What's the most common complaint I've heard about Linux?

[puppygirlhornypost2@transfem.social]

@mahadevank@mastodon.social @Linux_in_a_Bit@infosec.exchange I understand the enthusiasm, but this is what distros are meant to be. Package maintainers extensively test software, package them (and their dependencies) together in a coherent enough way that you can just run apt install steam and have it pull in all of the dependencies like libsdl2. In my experience, it's not even the people running the distro that are the problem; it's usually community support resources (such as IRC channels, Discord guilds, etc.) in which this mentality runs prevalent. A better "fix" for this would be pushing for distributions to update their code of conduct (and perhaps actually enforce it). We still run into the issue of nobody using the same distro (and therefore these sorts of rules not being universal even when implemented). I don't know the answer, and I don't want this to be seen as dismissive, but I do want to give some context on why we can't just group of volunteers our way out of it. I think it'd require widespread change in the somewhat fragmented existing community.

[yuki2501@masto.hackers.town]

@emily_rugburn @Linux_in_a_Bit @raphaelmorgan Wow.

[raphaelmorgan@disabled.social]

@manuelcaeiro @Linux_in_a_Bit some people just are ""stupid"" though? If I had to just read the manual and that was my only option to use Linux, I'd still be suffering on Windows. People you might consider "stupid" deserve access to free tech too, because liberation shouldn't be reserved for people with a certain amount of "intelligence" or any other white supremacist made up trait (or any real trait either, other than being alive)

[emily_rugburn@lgbtqia.space]

@yuki2501 ngl, i got the same response in most of my engineering classes...which is why i never finished engineering school

[cwg1231@defcon.social]

@Linux_in_a_Bit you’re absolutely right, but the issue is on both sides. There’s a massive culture issue in tech where people are expected to magically know everything, and I think power users can mitigate it in part by being open about what we *don’t* know. The other issue is that volunteers have limited time, so new users do need to try google searching first and try RTFM first. They should be saying “I googled and read the manual and found these things, which I don’t understand. Please explain them to me.” And then power users need to politely explain things *without calling them stupid.*

I wrote a decent bit about this in my blog post Linux for Mere Mortals. https://sudo-nano.github.io/posts/Linux-for-Mere-Mortals/

[petros@literatur.social]

@clayote

I did not stop to be part of the community, so I did not stop to hear and to listen.

Just ignore me, my experience does not count

Anyway, I made the effort to read through the answers, and, that's a mix of everything.

There is a German saying which translates roughly as: When you shout in the woods, it's your echo that you hear.

Have a good day.

[rainer_rehak@mastodon.bits-und-baeume.org]

@Linux_in_a_Bit I thought that #UbuntuLinux did quite a good job in doing that, no?

[clayote@peoplemaking.games]

@petros Thank you for listening

[november@chaosfem.tw]

@Linux_in_a_Bit Yeah, having friends who are linux nerds who will help me pretty much entirely changed my Linux experience

[clew@ecoevo.social]

Vaguely related; Microsoft pays help desk (or, okay, used to). And for decades most people learned Windows somewhere with paid support of some kind - schools, enterprise contracts.

And it doesn’t FOSS the same way the software does because teaching people doesn’t copy for free. Software’s like a tune, those always spread almost on their own. User education is like learning to play an instrument, that’s just as hard now as it was a hundred years ago.

@nawanp @Linux_in_a_Bit

[olivares@mastodon.social]

After years of using Linux, the main problem is, each solution need to be done in a terminal.
You can't avoid typing command in a terminal. And it's an accessibility problem, if you can't solve without it, you failed at bringing Linux to noobs.
On windows, lot of users don't know there is a terminal.
FYI, I'm in IT since ICQ.
BTW, I won't argue here, cause you know Linux fan boys (not you).

[krutonium@social.treehouse.systems]

@Linux_in_a_Bit I've always done my best to help people become able to help themselves. Show them how to find the information they need, how to search for it. Walk them through applying that information, being there to hold their hand but not lead. Never insult, never put them down.

I've had multiple of them come back to me later because other people were assholes when they just needed a clear answer.

And that's just not right.

[xoagray@tiggi.es]

@Linux_in_a_Bit This, 100%. Some help forums are absolutely toxic to new users.

[clovis@bdx.town]

@pikesley @CedC @deathkitten LLM are somewhat essentialization engines, they learns characteristics of what they must reproduce. Those "summarized" characteristics are embodied in embeddings. It is possible to a certain extent to see that as what the LLM "knows".

When you have trained your model, embeddings alone can be valuable as "knowledge"

[manuelcaeiro@mastodon.social]

@raphaelmorgan @Linux_in_a_Bit
Do you understand English?
My sentence reads "Lower the standards as if people is stupid is a bad thing...", which means exactly the opposite.

note: if you intend to address me again with false allegations, please don't, because it will the last time you'll do it.

[raphaelmorgan@disabled.social]

@manuelcaeiro @Linux_in_a_Bit my point is that some of us need those "lower standards". If someone not being able to RTFM and successfully search for everything we need to know makes us stupid, I am stupid and I need us to lower standards as if I am stupid
And allowing only people who aren't "stupid" to use a thing is ableist

[cedc@diaspodon.fr]

@clovis @deathkitten @pikesley
Agreed, but I find it more impressive for a machine to “think” or getting close to it that being a know-it-all with a lot of embedding