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Developers do not look for reports on social media, so they will not see it and all it does is clutter up the feed.
Let's make Windows 10 the last version ever used!
*Sat. 28 Dec. 11h* Stage YELL #KDEEco 's Call To Action against e-waste driven by #Windows10.
*Mon. 30 Dec. 13-15h* B&B habitat join the BoF to organize a global #FreeSoftware campaign to raise awareness of Windows 10's EoL in 2025, the role of software in #eWaste, and how independent, sustainable #FOSS is a solution to keep devices in use & out of the landfill.
https://fahrplan.alpaka.space/jugend-hackt-38c3-2024/talk/ST8NJA/
Let me clarify: I myself have used Linux as my only OS since the end of Win7 support, but I've used it via dualboot for anything not gaming even before. I'm fairly adept by now, so this whole conversation isn't about my personal learning.
It's about coaxing Windows users over to Linux. If you don't care about that, stop reading and stop replying, because that's what the whole thread was about and you clearly missed the point. If you do, we need to give people both a reason to switch and an easy transition.
Linux has a public image of "complicated" and will always have the hurdle of having to learn something different. The point is that we need to update the first (the public perception) and help people over the second as smoothly as possible. We need to project the impression that it's no longer complicated like it used to be, and if you need help with anything, there will be plenty of people willing to help you.
And that's where we get to the "RTFM" issue: People responding to questions with "You're on your own" harm that impression. A new user skimming a forum or googling some issue can't tell whether it's a simple question or a hard question, whether it's good documentation or bad documentation, all they see is someone asking for help and getting a "lol no". That reputation spreads, and it speaks to a self-centered culture where "figure it out yourself" isn't just acceptable, but the norm.
If you want to win people over, you have to welcome them in. That includes showing a willingness to help them.
Besides, isn't the whole point of FOSS to help each other out for free, to break the commercial cycle of enshittification and exploitation?
Sorry, I will use "a person" when trying to make examples not related with you.
I'm super obsessed with Linux, I always tell people to use Linux, I try even the older people to get into Linux, I tell friends to install it and I try to help them. I'm really obsessed with Linux system, I really love it, and it hurts me when people just gets scared when I mention Linux (because that happened to me, some people don't want to hear the "Linux" word).
I think that's what I was talking about Microsoft never going to allow to Linux be popular, they just want it to be a solution for programmers, they don't want people to see Linux for a daily OS. The marketing and mass media is the main issue, if more users uses Linux, more companies will focus their apps for Linux. Until then, we need to read git source pages to see if they made the app for us (anyway, Wine should be able to run it if the app doesn't have many requirements).
It is possible to buy computers with Linux OS already installed, so you can just open the browser and search what you want to know what to do on Linux, for example video editing, you can use Kdenlive and many YouTube tutorials for Linux and you would do it also if you had Windows OS, unless you paid for a teacher, but when someone never touched a Windows, normally they need to seek for tutorials or guides, Windows and Linux has, but Windows is limited and Linux allows you to do much more.
The "F" in FOSS stands for "Free" and refers to free as in freedom, not just "free as in no cost." You can commercialize your FOSS projects without problem, the whole point of FOSS is the freedom.
I think we're talking in circles here. My point is: Telling people to go read the docs contributes to the perception of the linux community as closed and unhelpful. That perception doesn't help with winning over more people. As you note:
But that cycle has to start somewhere, and until companies start picking up, we need to do it ourselves, for ideological reasons if not monetary ones. Telling people to start out with easy guides is good, but redirecting further questions to docs and git pages builds a wall.
Why should I do the reading for someone without pay? Because I can, I trust my understanding and I want to help them.
But there are hard and easy guides, just go to the easy guides. The times someone said to me to read the docs, they were right. Often when I want to start a post asking for help or reporting an issue I realize that issue has been reported already or documented before I finish writing it, because I do my searches while I write my issue adding context of it.
If your skills aren't good for that guide, start with something simple, I don't know what kind of issue happens that what you are explaining.
I do help anyone, no matter if they use Android, Linux, Windows, Apple... The best way to help them for me is to sit behind them and tell them what steps to take, often they ask me what to do, and then I tell them to read what is on the screen, the app window or the popup, and here I say, "just read, what does it say?" and the text they read is often the response to what they want to do.
That's what I mean: we're techies. We know what context may be relevant. We know how to read that documentation and we know how to search for it. When we read documentation, we can tell whether we understand it, we can try if a fix applies to our issue, we can recognise if a given issue description matched ours. When we read a message, we know what is or isn't a technical term and what they refer to. We know synonyms like folder and directory, we understand that a word document, powerpoint presentation or executable all are "files", we trust our understanding and our ability to compensate whatever we don't know with searches or educated guesses.
All of these things require understanding a lot of tech words and a degree of trust in your understanding, and that's where non-tech users hit a snag. I'll tell them "You don't need to buy a new Windows key to reinstall it, you can check your current one. Here's a good and detailed guide." They'll get back with "I don't know what that command thing is, it looks scary, I'm not doing that" because they don't trust themselves. It's literally a step by step guide for opening the cmd, entering a command and finding a relevant part of the text it produces, and they get scared that they'll mess it up because they have absolutely zero understanding of the components. They don't know what a command line is, they don't know what a text command is, they know nothing of what we take for granted.
They said they'd need someone to guide them through and basically hold their hand for it, someone to unfuck whatever they fuck up, or at least confirm that what they're doing is right, to help them understand the output and assure them that the text means exactly what they think it means.
When you sit behind them and tell them what to do, to just read the message without fear of not understanding, that's exactly the helping I mean. In order to even dare to try Linux, people need the assurance that, whatever their issue, someone will be there for them. And that assurance comes through the way we treat questions online - all question, not just the more complex ones, because the layperson can't tell the difference.
When they come asking for help, don't send them away. No matter how familiar the docs and git pages may be for you, don't just send them there. Show them what they have to do, where it is written, how it is written there and how to understand that writing. Guide them, and they'll be happier to follow.
As I said, because Linux is not popular, it's hard to know someone close to you that knows Linux to help you.
Now, with your example that you give here, let's say you want to learn how to use the Windows PowerShell things. If you don't have someone close, you would look for a professional to pay, if you don't want to pay, you would check for a YouTube guide and there are full of guides about it.
If you want to do the same with the Linux terminal, is the same exact phrase: "let's say you want to learn how to use the Linux terminal things. If you don't have someone close, you would look for a professional to pay, if you don't want to pay, you would check for a YouTube guide and there are full of guides about it."
Most of the people wants to play on their PC and don't want to mess with Linux, the people I know that doesn't play on their PC are still using the Linux I installed to them. And your example is something easy, and there are many guides on YouTube and blogs about it.
If someone responds with a "rtfm", should be because the question is about something complex not a common user do, what common people do on their computer it's all on YouTube guides.
I think those people that kept with Linux are those that doesn't play games or doesn't reject the idea from the beginning (denying learning something new).
You're still getting a fundamental detail wrong: Most non-tech people don't want to "learn (tool)", they want to "do (thing)" and (tool) happens to be part of the solution. But they don't search for "beginner's guide to (tool)", let a lone a professional to teach them, they search for "vague terms describing what I want to do in non-technical terms". They may get accurate results, useless results, results targeted at more technical users, or their choice of words may overlap with technical terms meaning something else and more complex.
If they click on a search result they (or google) think is relevant to their search and see an online forum of people responding bluntly, they'll leave. They don't know that the response is about something more complex. They can't possibly tell. All they see is a culture of "You're on your own, buddy". That impression may stick with them, may even spread, and create a wall between techies and non-techies.
My vision is one where they'd see helpful answers, even if they don't understand them, but they feel encouraged to ask. If it turns out this isn't actually related to their issue, someone will point them the right way. I want that to be the impression we create. That includes answering more complex questions. That would benefit both the non-techies feeling more welcome, the veterans that probably have already read the docs and found them wanting and the beginners that need help learning to understand docs.
"RTFM" should under no circumstances be considered a reasonable answer. If you don't want to help, don't. If you want to help, give an explanation while pointing at the relevant section of the docs. Piping up just to tell people to go away and not asking questions is a dick move.
If we want break corporate monopolies, we need to be better than them, particularly in User Experience. Poor User Experience includes poor Pre-Experience while deciding whether to use a product. That means we need to project a welcoming image all around, not just selectively.