Honestly the arch wiki is like a black hole, dragging Linux users towards using arch. I got so used to using arch wiki on other distros that it eventually got me to switch to something arch based.
I was thinking on moving to Fedora, since it has more robust support for GUI-based installation through PackageKit and it's got a more stable release cycle. But Arch and its wiki is just my bread and butter at this point that moving to another distro feels foreign and annoying in comparison, even though it's not the distro's fault.
Idk about you but I am so staggeringly beautiful that in order to walk amongst mere mortals without spreading insanity and obsession I must adopt a glamour.
My favoured form is a moderately athletic slightly be-tummied greying spinster.
It's great. As a Gentoo user I still use it quite often. It helps that Arch has a far larger userbase, so its wiki is a lot bigger. (It also helps the Arch wiki didn't lose everything 15-ish years ago due to a server hard drive failure)
Honestly, the arch wiki is hit and miss. Sometimes it has the information you need written in a way that you can understand, and sometimes the examples randomly switch graphics cards mid-sentence.
Or just tell you to configure something (or not mention that the specific config setting actually exists despite it sometimes being quite crucial) but not exactly how and you have to look through a bunch of the info boxes to find the correct link to the manual of the specific program/tool to see how the config file should look before you can continue on the wiki.
I appreciate the Arch wiki much, even as a layman Kubuntu user. It explains some background concepts pretty well which aren't typically coveyed in man pages which dedicate themselves to individual commands and their syntax. For instance I've read about home folder encryption or how signals get converted from keyboard presses to symbols on screen. It's not perfect when it comes to writing style and coverage sure, but it's a valuable compendium to have in addition to everything else.
And this, folks, is why there will be no “year of the Linux desktop”. The technical difficulties, and the surrounding gatekeeping.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a dev, I RTFM, but for most people, their computer is just a simple tool, like a hammer or a screwdriver, that lets them do the actual work they have to do. They aren’t any less “real” Linux users. Just users that will go back to other OSes cause it doesn’t work for them and they keep getting told that it’s their fault for not reading the manual.
Yeah, I see a fair amount of gatekeeping and condescension in Linux communities. I also see a lot of people who truly want to be helpful, but that aspect is there.
I've seen Linux compared to car ownership a number of times, and I think that's an apt comparison. I have the knowledge to use and perform basic maintenance on a car, and I have no interest in learning more. It's a tool made for a purpose. Some people love to tinker with cars, and I can understand that. I love Linux and enjoy tinkering with it, but it generally won't "just work" for most users. Yes, if you're setting it up for your grandparents and they just need a web browser or something like that it's probably fine but most users that aren't Linux savvy are going to run into issues.
Linux is becoming ever more usable, and I think usage will continue to increase alongside that, but I don't see it ever becoming a major personal desktop platform. Wouldn't mind being wrong, but Linux will be fine, regardless.
And this, folks, is why there will be no “year of the Linux desktop”. The technical difficulties, and the surrounding gatekeeping.
Joke's on you, we don't need there to be one. Mine was 2007. Yours was whenever it was. I welcome new users, but my happiness doesn't depend on Linux appealing to everyone, and neither does the survival of Linux as an option.
The types who appreciate what differentiates the Linux experience from Windows or MacOS (in terms of the typical benefits we'd evangelize) will find their way here. It's naturally getting easier over time, and the contrast (especially against the Windows experience) is only increasing in its attractiveness.
You need a willingness to learn, and if you've never installed an OS ever before that will be true even for Windows. Why are we trying to lower the bar further than that? Not everyone has to start with Arch, or should.
LMDE on somewhat recent hardware with an iGPU. My wife has not asked me a single question, mostly since she opens the laptop, opens firefox, does whatever, closes laptop. An absolutely typical user.
Nearly every machine with any complexity greater than a light switch comes with a manual. As the number of features of a system grows, it becomes less and less feasible to design user interfaces that expose all of those features so intuitively that most people get them instantly. In fact large software with tons of features in UI have manuals and need books to master. Featurefull software requires documentation. And so the question isn't whether one piece of software requires documentation to use or not, instead it's whether that pieces of software can do more or less, and whether someone bothered to write a doc. In Linux'es case someone typically bothered to do it. There is an M to RTF. On Windows on the other hand, if something obvious doesn't work, or it isn't obvious, you're often stuck with hearsay or worse - banging your head against the wall. It's quite alright for people to prefer to stick with what they know whether it provides the easiest way to do something or not. But let's not get confused that RTFM is a bad thing. RTFM means there's an M, it means the M will help, it means that the software has the capability you need, and likely more than you need. ☺️
Honestly I love the Steam Deck for getting Linux into people's hands in a way that's easy and Just Works :tm:. They've not replaced the OS on their Steam Deck at all, which is a win not just for Valve but the Linux ecosystem as a whole.
Though, the only issue my friends has had is transferring files to and from the Steam Deck if their main PC runs Windows or Mac. There are a multitude of varyingly convenient options but all of my friends have literally just plugged an external hard drive through the sole USB-C port lol. Linux has to cater to people who won't even install third-party drivers.
The best thing about Linux is that it comes with a manual. Like literally type man and boom there it is. As a C developer it is like easy mode. I hate having to open a browser just to know what a basi command does
On December 15th, 2017, photographer Eugeny Hramenkov uploaded the original image of a woman holding a bottle of milk to another woman's mouth to Instagram.
That's not fair. I'm an arch user and the only time I'd set foot on a forum is to ask a question you won't find an answer to in the wiki, the subreddit, some weird defunct blog nobody has made a post on in 11 years or the source code. And I probably won't be answering any questions with RTFM or anything else for that matter.
Arch is the reason I gained the patience to read documentation. I'm glad I did that, cause I can read docs while learning how to do programming without getting bored.
On December 15th, 2017, photographer Eugeny Hramenkov uploaded the original image of a woman holding a bottle of milk to another woman's mouth to Instagram.