this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
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How do you guys actually learn how to fix certain things? Its mind boggling how one can visit a forum and there's people saying "oh yeah just run -c xhhkrk ()<>[] bbbhjl and that will fix your sound issue"

Like WHERE do you even start? I hate having to look things up all the time when everyone else on windows "just works". Copying commands off forums endlessly doesn't really help you learn.

Example, installed cachyos on an older laptop, but sound and screen dimming will not work. I have no ides where to even begin with that. I feel like a windows user could at least poke around control panel and probably fix the issue but its way harder with linux.

I have had luck with almost everything working with mint on my desktop (except vr, oculus is a nighmare to get working) and have been running that about a year. If I had to set it all up again id have to re look up everything I forgot since then..

If there was something like man but easier to parse through, that would be immensely helpful. Like for my sound issue, if there was a better organized manual that I could look under "sound" and see the inner workings laid out and common issues, thats what we need. Otherwise people are going to be terrified of linux because its so hard.

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[–] serpineslair@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

From my experience, it's something that only came with time spent diagnosing things, and then building up instincts for things like that, or just poking around with things and understanding how things work under the hood. Even then, there are usually things I have to look up every now and then.

Though I must admit, my knowledge basically tripled since installing arch and figuring things out myself with only the help of man pages, and trying to correct the behaviour of just looking things up and blindly applying fixes. Each time I need to fix something complicated, I fight the urge to just "look it up" and stop, take a breath, and think. It seems obvious but sometimes I forget to do that. I try to fix it myself, and then occasionally when shit hits the fan, I look it up, but try to understand why the fix works. But as I said, you will likely only reach that level of experience with time, or alternatively throwing yourself into the deep end of a difficult distro with no hand holding to understand not only how something is done, but why.

Not sure if any of that made sense, or I'm just rambling.. Eh..