But if Microsoft Office stop to work without any error message, then yeah, developers needs to send you random steps to hope it fixes your issues, and probably they won’t ask you the logs, not much doc to read for this case. I think they have some basic help steps like re-install, clean cache and reboot your device, that doesn’t really help when something is crashing hard.

If the documentation you’re reading is too technic then you need to improve your tech skills, there is nothing wrong learning how a desktop interface works (as example), in the future you will be able to adapt it to your needs, and it won’t force you to accept a change like with WinXP/Win7/Win8/Win10/Win11 interfaces.

…they’re already past the first threshold of “This is all way too much, I’ll never learn that”.

Maybe 3 of 10 people that asked me that actually did anything, other people are just lazy that thinks the work of a programmer is easy, as a programmer we need to read many documentation for everything new or change or update on our development stuff. We not only read but also write documentation, to then, some random guy to ask something you have been writing on your own blog and documentation. Understand then if they just respond you telling to read the docs.

It is ready if you start learning it from children, but people first touches a Windows machine, and then they get used to what they already know.

Example of someone that never touched a Windows, post from 2 years ago: https://duncanlock.net/blog/2022/04/06/using-windows-after-15-years-on-linux/

And I read people that claims they are better on Ubuntu because is what they first started to use (because of lack of money) and now they find it hard to use Windows, because they got used to Linux and they aren’t either programmers.

Maybe what Linux needs is marketing. The Steam console is an example of how well it sells.

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.

But that’s the theory, when I run games on GNOME the games and desktop itself looks laggy, on KDE 4 I still noticed some lag while with KDE 5 I feel almost like playing on i3wm, with 3iwm you can run many games faster and with less lag than many Windows users (my Windows friends normally have more issues than me). While KDE 5 is my second-best option, there is no third for me. Or i3wm or KDE for gaming. And normally my PC specs stands higher than the recommended on many games (also new ones). If you can test it and provide some feedback would be great.

I tried a lot of desktop environments and I think KDE is the best one, games runs much better than GNOME while the desktop is so smart and many features… I really tried so hard GNOME but the UI sucks, it is slower running games, there are missing options very important for me that KDE has, so for me GNOME is a NO for working/gaming purposes.