this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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It also has nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with how Github works. I actually give him a pass on nuking X while installing Steam, that shouldn't happen(although he did get a nice big warning, but that warning was far from user friendly). But some of the other stuff they ran into was "This doesn't work exactly like windows, therefore is bad." type stuff.
In that video he did everything that everyone recommends not to do when trying out Linux:
He is stupid, he paid the stupid tax. Linux didn't do any of the things that went wrong in that video, it was his own stubbornness and ignorance.
the problem with a lot of these recommendations though is that to a non-linux user: all code is random, and no commands are understood. you only learn by doing, and if you cant do until you know, you'll never get anywhere. you gotta make a few mistakes to learn anything, and thats what happened. yea he paid the stupid tax, but so does everyone else while they learn a new thing. that was the entire point of the challenge: how hard is it? and it turns out, quite! info is scattered, theres lots of commands and code that sounds like it'll do what you want but is actually a bad idea (as evidenced by the recommendations you point out), and things can break easily. thats the video.
Yeah, it's not like people can read and there are several tutorials and manuals freely available all over the internet.
to a new person, those tutorials and manuals are the "random code and unknown commands" that i spoke about in the above comment. i thought i made that very clear. nothing is known until it is learned, and things cannot be learned without practice. practice leads to initial failure, and the frustrations with that are what the linux challenge was about.
No one has never learned anything from reading? So, history must be a con from big paper to sell books, huh?
Seems like you are purposefully misunderstanding Cora's replies, so you... can be snide? win an argument? You never mentioned you understand the reasoning Cora is using.
I understand their argument. I think it's stupid. So I'm mocking the argument to bring that point home. Reading about things, gives us understanding of said things. At least as approximate as possible as to not need to break anything when practicing with it. Breaking X or the desktop environment is not a common experience. It happens but its not frequent. Windows encourages people to turn off their brain and not to understand the basics of how their os works. That mindset leads to unsafe behaviors that are simply mitigated by reading what the os is asking you. There are literal first principles tutorials that explains all concepts, YouTube videos, Wikipedia explains it all in simple English. A 15 minutes google trip gives all that's necessary to safely run Linux. Most everything else is just like any other os.
You don't have to crash into a tree first to learn how to drive. It can be explained to you in a way that practice is safe and accident free. You don't have to kill a bunch of people to learn medicine, you're taught in class and out of books until you're safe enough to practice along with a mentor without killing anyone out of negligence. Learning a new os or software is no different. Just read the manual you dense smug bugs.
Learning a new OS is very different from learning to drive or medicine - for one you wont kill anyone by messing up. So the bar to entry should be far lower. Things should just work and be safe by default. You should not need to read through manuals to get basic things to work in Linux. It is very nice that you can if you want to really take advantage of what it has to offer - but it should not be a requirement to using it at a basic level.
If you force everyone to learn how to use Linux before they can use it then why would most people even bother with it at all? Linux distros have gotten way better at not requiring lots of knowledge before you can use it over the years. To a point where you only need to learn a few differences, but why stop trying to make things even easier to use and lower the bar so more people can use it? Why does Linux need to be some elitist OS that only those that are willing to read through manuals can use? Some distros can target those people, while others can target people who just want to use their systems for actual work/play.
They are.
You don't.
It isn't.
Do you have brain damage?
I'm not saying to read through the whole manual. It's an expression from the world of tech development. Most mistakes by omission are the result of a person, usually a careless dev or a mindnumbed user, failing to read something that is directly in front of their eyes. Just turn your brain on. You can literally learn Linux by reading or watching like, a 10 minute video on YouTube. It will take you longer to download it and install it in your computer. You can watch in your phone while the ISO downloads.