this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2026
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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No, fuck you.
If you want to use the community computer you have to actually put forth the effort to learn how to do it. There is no excuse in 2026, vast mountains of educational material in every format written for every combination of medium and cognition are available at an instant.
From your perspective it would be easier and more efficient if people made videos, or talked you through it. From everyone else’s perspective it’s a big waste of time when they could be doing literally anything else and you will end up with a stronger understanding when you do it yourself.
That’s not to say people won’t help you, just that you should put forth the effort to learn so you don’t burden the community, such as it is, with your simple requests.
Alternately, you don’t have to use linux. Windows is a perfectly good operating system, macos is a perfectly good operating system.
I dunno man, I want my friends and family using Linux. I don’t think this is the right mentality.
People still converse over simple facts. What does the plant that grows cinnamon look like? Who won the Super Bowl in x year? Simple facts that could easily just be looked up, but people like talking to each other.
Even reading off a Wikipedia page to someone else, you get an opportunity to cater the tone, pace, and omissions / additional clarity to whomever you’re talking to.
The drop in Stack Overflow questions shows that if people can’t get helpful answers from other humans, they will get them from AI.
this is an absolutely toxic take of the issue. I took OP's statement as less of a "I won't read the manual" and more of a "I struggle to be able to read manuals"
There are many times I had read the manual, and then had to look up the issue further anyway because I either missed the poorly written section, or misunderstood what it was saying.
If you want a prime example of that, go look at ffmpeg and try to figure out how to select a specific language for subtitles on a video without looking it up online. its via -map as an advanced option, which is described as a parameter to extract specific streams (which also means they would need to map the video and the audio streams since including a -map removes every auto stream). but map doesn't tell you subtitle tracks are index:s. it does tell you that you can look at stream specifiers for valid search options, which does include s as a type, and lets you know that you can use m for metadata tagging, but you would need to make the connection that the type is s, and the meta data search flag would be m:language:langcode, and you need to make the connection the entire string has to be concated so its index:s:m:language:langcode For someone who is learning ffmpeg and video transcoding, that is not a very good setup. The stream specifiers give a few examples of what the potentials are but, the location where it specifies the types are in a different area than the one where it specifies the metadata keys. At that point just asking online or searching is way easier.
Note: this is just an issue I have see people come across because ffmpeg is one of the more complicated programs (the man page is over 2300 lines)
is it in the manual? yes. is someone who doesn't know how to use ffmpeg and is trying to learn it going to find it? that's debatable.
If I was in that situation, my next step would be googling it, and if I couldn't find it via searching, I would be reaching out to communities. At that point "RTFM" is useless to me.