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I've found the Linux community to be quite helpful. But I've not really used Lemmy for tech support. The Arch Wiki is damn near a Linux Wikipedia. And any active board dedicated to a particular Distro are where I've gotten help.
It seems really hard at first but the more problems you solve the more sense everything makes.
Ignore the gatekeepers.
I've been running slackware as my main since the late '90s, and the arch wiki has been invaluable and often recommended by all.
But I've not really used Lemmy for tech support.
I would sooner ask a rabid squirrel for relaxing holiday ideas.
a large chunk of the replies were βwell MY displays work just fine!β
I just went to check the previous thread, and I think there's miscommunication both ways here.
They read your post as "I'm trying Linux, but it's even hard to get monitors to work." So, they responded, "I haven't had a problem with monitors on Linux in decades."
There's not much else they can say, as you weren't really asking for advice, so you didn't give any technical details, but you were still complaining about something that they like.
Meanwhile, you read them as you said, "well MY displays work just fine!" So their replies seem utterly baffling, defensive, and unhelpful from your perspective.
I think you nailed it exactly. Also, someone else pointed out there was a time when Linux could legit break your monitor and even though that hasn't been the case for years it's still a bit of a sore spot.
I have a friend who runs arch, and recommends arch to people. His computer constantly has problems because he doesn't fully know what he's doing.Β
I respect doing it for yourself, you do you, but I feel like he's actively discouraging my friends from giving Linux a go because of his constant issues. Recommending the hardest distro to beginners just bugs me.
Yeah, let everyone do their own thing - there's nothing wrong with starting with Slackware if you want to. But if we're going to recommend a starting point to people, maybe go with something that is designed to work out of the box. There's going to be so much else to get adjusted to that extra options aren't necessary.
Oh, and by the way, most people don't like tinkering. They want their car to take them from A to B and their computer to do the thing, it's not a hobby for them and we shouldn't expect new users to be looking for a new hobby.
we shouldnβt expect new users to be looking for a new hobby.
Infinitely this!
Yes, it's super cool to have control over your own damned machine but for some, the computer is just the thing the lets them work, porn and game.
This is Me. I had more problems on Bazzite and Debian, so I prefer Arch. It still breaks all the time and I still don't know what I'm doing, but at least sometimes it works.
That's actually really surprising to me, bazzite is fairly plug and play, and Debian while slow to update is still very stable. What kind of issues were you running into?
Try OpenSUSE Tumbleweed
It's practically Arch minus elitist culture minus breaking all the time minus having to manually manage anything and everything. Also, it has properly set snapshots by default, so almost any screw-up can be reversed.
No thanks, I love the elitist culture. I want to be expected to learn and get better over time, and I have been. I even learned how to enable snapshots.
I'm running arch now for gaming.
I never had any issues* which makes me worry, cause i truly dont know what the fuck am I doing. Jesus take the wheel...
*im surfing on issues actually
Fucking Donkey describes recommending Arch to noobs. It's astounding.
The linux user community is its own worst fucking enemy
It's not TOO bad around here, but when I was on a Linux binge on Youtube, some people in the comments there genuinely just don't want other people to move to Linux. That's not my words, it's theirs. They flat out don't want new Linux users or for Linux to grow... but they use it.
Sorry, linux is full, go away.
Look, you're harming our effort to convince people that there are no bugs in Tux-Sing-Se. How are we gonna get people to switch unless we pretend that all is perfect and flawless? Because clearly, that's what Windows users expect...
(sarcasm)
Of course there are no bugs in Tux-Sing-Se. When i moved there, I had an absolute bug free experience and only needed one small hour to get my Bluetooth headphones working!
There are no bugs in Tux-Sing-Se, only user error.
I feel you brother, specially if you have missmatched displays, if you mention it, it's staright up your fault somehow.
As a ~25 year Linux user, I am absolutely a gorgeous donkey
Alternative 2nd panel: "Linux users once you reveal your choice of distro"
Unless it's Arch. At which point we need Ramsay bowing down or somesuch.
LSF is where it's at. it's the ultimate distro.
(kinda joking. kinda being literal as a joke.)
I posted in official support channels for my flavor of Fedora not having functioning Windows EXE thumbnails, despite having evidence of it working out-of-the-box for other people. It got two replies, "Lol, find another distro if you don't like it," and "Did you install (package that comes pre-installed)?"
In truth, this is how almost every issue I've had with Linux has gone, which is likely why I've had three false starts and gone through six different distros before deciding to stick with this one that is only mildly broken.
Iβd love to know what it is about help threads that attracts people who donβt believe in helping.
My experience has been finding a 5 step solution to a problem, with step 3 not working properly and requiring several hours of effort to find a workaround, finding an entirely different solution elsewhere (that also doesn't work), then discovering there's been a flatpack the entire time.
Still have bazzite on my shitty 10 year old laptop because it cannot possibly run windows at this point, but I don't think I'd daily drive it.
I saw that post, and honestly, part of the issue is that the pain of messing with mode-lines in /etc/XF86Config and worrying about physically damaging your CRT monitor with out-of-spec frequencies was a very real thing 30 years ago. Hence, the idea that configuring displays on Linux is fraught and difficult has stuck around, even though it hasn't been true since the advent of DDC, and multiple displays for most use-cases has been sorted out for at least the past 15 years. Non-Linux users will still occasionally talk about displays on Linux as if we were still editing mode-lines in vi.
It's a sore point, I guess I'm saying, and you poked it inadvertently. When I read the post, I just kind of smiled, because a few days before, I plugged the HDMI cable from a conference room display into my Thinkpad, and it lit up with an extension of my desktop. I started LibreOffice Impress, hit 'F5', and the presentation appeared on the big display, and the presentation notes on my laptop screen. (Actually, I was surprised and impressed at how smoothly it went.)
It's no surprise that issues remain here and there, though. Glad to hear that folks wanted to be helpful!
If you convince someone to try Linux, you give them all the emotional and intellectual support they need, for this is the law.
This made me laugh because I've had installing Linux on an old Tecra in my to do list for the better part of a year and my brother (Linux apostle, sire to three software engineers) when I told him that said "you know you can just boot if from a USB key, no need for theatrics"
I love that man, but he really gets in the way of good, solid procrastination
No joke, ChatGPT has been a game changer for my linux education. Tutorials and guides are great, but it's either a step-by-step instruction on doing exactly one thing, or it's a general overview that assumes you already know everything.
ChatGPT doesn't judge your gaps in knowledge, it just answers questions. Those answers are frequently wrong, but then so are the answers I get on message boards. The other nice thing is that I can copy and paste code or error logs, and it will parse the information and tell me what to look for.
I still follow guides and ask real humans for help when I need it, but I try an AI first.
Just don't trust it with anything important, they get shit super wrong sometimes and insist it's correct.
It's great for logs and learning the basics, sure, but I find it quickly ends up off the rails.
If a door came off its hinge, ChatGPT will eventually have you build an entire house around it; a house that breaks every building code imaginable, no less.
It's best you do the steering by double checking it's claimsβusually this points you to a Reddit post where it clearly got the info fromβand searching through Wikis and boards yourself. In those cases Linux users may sound like they're speaking another language, and then ChatGPT can help break their solution down for you and implement it.
If people were to use LLMs for things they're already experts in, they would realise how frequently and drastically wrong LLMs are. It's honestly scary knowing it's out there wreaking havoc on important things and people using them don't realise.
Yeah, I was tinkering with a 16 year old Iomega NAS, and put Debian on it, which was an old Debian to fit the 3.x kernel in it. I needed to add a few packages but was getting odd errors. So I figured lets try chatgpt, since I'm just killing time with this anyway, and I have an image saved for quick redeploy.
Some stuff was good advice and progress, then it claimed I couldn't get one thing installed because I needed a newer version of apt. It led me through how to find the apt releases and fins appropriate version. Downloaded that and installed it, it gave an error about something not supported. Chatgot then told me to run a specific command, which gave a massive warning. Chat says all, good just proceed.
It unistalled my working apt version and left me with a broken new one.
So I paste the result in and chat triumphantly tells me I did it and solved the problem. Lol
Now there's no apt or way to download anything LOL.
Despite it's reputation, I don't remember anyone being unkind even in the arch forums, worst cases I would describe more so as inconsiderate. We all lift together, after all
Those donkeys are very cute
My display is working fine!
spoiler
As long as i don't switch it off, because it doesn't get initialized if i try turning it on again. But i fixed it!
spoiler
I fixed it by not turning it off and having a black desktop background and minimizing all windows when my PC has to run overnight.
At some point it would be cheaper to get a new screen than paying the extra electricity for running the computer all the time, lol
-hey, you should switch to Linux now, it's way better than Windows 11, everything works and the community is very helpful
-what? you're having some issues on Linux? uhh, skill issue, go back to windows lol
I have been in the Linux community for a decade now and I have yet to see anyone recommend someone go back to Windows
I think it would be cool to host weekly Linux setups with users sharing their desktop and such.
That'd be cool!
But sir, I am not fucking a donkey, I am typing text with keyboard!
edit: meant to be a language pun, nothing more
