No, seriously.
This mindset of, “If you don’t like to read pages of documentation to figure out how to do the thing you’re wanting to do, then maybe Linux isn’t for you?” Or the “god. How dare you ask such a STUPID question. You’re using Linux wrong and it probably isn’t for you. Go back to baby’s first OS!” Is the biggest gripe I have about using Linux.
Especially since the manpages are not written to always be comprehensible for end-users, but for developers and professionals. Some tools like tldr can help, however they rarely come preinstalled and aren’t getting the attention they deserve.
My gripe is “oh, you picked the wrong distro”
I just want my printer to work ffs
I’d put that one on the printer manufacturers. They love making them crappy.
So you ever tried support with windows? Go to some crappy community site with people who barely know what they are talking about and try some powershell and regedit crap.
Or go read conflicting Microsoft documentation that always seems to make man files look easy.
Its computers. You read stuff to deal with stuff, the OS is irrelevant.
I’ve been hearing about Linux elitists for the last 20 years, and I have yet to meet one. But what I do see is an endless wave of trolling and bad faith arguments about the supposed complexity of Linux.
They treat a wide array of developers, maintainers and enthusiasts as employees of Linux inc, and now they’re grumpy because their imaginary ticket submitted to a nonexisting helpdesk is not being processed.
I have recieved much more help and support from the Linux community than from any other proprietary software helpdesk.
I’ve been hearing about Linux elitists for the last 20 years, and I have yet to meet one.
Post/browse a help forum, it doesn’t take long to find them
YOU SHALL USE tty ON A 4K HDR SCREEN
I use Arch BTW!
In fairness sometimes users don’t want to hear the truth
I too have never seen this. I see a lot of people claiming they are there but don’t seen to find them. Been doing this a long time.
I can’t say I’ve ever ran into anyone like this. And the Arch wiki is so newbie friendly, I use it all the time and I don’t even use Arch.
Ive seen a lot of anti-gui sentiment but nothing I can remember enough to link to
The problem is that the road between creating a piece of software that does something well, and then creating simplification layers on top of it is typically much longer than just “edit a config file” and “here’s a readme”.
You need extra documentation, config gating and workflow, warnings, UI/UX work etc.
I know there are Linux elitists but kind of expecting that much extra work for what is still at it’s core mostly volunteer software seems like it’s own form of elitism.
Absolutely agreed, I find it extremely telling that most people who say that have never personally contributed nor donated. Its ok to have expectations but its not ok to make demands from volunteers, thats why so many devs get burnt out and leave.
The thing is, simple can mean two things, and they are quite often at odds with each other.
It can mean simple to understand, or simple to use.
For example, a piece of software that’s just a binary, a config file and a man page describing the config file and the software’s behavior is generally quite easy to understand. Like, you can fit the idea of the program entirely into your mind and “comprehend” it, though it may not be easy to use for a novice.
By contrast, a piece of software that contains additional layers for easy of use, like a GUI to edit options, may be simple to use, but not necessarily simple to understand. The additional layers add more complexity that does not contribute to core functionality of the program, it can become unclear what gets changed where when you click on buttons, the config file is likely not documented, human readable or editable, or it may even be a completely opaque configuration database (the registry), … So making the software more simple to use, often makes it harder to comprehend.
I, and I think many other nerds, like software that is simple in the “comprehensible” sense, we want to be able to wrap our head around it completely and we don’t mind putting in a little bit of effort to achieve that comprehension, whereas other people prefer to hit the ground running.
man this is a good linux meme, its funny and its real criticism of linux. why were all the linux memes shitty for a while there? why are they better now suddenly?
Hey, I installed Arch btw with Hyprland and I gotta say, the docs are super newbie-friendly. No problems on my end.
The Arch Wiki is so nice
luckily people seem to be becoming better with this.
linux is also becoming better at being user friendly.
This whole thread seems to be, primarily, people inventing strawmen and them a comment thread dogpiling them.
We have the “elitist Linux question answerer” and the “average user who is grandmother of 93 years that faints at the sight of terminal text” taking a lot of heat.
Many of stray shots at developers for having the audacity to provide access to the software that they made in their spare time without providing a full UX that compares to IOS.
The “fellow Linux users” who installed Linux 5 years ago, ran into a problem and declared Linux a failed experiment.
The OP isn’t even a good meme. It’s just ragebait.
The people who post these kind of things are not trying to improve the community. They’re concern trolling.
Nobody is “preventing simplification”. Anyone is more than welcome to fire up an IDE, clone a project and simplify whatever they feel like. That’s how the open source software ecosystem works. If you don’t like something then fix it.
You’re not a customer, you’re a community member. Making demands of other people isn’t going to go over well, but it isn’t because people are “elitist”.
Agreed. I wish moderators would ban those people from linux communities and more users would report their elitist behaviour. It’s really annoying to ask a question and get belittled for having the audacity of being ignorant.
I understand these people lack power elsewhere in their lives and want to be powerful where they believe themselves to be experts, but it’s a real pity they express it with a complete lack of empathy. If you don’t want to help, don’t say anything. Let somebody who does want to help nicely do the helping.
It’s a sadly entrenched part of the culture. Literally 30 years ago the joke was “if you ask a question in a linux forum you get a bunch of shitheads screaming rtfm. But phrase it as a complaint about linux not doing something windows can, and they will fall over themselves with detailed instructions to prove you wrong”
I understand these people lack power elsewhere in their lives and want to be powerful where they believe themselves to be experts, but it’s a real pity they express it with a complete lack of empathy.
You seem bitter.
There are two kinds of Linux elitists - 1) those who know nothing, but have recently discovered Unices and think they are all-powerful and there’s the right way to go and simple solutions and everything is clear, and the future is bright, 2) those who are tired to rephrase the manuals and want newcomers to sometimes think why they don’t expect Russinovitch-level knowledge of Windows internals from other normal usual Windows users, but with Linux every stupid thing they want to do should be baby-fed to them down to that deep level.
I really hate the first kind, it’s the type who think making yet another “nice wallpapers” Ubuntu-based distribution makes them cooler than me, or that Wayland is already good enough for everything and my arguments that there’s no FVWM under Wayland should be disproved by myself doing my own google search, and so on.
The second kind is normal for every area of human existence. You don’t have to know everything, but also nobody owes you accepting you as equal to those who do, or your opinion, and nobody owes you the benefits of knowledge, and nobody owes you making things work the exact way you want.
TLDR - community members are as valuable as their contributions. If someone’s contribution is reposting Nixie Pixel videos (or whatever is their alternative now), then no matter how “not elitist and nice” they are, they are not very useful compared to those with knowledge. But if someone’s being elitist without any knowledge (as is typical among Arch Linux users), then maybe they are even less valuable.
As a third party, I feel I have to contend this.
“Nobody owes you accepting you as equal” is also a form of dangerous elitism. Linux is built on the foundation of cooperation and mutual aid, and I don’t think it’s the right place to figure out who is more or less “valuable”.
Someone who lacks some of the technical know-how of Linux might be useful to the community as a Linux advocate, or as someone with good ideas on user-friendly design, or something else entirely that can still be useful.
Besides, if we ever hope for “the year of Linux desktop” to be a real thing, we have to be inviting. Yes, most PC users are not technical specialists. Yes, they will have dumb and silly questions. Yes, many of such quesrions have already been answered before, and yes, they could have searched better.
But such is life. Maybe we have time and will for this, but most people don’t. If we want for all our favorite programs and games to finally become Linux native, if we want to ensure Linux experience becomes smooth, if we don’t want to be seen as a community of red-eyed nerds, we need all those people in. And there’s no detriment to this greater than constant infighting and elitism, than forcing people to bury down the wikis instead of providing useful support, and so on. People will just…leave back for Windows, and that’s it. Poof, one less potential supporter in an uphill battle to make Linux mainstream.
Now, I know how frustrating it may be to answer same questions again and again, in your free time, getting nothing for it. I understand it. But we shouldn’t let frustration break the bonds that make it all work. If you don’t feel like answering that same question, just…don’t. That will be enough. Someone else will get them up to speed.
Linux is built on the foundation of cooperation and mutual aid
It’s very dangerous to make casual users and activists and someone like me equal to people doing actual work.
As demonstrated by RedHat-fed activists abusing that equality again and again, making “the community” appear what RedHat wants it to be.
Besides, if we ever hope for “the year of Linux desktop” to be a real thing, we have to be inviting.
You know who’s not being inviting? Microsoft and Apple. The former just informs you that the PCs you can buy come with Windows that version, the latter just shows how damn fscking important and rich you’ll look if you buy their stuff.
The problems are all technical (with “user-friendliness” and “just works” movement as it exists contributing to them and not solving them), if they didn’t exist, nobody would care that the community is grumpy.
Yes, they will have dumb and silly questions. Yes, many of such quesrions have already been answered before, and yes, they could have searched better.
It’s fine to be dumb and ask questions, but with Unix-likes it’s somehow common that newbies first ask for advice, then get it, then react with “that’s dumb, should have been done like in Windows” and that tends to irritate people. And sometimes they want to do things the hard way, but blame the system for them lacking knowledge to do that.
If we want for all our favorite programs and games to finally become Linux native, if we want to ensure Linux experience becomes smooth, if we don’t want to be seen as a community of red-eyed nerds, we need all those people in.
Something is wrong. Amateur radio and in general knowing stuff about radio being associated with a “community of red-eyed nerds” was a fact, but never prevented people from using radio in the 90s and 80s. Most people can’t do electric design for their apartment, yet they use electricity.
And there’s no detriment to this greater than constant infighting and elitism, than forcing people to bury down the wikis instead of providing useful support, and so on.
So why don’t BSDs have that problem?
That’s a rhetorical question, because in BSDs they don’t slap layers of layers of tools intended to make things “easier” and parallel ways to do the same. Linux user-friendliness movement is doomed in the way that it’s not aimed at making kernel interfaces and basic tooling simpler, it aims at making graphical and scripted slap-ons that make things kinda work. All with different logic, taking the nerves out of newbies, and at the same time those newbies can’t exactly tell what’s wrong.
And infighting and elitism are because it’s hard for everyone to admit they are all wrong, all sides. The “elitist” side, because yep, newbies shouldn’t struggle with setting up sound where in BSDs that’s kinda easy, for example. The “newbie-friendly” side, because they are focusing on the wrong thing.
The development process is the problem. Both with the kernel and the userland and with major DEs.
Wrt your second kind:
I see a question i’m tired of answering i just don’t fucking reply to the post.
Try it. Marvellous stuff.
Do you follow the same principle when seeing anti-vaxxer posts en masse? Or any other fillers?
I usually answer a few questions with advice and then leave, when the op genuinely just uses other people as ChatGPT. But I understand those who start making jokes.
No, because they’re not comparable.
To be honest i tend to answer a lot of questions because we’ve all been there, and professionally i spend a lot of time making sure people understand things they did not previously understand.
But if i’m on a comm and someone asks something i cannot be arsed answering…i just don’t answer it. Simple.
I don’t want things to get simpler to the detriment of the power that Linux has. As long as there’s no regression who cares
Linux is so complicated!
Translation:
Linux actually isn’t Windows.
Absolutely this, im all in favor of making Linux more accessible but we dont need to become a Windows clone
Simplification is kind of vague
Just let the user decide
Yeah they probably mean easy. And probably easy for me, or what I already know.
That said, one of the complaints I commonly hear about Gnome is that it’s simplified to the point of being hard to use. So again, simplification is probably not what they mean.
Arch wiki btw
My only beef with this lately has been valutwarden.
like look, I get it, http is shit, but I’m on a local network and it isn’t shared or even published to the greater internet in any way… can’t I NO, YOU WILL USE DNS CERTS PER ARTICLE 1.2 OF THE INSTALLATION GUIDE AND YOU WILL SET UP A REVERSE PROXY WITH CLOUDFLARE…
ughhhh
I’ve seen the exact same assholes in this community. They’ll argue on one hand that it’s not too complicated, then openly push back against any UI improvement because they don’t want more people moving into their niche. Gatekeeping turds.
If you don’t like a particular piece of software move on to something else. It is entirely up to the dev since it is ultimately there project. They owe nothing to you and demanding things does nothing but annoy everyone.
I’m gonna point out the reluctance to improve the user experience to those who complain at the low number of user migrations. Try and stop me.
Example? Why are there always people who can find these unicorns and I never seem to run into them.
Or are you being extreme in calling gatekeeping because they feel they don’t need the GUI, because it just works? Someone argued with me about how a GUI is necessary for everything and frankly it is the slowest way to convey information and the least accurate.
But if YOU want a GUI, welcome to open source, and feel free to implement it.
Point is, I don’t think people are trying to gatekeep, or hold onto their niche, it just doesn’t make sense or scratch their own itch.
I’ve seen it in this very sub. But I’m not gonna hunt down the comments.
You have seen, in this sub, about Linux Memes in your words: “Gatekeeping Turds … who push back on UI improvements because they dont want people moving into their niche.”
Yeah. Right. This is exactly the place you have found a group of people who do not want you to make changes because they are defending… checks notes… the “niche” of open source software.
Yeah, I am thinking this might be a you problem. And I am trying to say this in a nice way: anyone can made that change. Asking someone else to do it may get push back, but that is any software development. Effort vs reward. But to claim the want to hold onto a niche… in open source? Uh… ok.
No worry dude. You don’t have to believe it. Now that you’re gonna be blocked, you won’t even have to see it.
Yeah. Blocked. A thing I have never done in 12 years at reddit or here.
So this person doesn’t want a conversation, and immediately goes to blocked while calling people names.
Yep it is a them problem.
And I always find it so strange, because when did people not be able to disagree? I have disagreed with some on on one topic and then found them in another forum being brilliant about that other thing.
This blocked, I never want to see or talk to you again, is something so new to me.
In the old days I would have just assume they are trolling. I am beginning to wonder if that isn’t their plan afterall.
