Quoting: AltefierNo I mean really, I'm pretty sure that's not how this goes...

I'm pretty sure of my own experiences... and they're very different from what you're describing, tbh.

Quoting: AltefierWhen I do the same search for Manjaro "how to change monitor layout manjaro"

I suspect that's part of the problem - the word "manjaro". You're limiting your search results when you start searching by distro. Sure, new users won't understand this, but when I replaced "manjaro" with "gnome", my top hits were several AskUbuntu articles describing how to do so in some detail. Albeit, since around 2017 (or earlier, depending on distro), this is as simple as going to Settings/Display and dragging stuff around, of course, so "some detail" wasn't really a lot of detail!

Quoting: AltefierLearning Windows was much easier because...

I just don't agree here at all. Sure, there's a learning curve, but I suspect you're just forgetting the learning curve you experienced on Windows too. This is all just a familiarity issue. Sure, there are plenty of bad guides for Linux-related stuff out there. But in my experience, there a shocking number of wholly uninformed and useless guides for Windows too. Maybe I just get to recognise which is which because I'm familiar with both? With 40 or so years computing experience? And 25+ years in a technical role for a big multinational? I've seen a lot, on both sides on this fence. Definitely don't want to belittle your own experiences, but they certainly do NOT match my own. Learning Linux in 2005 was challenging. Learning Linux today is better, but still a learning curve. But when I look at my sons who have never had to deal with Windows in their entire lives (they're 15 and 17), I suspect they'd have a hard time with what you think is easy.

You know, maybe 7-8 years has made a big difference in the quality of guides out there for Windows. There's definitely been a little bit of consistency since Windows 7 came around 2010 (let's just forget vista and Win8 for now), and I stopped using Windows only about 2 years later, when most guides were still aimed at a weird mix of Windows 2000, 2008, Me, XP... you name it. Pure chaos.

So glad I'm out of that gig.

I could give a ton of examples if I remembered them all. But for instance, just now I was looking for turning on word wrapping in the default text editor (Mousepad) and turns out, you just can't do it. You need to edit a config file. Which you need to create first, too. Oh, and I'm not allowed to create folders to create that file apparently, so as of now I'm still in the process of figuring out why this is something that is forbidden despite me being an administrator account.

As you can see, I'm about to embark on another journey through a nightmare maze - all I wanted was to have word wrapping in my notes and I'm already at "why can't I create new folders in this one hidden folder for a config file that doesn't yet exist". Again an instance of Linux applications being more complicated for basic things than in Windows or MacOS for whatever reason.

In addition, I was reading a thread on that which is where I remembered this example quirk of Linux users NEVER giving you the full path to your files when giving you advice. You rarely if ever see that with Windows, people give you the full path but not so much here. In the past this was part of what made it so difficult for me to learn just the file system itself. Even though it is, at its core, about as straightforward as that of Windows, it's just laid out in a confusing way with that Home folder and basic folders (like that of Steam) being hidden for some reason.

This is what the user in that thread tells you where to find the config file:

"~/.config/Mousepad/mousepadrc"

Try figuring out where that is as a newbie. Especially when no one tells you that folders starting with a "." are hidden from you, meaning you have to type that into the address bar on top of that, and that "~" is not a "vague path/your mileage may vary" sign, but is supposed to represent your "Home" folder for some reason. Instead of just typing out home? What a mess! I genuinely don't get why Linux users tend to be so cryptic when helping others.

Trust me I haven't forgotten. I learned Windows on my own by using search engines for help and the same approach is much more difficult for Linux. I don't think this can be contested objectively.

This may be hard to comprehend as a veteran, but think back to what a newbie sees in their OS on their first day. Windows shows and tells its users clear as day that their images are located in a path named "C:\Users\[YourUsername]\Pictures". So when they seek help online and other users help by giving paths to files in the "C:\etc." structure, it's very easy to understand and follow that advice because it's relating to something they already learned naturally from the OS. Contrast that with Linux where you are first thrown into your "Home" folder with no indication that this is a special folder and not the starting (root) folder, and people come at you with "~" and "." for their paths. It's ultimately much more confusing and it's hard to google for things when you're confused about the basic terms and symbols people use.

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: AltefierWhen I do the same search for Manjaro "how to change monitor layout manjaro"

I suspect that's part of the problem - the word "manjaro". You're limiting your search results when you start searching by distro. Sure, new users won't understand this, but when I replaced "manjaro" with "gnome", my top hits were several AskUbuntu articles describing how to do so in some detail. Albeit, since around 2017 (or earlier, depending on distro), this is as simple as going to Settings/Display and dragging stuff around, of course, so "some detail" wasn't really a lot of detail!

I know it's off-topic, but I wanted to reply to this.
From a new user point of view, it only seems logical to search for your specific distro ; with Windows for example, most people would search with the Windows version they are using, after all (no point in returning the replies for how to configure dual monitor on Windows 98...)

Also, and I am talking about Manjaro as an example, Arch users tend to not like when you go on Arch forums and ask for something on Manjaro. "Go on Manjaro forums", they say.

And then, still following your example, if one was simpling looking for Gnome / whatever application, without specifying your distro, you might come up with a solution like

 
sudo apt-get intall package_name

which, for some (obvious for the people who know) reasons, won't work "as explained in the guide"...

Quoting: furaxhornyx

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: AltefierWhen I do the same search for Manjaro "how to change monitor layout manjaro"

I suspect that's part of the problem - the word "manjaro". You're limiting your search results when you start searching by distro. Sure, new users won't understand this, but when I replaced "manjaro" with "gnome", my top hits were several AskUbuntu articles describing how to do so in some detail. Albeit, since around 2017 (or earlier, depending on distro), this is as simple as going to Settings/Display and dragging stuff around, of course, so "some detail" wasn't really a lot of detail!

I know it's off-topic, but I wanted to reply to this.
From a new user point of view, it only seems logical to search for your specific distro ; with Windows for example, most people would search with the Windows version they are using, after all (no point in returning the replies for how to configure dual monitor on Windows 98...)

Also, and I am talking about Manjaro as an example, Arch users tend to not like when you go on Arch forums and ask for something on Manjaro. "Go on Manjaro forums", they say.

And then, still following your example, if one was simpling looking for Gnome / whatever application, without specifying your distro, you might come up with a solution like

 
sudo apt-get intall package_name

which, for some (obvious for the people who know) reasons, won't work "as explained in the guide"...

Yep, I agree with all of that, tbh. But, if you know the guts a little, your searches will be far better. And even that apt reference would get you thinking along the right lines in terms of Arch.

I think I'm just lucky that I stuck to Ubuntu and its derivatives over the years - between the Ubuntu Forums, Launchpad and then AskUbuntu, the quality of support and the consistency of responses is generally extremely high.

Your own technical experience is still key of course. It's like knowing when to add "registry" to a windows search result, because you know what the registry is, and you're pretty certain that's where the answer lies. Over time, you build up that knowledge and the overall experience is better.

Quoting: AltefierTrust me I haven't forgotten. I learned Windows on my own by using search engines for help and the same approach is much more difficult for Linux. I don't think this can be contested objectively.

I don't agree with any your response, I'm afraid, but this (emphasis mine) is the crux of it. You can't contest this objectively? No, quite the opposite. You can't assert that objectively.

It's all subjective. Your experience is perfectly valid. But I'm telling you, over and over in fact, that my experience was pretty much the opposite. Maybe it's because I didn't use obscure text editors (wth is mousepad??) or maybe it's because I started with Ubuntu on default - no XFCE at all. But bottom line, our experiences don't line up at all.

Like what's a C: drive? Why not A: or B:?? Wait, I plugged in a USB, now I have a E: drive? What happened to D:? Oh, that's my CDROM maybe? It's so arbitrary and confusing. Windows was (and in my opinion remains) utterly baffling to this day. Don't get me started on file permissions and system roles. The way it handles DNS. The crummy UAC model. Services. The registry.

The learning curve on Windows is insane. Only years of context and training got me vaguely comfortable with it. There's absolutely no reason to expect that to be transferable to Linux. In fact, the biggest hindrances I faced with Linux was when I tried to do things the way I expected they'd work on Windows. Once I ditched that mindset, I really started to enjoy my time with it.

The first thing that appeled to me when i no longer used the broken window was that if and when a program failed it gave an actual error message that was at least searchable (or after some experience let you do some things without googling) where on windows more often than not i just got a beep and maybe it printed some memory address. Then on windows the default applications are a pile of trash (yet the installation takes up a lot of space, like a full linux installation or more), they can't open the most used file formats, while a fresh graphical install on linux (independently of the distribution) already comes with a working music/media player and a good enough text editor (and pdf reader and browser etc...). On windows you do everything with 3rd party programs that you download from 3rd party websites, whereas on linux you have repositories where maintainers actually do some work on them, you rarely download from upstream (well that's kinda what the horrible snap/flatpak etc. wants to be).

Almost forgot, windows is so dumb it won't (or didn't) open files if you did not put the filetype extension in the filename.

Also linux has a relatively simple way of learning in general compared to windows. To this day if i want to get something done on windows it's harder to do, one prime example is network management. Their UI is confusing and it's an abomination compared to something like NetworkManager, which places a lot of configuration option in front of you, on windows its like a series of radio button checks that never made sense to me.

If you really want to learn linux, don't start with a compile yourself distro, pick one of the others and stick with it. Learn the package manager first, then learn the tools one by one. You don't even have to go out of your way, you can learn them as you need them. You'll get a lot better experience out of the box than windows.

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: furaxhornyx

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: AltefierWhen I do the same search for Manjaro "how to change monitor layout manjaro"

I suspect that's part of the problem - the word "manjaro". You're limiting your search results when you start searching by distro. Sure, new users won't understand this, but when I replaced "manjaro" with "gnome", my top hits were several AskUbuntu articles describing how to do so in some detail. Albeit, since around 2017 (or earlier, depending on distro), this is as simple as going to Settings/Display and dragging stuff around, of course, so "some detail" wasn't really a lot of detail!

I know it's off-topic, but I wanted to reply to this.
From a new user point of view, it only seems logical to search for your specific distro ; with Windows for example, most people would search with the Windows version they are using, after all (no point in returning the replies for how to configure dual monitor on Windows 98...)

Also, and I am talking about Manjaro as an example, Arch users tend to not like when you go on Arch forums and ask for something on Manjaro. "Go on Manjaro forums", they say.

And then, still following your example, if one was simpling looking for Gnome / whatever application, without specifying your distro, you might come up with a solution like

 
sudo apt-get intall package_name

which, for some (obvious for the people who know) reasons, won't work "as explained in the guide"...

Yep, I agree with all of that, tbh. But, if you know the guts a little, your searches will be far better. And even that apt reference would get you thinking along the right lines in terms of Arch.

I think I'm just lucky that I stuck to Ubuntu and its derivatives over the years - between the Ubuntu Forums, Launchpad and then AskUbuntu, the quality of support and the consistency of responses is generally extremely high.

Your own technical experience is still key of course.

(emphasis mine) Yep, that exactly my point.
You shouldn't have to know that you should not mention your distro when searching how to do something (and also, be ready to adapt a potential solution to your distro); that's counterproductive. Same with searching for the name of a config file, if you don't know it's the one you are looking for (and sometimes there are more than one).

Quoting: scaineIt's like knowing when to add "registry" to a windows search result, because you know what the registry is, and you're pretty certain that's where the answer lies. Over time, you build up that knowledge and the overall experience is better.

To be honest, editing Windows registry is probably somewhere between Linux's obscure config files, and custom kernel: if you think you need to go there, you probably know what you are doing. Not required to set up a dual monitor config, or to configure multiple audio interface (my personal experience, and it's still far from working perfectly)

Quoting: furaxhornyxYou shouldn't have to know that you should not mention your distro when searching how to do something

This seems less of an issue of Windows versus Linux and more of an issue with search techniques.

Including your distro in the search terms narrows the search. If you don't get any good matches you widen the search. Instead of "manjaro" you include "gnome", to widen further "linux". If you want to cast a really wide net you exclude any mention of the OS at all. This have actually saved me a couple of times when I didn't realize I had a hardware issue, and it wasn't Linux specific at all.

It's no different from researching any other issue. Car trouble? You might search "B201 NA FI misfire". No matches? "Saab 900 1984 misfire" etc. And of course you might also start with a wide search "Engine misfire causes" and narrow the field if you get too many or nonspecific matches-

Obviously knowing what to search for is part of the problem solving process. I'm going through that whole song and dance with my newly acquired and totally unfamiliar Windows install (strictly for working on Wine of course!) and it is tiresome!

Quoting: whizseQuoting: furaxhornyx
You shouldn't have to know that you should not mention your distro when searching how to do something
This seems less of an issue of Windows versus Linux and more of an issue with search techniques.

And basics. To be frank, there's not a lot out there for absolute beginners to Linux. Ubuntu/Mint is probably the best in the regard. As much as I like other distros, I couldn't recommend them; most assume a certain level of knowledge that you can't expect a new user to always have.

As for Mousepad, off the top of my head, there should be a menu option for word wrap. I used XFCE for 10 years. Never had to touch a conf file for that.
Might be under "view"? I'm a little fuzzy, I moved to KDE around the time of the GTK3 switches

Last edited by denyasis on 2 September 2021 at 12:13 am UTC