The indoctrination of windows is extreme. Windows is just as hard as linux, harder even with all the layers of obscurity.
And yet... linux is hard, and users decry RTFM as "not growing the userbase"
RTFM is not a working formula. Because most people skip reading the manual for one simple reason, the manual is hard to read.
I remember my early arch days when asking a question about an issue I'm having was always met with a wikipage I already read but did not understand.
Rather than pushing for a magic manual, the best is to provide sane default or point to tutorials.
The best is when people tell you to RTFM and the information you need just straight up isn't there.
just google it and the google is just a reddit post that says [deleted]
Or "if you're having trouble there is no manual, FAQ, or wiki, just join our discord troubleshooting channel" vomit
Those cases where the users didn't WTFM
It's the same way you gotta ask if they turned it off and on again. Too many don't even look up the manual, now yes. Some hostility is just plain hostility, but the phrase is there for a good reason.
Maybe if the people giving advice would RTFM, they'd know what isn't in it.
Plus I don't want to spend 30 minutes to wade through pages of documentation for a 5-word command that makes my speakers work.
Aaaand why is that? It's hard to read because..?
We need individuals like you to help it out. It's like wikipedia
It's hard to read because people lack background knowledge. Man pages were horrible for my first 15 years or so.
Once you have the skills that you hardly need to read them they're fine.
That's why everyone wants to look it up on stack exchange, they want the answer, not an unending series of lessons
Man pages are still not great on Linux. Very few examples with common use-cases and explanations. I shouldn’t need to visit the Arch wiki.
OpenBSD man pages are a delight in comparison, and really all you need to learn how to manage the system.
They are hard to read because they are written to explain concepts to people who already understand them. Handy if you just need them for reference. Useless if you are trying to learn. Which is why RTFM is often bad advice
I mean, people are gonna bite my head off for this, but most non technical folks are turned off by someone calling them stupid... That's what "RTFM" sounds like. I think there needs to be a culture change to drive adoption, but stuff like the Steam Deck is helping a lot.
Even technical folks aren't huge fans of RTFM.
If I'm doing something incredibly interesting, and I'm asking for help, I should RTFM.
If I'm doing something routine, we can (and usually do, now), make it simple enough not to need a manual.
I feel like linux demands an understanding of the relationship between hardware and software more than windows does.
If all personal computer users were tech tinkerers like they were in the 70s and 80s, then linux and its distros would basically be the default OS everyone used. But that is not the world we live in. Microsoft saw a world where everyone was a computer user and Windows was designed in a way to support that vision.
Theres nothing inherently wrong with catering to the lowest common denominator, linux apostles just need to understand that not everyone can be uplifted to their level, nor do they want to be - or, even, should be.
Microsoft saw a world
That's not what happened. They got a dominant position because IBM could not even on their IBM PCs, and were at the right place at the right time, even if DOS was actually just garbage. With the power/money from this deal, they strongmanned their position as dominant PC operating system long after that era using legal and illegal anti-competitive means.
Microsoft still has wide unethical reach with secret and not-so-secret contracts and agreements not to allow other operating systems to gain a foothold in OEMs. And that's before you get through the sheer inertia from users that completely refuse to try something different on the grounds that they don't want to.
Besides this, the complete apathy in Europe moving off Microsoft software is quite concerning. Companies in the US are already collaborating with fascists in an unreflected way in true capitalist fashion - as happened 90 years ago. The reaction to this in terms of OS selection by companies is to hide their head in the sand and pour concrete for good measure. This will not work indefinitely, and I feel like nobody is going to suffer consequences for being a completely willful useful idiot for what is in summation a batshit fascist regime.
Yes, I am putting Microsoft and fascism on the same pedestal, the end stage in Microsoft bashing. The sad part with this meme is that in 2025 it's not unwarranted.
Nobody has ever been fired for ordering ~~SAP~~ Microsoft, right?
Windows users and Linux users are not seeking the same thing from their machines. The common mistake I often see from Linux advocates.
From personal experience, when I was a Windows user, I didn't care (or even know) about privacy, open-source software, nor owning my machine. I didn't care if I had to sign up for a Microsoft account, and I never changed defaults ever (except for my wallpaper). I just wanted the machine to turn-on, work, and play some games.
Why am I bringing this up? Because Linux requires the user care about their machine and defaults. You need to know your architecture, graphics card, and threat-model. You need to know what your apps are called and where they come from. You need to know what tools you need to troubleshoot (and devs will not help you). This is the biggest the pain-point of Linux. Do not succumb to the survivorship bias of RTFM or command-line.
This issue cannot be fixed from simplifying Linux interfaces (though we should do this anyway!). The soul of Linux is adventure, collaboration, and tinkering. To get the most from your machine, you're going to have to interact with several communities. This is what makes Linux great, and frankly I do not think we should kill this for the general public - this is how you get enshittification.
The general public needs to understand that incompetence (being brain-dead) will lead to misery. It is simply the rule of the land. You need to care and you need to collaborate. We should not welcome nor accommodate users that refuse to do this.
I switched to Linux mint because I don't want to think about those things. I barely know how to use the terminal, and probably won't anytime soon. I just pulled the apps I needed off the software manager. I'm as happy as a clam in shit.
An OS that just works, without the constant bullshit that capitalism breeds always encroaching. It does what I want when I want it, no more no less.
I'm probably gonna get hated on for this but here's my story:
About 3 weeks ago I bought a new gaming laptop with no OS with the intention of installing Linux myself and ditching Windows.
I'd read a lot online about how Linux was now competitive with Windows as Linux emulators could run Windows games with a 10-15% boost in performance. I read that it was all a case of finding the right distro and that Linux is much more user friendly and compatible now. So I did a little research, made myself a ventoy boot USB with Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Pop, Garuda and Fedora to see which one I liked best.
None of them worked properly. All of them had weird little quirks. Some I could live with, some were completely infuriating. So l did a little tinkering as I was determined not to give in. None of the distros detected my hardware properly, and so I went away found forums with similar issues and I fixed most of them. However, no matter what I tried I could not get the laptop speakers to work. No problem, I thought, I'll be either using headphones or BT to my soundbar (as that worked fine). So having given up on the speaker issue, I downloaded some games. In all of the distros they ran like shit. Sound bugs, laggy game play, some wouldn't play at all. Again, I tried tinkering with the settings, using a different version of proton, different sound drivers, different graphics settings, different commands and programs which might solve the issues. No. Each different distro threw up different issues which I spent hours and researching and experimenting. I tried a few more distros and found new issues which needed more research and more experimenting.
Over the three weeks or so I was trying I became irritable and depressed. I'd spent a lot of money on the laptop and I was unable to use it because no matter what I tried, even with relatively low resource hungry games, they did not run well at all, and even linux itself seemed slow and unresponsive in comparison to what I was used to.
So after hours and hours of climbing the walls and snapping at my wife and neglecting my kid, I downloaded Windows. And everything just works. There are bespoke programs for my graphics card and everything in my steam library runs beautifully with very minimal tinkering. So now I have a dual boot system, windows for games only and Linux for everything else.
I hate that I'm still enthralled to Windows, but seriously, Linux is just not ready for mass adoption. If something doesn't work on Windows , it's usually a case of just downloading the correct driver and Windows normally knows which one you need. If something doesn't work on Linux it's a slog through paragraphs of text which all assume some basic knowledge of coding or Linux's file system or some other jargon, or watching endless YouTube videos and then still getting nowhere. As a working husband and father I just do not have the time to put into it.
Tl;Dr - Windows is much easier than Linux. That's why everyone uses Windows.
Oof. Sorry you had such a bad experience.
Pro tip for others: It takes time for volunteers to reverse engineer new proprietary laptop hardware.
If the laptop manufacturers aren't advertising Linux support, it's up to the community to play guess and check, to figure out what the proprietary drivers do.
You might get lucky and pick the same exact model as a passionate reverse engineer. Or you might not.
With old stuff, your odds are much better that someone has figured it out for you.
For new hardware, it's still essential to pick a vendor that chooses to write and release Linux drivers.
This will get better when truly open hardware platforms gain popularity.
This is much less a Linux problem and much more a communuty one. We really need a semi-centralized place to get recent linux info and a nice guide on linux specific knowlage for beginners, but then people will cry needing to learn what wayland/x11 and such are will turn people away. Whoever was telling you windows games 10-15% faster were fucking dumbasses, I have zero problem running any game I want on my machine but the preformace has been exactly the same as windows (which I still consider a win for linux)
The next big problem is people going "We don't need gaming distros" when those gaming distros are made to solve this exact problem. If you haven't already try out Bazzite or Nobara and it might "just work" (no promises tho). But a distro like Mint/Pop/Debian are going to have a lot of missing drivers/package updates for the latest hardware, Fedora needs relatively a lot of post-install tinkering to get things working since they only ship opensource packages by default, Garuda is not ment for beginners and uses a more unstable kernal for preformance, but you still need to tinker with drivers. Bazzite and Nobara are the two big distros that aim to "just work" out of the box and even re-package some software with the latest fixes. And incase you don't like the look of them, you can install whatever theme over KDE Plasma you want
Ofc I get if your tired of hearing "just install this distro instead" but a lot of advice is coming from others who also don't actually know whats going on under the surface, and sometimes your hardware just isn't supportes (not a linux issue but a manufacturer one). And if your at the point where using windows for gaming works and thats enough for you, nothin wrong with just using windows
Windows is to Linux what McDonald's is to cooking your own food.
More like a restaurant that has Korean BBQ / hot pot on the menu. Most meals are completely prepared, but for some you need to do a small part yourself.
You know what, I like this one. And just like KBBQ/hot pot, there's gonna be people who ask "what's the point of going to a restaurant if they make you cook it yourself?" And you know what I say to those people?
You're entitled to your opinion and I respect that - also, more hot pot for me!
Linux is going to cook your own food, then realising that you don't have half the ingredients, so you either have the choice of going to the shop where all the food is labelled in Swahili, and there's no pictures of what's in the packages, and a lot of the people who shop there are kinda stuck up and look down at you for not speaking Swahili, and by the time you've gone round the shop three times and asked for help and you're still not sure what you've got in the trolley but you buy it anyway and then you get home and you've got some of the stuff for dinner but you're still missing some essential ingredients OR going to McDonald's and getting everything on the menu but Ronald follows you home.
So that's what cooking feels like for people who never cooked before.
One thing I have noticed a lot of lately is that people just don't want to have to fucking read at all anymore and it kind of is wrecking my faith in humanity. Asking people to read isn't a big ask.
“I feel like we are nearing the end of times. We humans are losing faith in ourselves.”
- Hayao Miyazaki
It’s not just reading, people don’t want to mentally engage with things. There are people who would rather read movie reviews than go watch a movie and form their own opinion on it.
Engaging with material will always require something of the audience. We can try to make things as accessible and easy to understand as possible, but that doesn’t “solve” the problem, it just lowers the bar. Lowering the bar isn’t bad, but it seems like the wrong strategy for the current era. I think a better strategy is attempting to foster and enthusiastic community at a local level. Get together with friends on the weekends and mess around with stuff in person, talk about it.
Asking people to read isn't a big ask.
Yes, but asking them to read a large, technical manual that's gonna put them several hours and multiple pages in for a single concept is.
I recently switched to Linux after a lifetime with Windows. Last night I went to install a backup program on my media server but it couldn't see the destination drive. I downloaded a partition manager and it crashed trying to load the external drive. DDG'd the issue, but I couldn't find a clear cause/effect that applied to me. So I downloaded a different partition manager and backup program, and they worked right out of the box. Turns out the non-working apps were written for Gnome and the working apps were written for KDE, (which is my desktop environment). It was a very frustrating half hour, but it pales in comparison to the time I've spent troubleshooting (storage) driver issues in Windows. The point I'm making is, Linux isn't really that hard to learn, it's just unfamiliar and therefore scary. Getting past your fear unlocks a whole new world of wonder and possibilities! 🐧
Oh yeah, Windows storage driver issues are great if you need to kill time. Nothing better than your Windows installer claiming there's no disk. Great in combination with missing touchpad drivers. But hey, at least I found out it can indeed be installed without a working mouse and that includes installing the storage driver!
Windows is just as hard as linux, harder even with all the layers of obscurity.
Windows used to be easy. Now, it's so obscure and locked down that only Microsoft can maintain your computer. And they maintain it for their own benefit, at your expense, with mandatory ads and lockouts.
I disagree about how it used to be easy. And agree with everything else.
Ive used Windows since the 3.1 days (MSDOS as well?). Its never been "easy". You just learn the magic spells on how to fix a printer, get the right drivers installed in JUST the right way, or which hardware magically doesn't work for some reason and avoid it.
With Linux, at least we get good logs most of the time.
Make the manual super short, pretty, interactive, unobtrusive and spread it around the system contextually. Then users might “read” it.
Sounds like a great plan! The arch wiki is waiting for your help ❤️❤️❤️ looking forward to seeing a new take on the manuals 🥰
They’re basically describing a good GUI.
Sorry, I love Linux and wish everybody was on it but no way is Windows “just as hard”. Maybe if you want to look behind the curtain and start tinkering Linux is easier but on the face of it I’d say Linux is somewhere around early Windows XP when it comes to usability for a normal person.
No, tbh it is.
The thing is that windows has "become the standard"
Where options are, how to fix any problems? You learn windows like you learn a language. German and danish isn't too different, but if you grew up with danish it's going to be harder to learn german.
I was on a reddit thread the other day which was about Microsoft ending the support for Windows 10. Naturally, I thought people would be boasting about Linux in that thread, but nope, people just want to keep using windows 10 or want Steam to release SteamOS. This was the PC Gaming sub too.
The work windows did to make early windows intuitive really paid off. I was able to figure a lot out as a kid so I could play snake and minesweeper etc. Leaning into that will onboard new users, and that's why mint is so successful
I know some of the issue is the manuals themselves are out of date. Ive literally had to have something explained to me via the developers Discord. I hate going to a projects Discord in order to find out crucial info.
Sometimes manuals are in 5 different places so you don't know what applies to your specific system.
I usually try and improve the manuals when I do come across this with a quick PR, when I have time.
Windows is not as hard as Linux. You're just being silly at this point. I'm not saying Windows is better, but it is engineered from the ground up to accommodate the lowest common denominator.
Case in point, installing a program on Windows? Double click the exe and you're done. On Linux? It can be that simple but usually is much more involved.
Double click the exe, pending update blocks the installer, reboot, click the exe, go through a wizard that ask questions you don't know the answer to (usually defaults are ok though), be prompted for admin password, get blocked by corporate policies, fill out the IT ticket, have them remote to your box and install, reboot, find the program in the menu, run it, have it blocked by HBSS, put in ticket for that, update antivirus, reboot, manually pull group policy updates, reboot, more updates install, reboot, run the program.
Obviously silly, but also real.
I’ve used a Mac since forever. But I started using FOSS apps. Then I created a Hackintosh, until it borked. Then I installed ZorinOS and almost didn’t need to fix the Hackintosh. I did fix it, but Zorin convinced me that Linux is legit and I’m going all in on it.
Linux isn't hard anymore because I have ChatGPT to come up with all the command lines for me. And they work 60% of the time!
One of my main problems with Linux is the obsessive amount of text things have to learn or understand it, I have to sig around online for someone who doesn't say rtfm because the manual is extremely long and it's usually a pretty small easy problem. Or I find someone who has the problem and no response or a response that doesn't work in the current version. It took me a couple of days to setup my home Linux entertainment system because of these reasons.
Accessibility matters,it's good to have proper documentation and it also good to make it accessible to everyone and not just the hardcore Linux people.
One of the things I had problems with is with my laptop turning off my external display with the lid was closed, took me a couple of days to find it was in some text file in systemd instead of idk in the power settings?
Linux is hard and it's not user friendly. But better then Windows for me at least, mainly because Linux has more accessibility options now then windows.
Hint: :q!
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