this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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20ish years ago I installed Ubuntu on a laptop with the intention to get off Windows. I then spent 4 to 6 hours a day for the next two weeks just trying to get the WiFi to function. None of the fixes I could Google up worked, and that was frustrating. It was the people in the Linux forums that finally made me quit trying, though. The amount of gatekeeping was kind of shocking. Like, how dare I bother such mighty computer men with my plebian questions. I should feel honored that anyone condescended to respond at all, and I should gratefully accept their link to a fix I've already tried and fuck off.
I bought a new PC last year and I hate Windows 11 so much that it's got me eyeing Linux again. But the thought of having to repeat that whole ordeal again makes me feel sick to my butthole.
I can totally relate to this. Iβm pretty far into my own linux journey and if I didnt have so much stuff already done and wouldnt know as much, I probably would have a really bad time sometimes.
Itβs definitely not the majority (anymore, I guess) but there are some real elitist douchebags out there. The amount of times I got RTFMd is unholy.
By now, I do understand some of it as some users get really frustrated. This is hard to deal with sometimes as using polished windows has made them used to being pampered into helplessness. This does trigger me at times. I have to work hard to not RTFM them in that case.
TL;DR: imo, a lot of folks on both sides get frustrated because M$ and others make shiny, well oiled data collection machines and linux is neither the former nor the latter.
I'm not sure Windows is particularly polished though. Going back to it on occasion it feels kind of awful to use. I think most people are just fighting decades of muscle memory on how to use a PC
I switched pretty recently (maybe 6 months) and while the muscle memory is true, windows has a severely dumbed down and simplified everything imo. Even gnomes very limited customizability (without using cli) is a lot more than most windows users regularly need. Just from what I have seen over the years, not objective fact.
what distro was it back then? some distros religiously dedicated to software freedom don't ship the proprietary
linux-firmwareblobs which might, among other things, contain your WiFi drivers.I honestly don't remember. It was a long time ago. I also tried Mint thinking it might be more intuitive, but I couldn't get WiFi to work with either of them.
virtually any built in card works these days. with 3rd party cards... well you're better of looking up it's chipset and how well it is supported by linux before you buy one, for example some cheap realtek dongles had no WPA3 support and worse throughput. Iirc Broadcom has for a long time been hostile towards linux.
(That attitude has completely changed. Maybe give it another try sometime)
Even today, the Arch community is exactly as previously described.
I know people meme around about it but have you actually experienced it yourself? As an Arch user myself, can't confirm.
Yes.
My last experience was around 2 months ago with a driver issue. In the forums, someone linked a solution, and a lot of comments were in the lines of "Seriously? This was already in the newsletter, why are people not reading/subscribed to it. It's their problem then". Funnily enough, an actually helpful comment noted that the newsletter solution had a typo that made the solution not work as expected.
Lemmy is basically a Linux forum these days. Have you seen that kind of attitude here on Lemmy? You should give Linux another go and post any problem you have here on Lemmy.