this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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TL;DR: I wonder why we always have the same 2 posts as top posts of the day. They appear a bit unnecessary and mildly annoying to me.
Do you think the same? Or do you like them, and can explain me why, so I can change my view?
Please don't just blindly downvote, writing this post took a lot of time. And if you feel the need to do it anyway, tell me why first.


Maybe I am the only person who thinks that.
I probably am, at least according to numbers.

Basically, I've got the feeling that every top post of the day for the last weeks is something like "I've freed myself from evil Windows' shackles and finally switched to Linux.", or "What distro do you recommend?".

Don't get me wrong.
I feel super happy for every newcomer discovering the wonderful world of Linux and FOSS.
I, just like most others here, always try to help them in finding their right distro and guiding them in their first steps.
We all have been there.
And I'm super proud of us all, as a community, that we happily embrace every new member. We definitely have to keep that behaviour, it's what connects us and makes us strong.

I just think we should redirect them a bit onto the specific communities.
Not by banning or censoring, just as friendly reminder, e.g. by a sticky post, comments like "Hey, check out [email protected]" or something else.

It doesn't help much if there are the same threads every day, with people circlejerking on hating Windows and recommending Mint a hundred times, just like 100 people before did on the same thread.

I hate Windows too, but it feels like we're identifying and comparing ourselves with the bitter ex-partner we had a while ago. No, not being Windows shouldn't be the main reason Linux is great.
There are so many great posts and discussions, that are all going missing in this swamp of "Winblows bad, hehe".
We should focus on what makes our software great, and not what the "bad ex-partner" did wrong.

Same with newcomer posts.
I think if the posters get redirected to the correct sub, they will receive more help, since the people partaking in the community are there because they wanna see exactly that.


At the same time, I'm afraid this would undermine our openness and friendliness of this community, and result in being as shitty as Reddits' sub.

!Just as an anecdote, when I was a noob, I posted a question there, and, like 5 minutes later, I got a dozen of non-constructive, offensive comments. 10 minutes later, my post got removed. This was my first contact to the Linux world btw. Guess who switched back to Windows for another half year because of that?
We have to prevent this at any costs.
Anyway... !<


I really enjoy this community here and wanna keep it this great.
I just wanted to ask you, what you think about those everyday-top-posts.
If you like them, please try to change my mind and explain me why :)


Edit/ Additional stuff/ Learnings:

  • I don't hate those "I switched to Linux"-posts, just to clarify. They're fine for me, they just feel like white noise. But I've read many times in this thread that a lot of people enjoy those posts. If that's the case, I'm totally fine! :)
  • I think putting those posts in a weekly sticky thread could be worth an idea? Then everyone could describe their experience of this week of switching from one distro to another, e.g. "My first week of Gentoo" or something like this. Would be an interesting read for everyone.
  • I also believe those "Fuck Windows"-posts can be kind of therapeutic for some people, since Windows became really shitty and annoying in the last years. And when you feel the relieve from finally getting rid of it, you tell that everyone. Understandable.
  • Splitting the community isn't the best idea too. We can always learn from each other and I like the diversity of this community.
  • Thank you for your kind and constructive answers! ✌️
(page 3) 50 comments
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't think it's anyone's job to make sure newcomers do not leave Linux because "muh post was removed". If you can't take 2 minutes to find the correct sub to post your question, you won't be able to use Linux either.

Lemmy has this problem where everything is upvoted no matter what. I've posted some dumb questions myself expecting them to get removed but they received upvotes instead. I'm thinking its either bots to drive engagement or people are very welcoming here or they're just happy that Lemmy isn't dead yet so they'll upvote anything.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Responding with a meta level tangent comment, but I can't help feeling that when I read these type of comments that it's just Microsoft astroturfing, trying to shape the narrative away from migration to Linux.

Especially when you see those "I still can't get my favorite single game that uses anti-cheat tech or strange peripheral to work with Linux, so Linux sucks for all gaming" posts.

Just kind of seems like there's this stealthy narrative warfare going on.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I like seeing the posts of people finding comfort with their new linux installs even tho they might appear a couple of times.

Linux is still considered a niche so the most likelihood of the newer folk appearing is higher then the more experienced ones. Also I wasn't always experienced and if it wasn't for newbie friendly content I wouldn't be here helping other people as well.

After all, information doesn't spawn out of thin air, it requires someone to carry and distribute it so that other people become also educated in those ways.

Which is way I find weird finding some people say "people are dumb they should do x, y or z cause its better" but then they don't provide any information and expect others to also know what they already know/have learned recently.

In conclusion, sharing is caring and I don't mind people sharing their experiences which also helps others on the same situation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Perhaps we can make a new community here: c/ditchedWindows, for example.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The F Windows posts are great and can be very therapeutic. But guaranteed those users haven’t issued a command that accidentally wipes out their entire drive accidentally. Or they haven’t had their Window Manager just up and decide it doesn’t feel like working anymore because of an update.

I work with Linux a lot simply because of my 3D printers and I love it. But being on a community driven edge can be a nightmare sometimes when something updates and you’ve got to track down the problem. For me that’s half the fun since I usually get to help someone else out with the same issue.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But guaranteed those users haven’t issued a command that accidentally wipes out their entire drive accidentally.

Really?

Yeah, I can see the horde of Mint, PopOS, and a Ubuntu users running towards that command line prompt. /s

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I meant it more as an inexperienced Linux user having to fix something and inadvertently causing havoc more so than drive wiping.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If you send the noobs to a noob specific community with other noobs, then you pass the chance to share some of your knowledge that may save the noob from doing some silly stuff because of the bad habits he picked up while using Windows.

I think that it may be slightly annoying and repetitive, but it is important to give noobs a nudge in the right direction.

You can always ignore the posts, or contribute with fresh content. 😉

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I feel like limiting or discouraging them would really hurt adoption.

Many times people share their use cases.

If someone with similar use cases finds out "wait, it us possible for me yo use Linux?" they could become tomorrow's post.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I don’t personally get anything from this threads. It’s kinda self congratulatory. I guess I understand being excited about it though

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Most of those posts are fake too, just karma farming.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Uff, where to start? I'm slit 50/50 on your view. I think you're absolutely right that the best option would be a sticky saying something along the lines of "welcome to a new and better life of freedom. We're here to help you. Please start by reading (whatever sticky post to make them feel welcome and give them a jump start), and we look forward to evolving towards full cyber freedom together".

And I agree that, some times, we can be a bit vexing to newcomers. Having said that, most, if not all of us, have been that newcomer all too happy to notify everyone that "I've finally gotten free of the poisonous claws of the devil, Microshot". So, I also understand why people would do that. I was there once, and was so happy I switched, I wanted to put an ad on Cable TV and every newspaper and magazine in the world for every creature to know.

After a while, I still blast windows every now and then, but inly to die-hand windows advocates.

Having said that, the sticky is just one of many potential options to curb these posts, but they will never cease to happen. As I said, the feeling is so awesome that lots of us just want to scream it to the top of our lungs.

Is it a bit annoying to see that every time you come in here there are 10 new posts with the exact same thing? Yes, sometimes it is. But it's also true that I enjoy it when I see another person finally managing to open their eyes and risk having to learn something new, different to the only thing they've know probably for years or even decades. This helps put Gnu-Linux on the map of developers, which in turn can attract more people, so, full-circle benefit.

I can't think of any options right now, but when I feel a bit annoyed by it, I just move on and keep browsing for what actually interests me at the moment. Other times, I may actually upvote, reply while congratulating and letting them know we're here to help navigate these new waters, and share a few tutorials, options and all that good stuff.

At the end of the day I think it all boils down to each of our moods the moment we see those. My mood towards them is pretty "bipolar", to say the least, lol.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Something you haven't touched on that is a big part of it too is sometimes users just want to discuss. I've found that mega threads, while kind, are generally useless for that.

The user is making the post because this is roughly their first discussion about distros and just reading through the other 15 posts with responses isn't the same as your post and your questions being responded to, even if they are pretty much the same.

That ends up being the issue. The megathread doesn't get consistent replies and so it feels like asking your questions into a void, making a comment on a different existing thread about the same thing feels like hijacking, and so we're left with making a new post about their journey and questions.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm working on phasing out windows in my office as much as I can entirely because of the end of win10 and the dumb requirements of windows 11. I'm still running it on my main home PC though because I'm insanely busy and like to game for like 5-10 hours a week and and want to spend zero hours getting games to run. If I buy a game on steam and it doesn't work I instantly I refund it even if I could probably figure it out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Fair enough, but kinda off-topic.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

It doesn’t help much if there are the same threads every day, with people circlejerking on hating Windows and recommending Mint a hundred times, just like 100 people before did on the same thread.

I hate Windows too, but it feels like we’re identifying and comparing ourselves with the bitter ex-partner we had a while ago. No, not being Windows shouldn’t be the main reason Linux is great.

We should focus on what makes our software great, and not what the “bad ex-partner” did wrong.

I completely agree with you and said many times that while I don't like the fact that Windows isn't open-source it does provide a LOT of value for a LOT of people who work on certain fields and haver certain software requirements. With Windows there's a lot of commercial support when it comes to Linux desktop it simply isn’t there.

If you require “professional” software such as MS Office, Adobe Apps, Autodesk, NI Circuit Design and whatnot Linux isn’t a viable options. The alternatives wont cut it if you require serious collaboration… virtualization, emulation (wine) may work but won’t be nice. Going for Linux kinda adds the same pains of going macOS but 10x. Once you open the virtualization door your productivity suffers greatly, your CPU/RAM requirements are higher and suddenly you’ve to deal with issues in two operating systems instead of just one. And… let’s face it, nothing with GPU acceleration will ever run decently unless big companies start fixing things - GPU passthroughs and getting video back into the main system are a pain and add delays.

To make things worse the Linux desktop development ecosystem is essentially non existent. The success of Windows and macOS is the fact that they provide solid and stable APIs and development tools that “make it easy” to develop for those platforms and Linux is very bad at that. The major pieces of Linux are constantly and ever changing requiring large and frequent re-works of apps. There aren’t distribution “sponsored” IDEs (like Visual Studio or Xcode), userland API documentation, frameworks etc.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 10 months ago

It's because half the people that post here's entire personality is using Linux.

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