this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
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Linux

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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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[–] LostWanderer@fedia.io 2 points 2 weeks ago

Really it boils down to having a basic understanding of what commands can do and why you'd want to use them in specific instances. There are general books and resources out there that can at least raise baseline knowledge, for example Introduction to Linux. Or one of my favorite The Linux Documentation Project. As experienced people forget what it's like to be new at something, you won't immediately find anything super readable out the gate; though occasionally you do run into easy to understand things just randomly on the web. Secondly reading the documentation of the distro you are using (as sometimes you'll find some useful stuff in there) like what they use as a basis to create their distro. That can aid one's troubleshooting because you know where you can look in order to achieve the result you crave. Or help you ask targeted questions that can boost your ability to learn about things.

Another is not using an Arch-based distro when you've only used Mint as your first distro, that is a difficulty spike that you aren't ready for. Ubuntu is probably the easiest to get your toes wet with, after Mint, as you have graphical ways of solving problems and terminal based solutions. A great hybrid for learning the basics, as most command related solutions are similar (but do have different structure based on the distro). As Ubuntu's documentation is fairly solid and can mostly be parsed once you understand the basics. Linux is a different animal in a lot of respects, it's meant for people that are ready to learn and Linux can be learned over time. To really understand, it will take time and effort to parse documents, think, and apply the fruits of those mental labors. However, as Linux is a community, you can reach out to others. There really isn't an easy way to do this, is my point. We all start out fresh, but because humans have brains, you can figure Linux out.