this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
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Linux

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Learning fixes without looking everything up or having the answer given outright (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works to c/linux@lemmy.world
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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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[–] chickenf622@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

The place to start is searching "How to do x in Linux (or the name of the specific distro you're using)?". If you are trying to figure out how to do something with a specific program searching for "How to do x in {program} on Linux?". I've been using Linux for years and still need to look up the syntax for commands or a reminder on how to do things. I would also focus on learning things that you actively need so you can apply what you learned immediately. I definitely agree with you that see what is actually installed can be a mess. There's so many different installation methods that it's nigh impossible to have a single unified interface. I would try to stick with one installation method as much as possible so most things are able to be listed in one spot.

For how to apply things it's common to feel overwhelmed with the complexity of certain tasks. It's important to try and break that down into smaller parts. An example of something I was recently dealing with was getting SSH access from an external network setup on a server that is running NixOS. There's so many steps to take to get that setup, but each individual step is easy to do. I broke down the problem like this:

  1. Find the server's local IP address. Easy to pull up on the machine itself or looking at the devices connected to my router.
  2. Ping that IP address from the computer I want to SSH from.
  3. Enable the SSH daemon on the server.
    1. In my case this was just settings a variable to true, but in most cases it would be installing if via a package manager (varies depending on the distro), but I run Fedora so I would run sudo dnf install openssh openssh-server. I can find those package names by running dnf search ssh or "SSH server on fedora".
    2. Ensure the SSH daemon is enabled and running by running sudo systemctl enable sshd and sudo systemctl start sshd
  4. Try to SSH into the server from the computer I want to use.
  5. Create some SSH keys so I can do authentication via a private key file instead of a password (much more secure, and good practice).

I can go on, but each step I feel is simple to execute and doesn't require knowledge from any subsequent step. As for how I know what the steps are, I am following some tutorials or docs online like this, digging through man pages, and personal experience.