linuxmemes

Man pages are for people who already know a lot about Linux and understand all the nuances and understanding of Linux

Even after using Linux for many many years I still don't understand wtf nearly all man pages mean. It's like a fucking codex. It needs to be simplified but not to the extreme where it doesn't give you information you need to understand it.

Tbh that's most of Linux, not designed for average people, designed by Linux users who think that all others should know everything about Linux.

Man pages are literally indecipherable as a newby

Copypastes every terminal command string from every forum post they see, hoping one of them fixes the problem

"How do I do X in linux?"

"Yeah so basically you just need to run this command and it should work on Ubuntu 12.10 (Last edited: Nov 2012)"

"Hey guys the way to do X changed in Ubuntu 16.04, see this updated link (Posted: Jan 2017)"

"Actually Ubuntu 18.04 is now using Y so you have to follow this new guide (Last edited: Jul 2019)"

"~~Crossed-out outdated guide~~

For Ubuntu 22, please reference this Canonical guide here. All other distros can simply use Z (Last edited: Aug, 2022)"

"404 not found (Canonical)"

"How do I do X in Debian?"

"You can run Z to do X (Posted: Oct 2013)"

"Thanks for this, it worked! (Posted: Sep 2023)"

"How do I do X in Fedora?"

"Ah just follow this wiki (Posted: Feb 2014)"

"(Wiki last update: Mar 2023)"

"How do I do X In Arch?"

"RTFM lmao: link to arch wiki (Posted: May 2017)"

"(Wiki last update: 3 minutes ago)"

You ask someone for instructions

They send you some bullshit 10 minutes long video

Now instead of ctrl+f or skimming the article and jumping where you want to go you need to jump around in a video

REEEE

You're not a real linux user unless you've read the source because the documentation was inadequate.

Free tech tip: https://cht.sh serves practical, usage-focused help on common command-line tasks. You can visit the website, or even better, curl for what you want.

$ curl cht.sh/touch

gets you this:

 cheat:touch 
# To change a file's modification time:
touch -d <time> <file>
touch -d 12am <file>
touch -d "yesterday 6am" <file>
touch -d "2 days ago 10:00" <file>
touch -d "tomorrow 04:00" <file>

# To put the timestamp of a file on another:
touch -r <refrence-file> <target-file>

Append with ~ and a word to show only help containing that word:

$ curl cht.sh/zstd~compress

Result:

 tldr:zstd 
# zstd
# Compress or decompress files with Zstandard compression.
# More information: <https://github.com/facebook/zstd>.

# Decompress a file:
zstd -d path/to/file.zst

# Decompress to `stdout`:
zstd -dc path/to/file.zst

# Compress a file specifying the compression level, where 1=fastest, 19=slowest and 3=default:
zstd -level path/to/file

# Unlock higher compression levels (up to 22) using more memory (both for compression and decompression):
zstd --ultra -level path/to/file

For more usage tips, curl cht.sh/:help.

Man pages are useful references but go ahead and learn how to use sed or awk from their man pages.

I've gotten in the dumbfounding habit of searching man <program> on the web instead of in the terminal I'm already typing in.

Man pages fucking suck, and I say that having been working with linux full time professionally for 11 years.

The best ones have plenty of examples.

I really like the man pages for commands that have examples of some common usage at the bottom, that gets you kickstarted and you can just adapt your own command from the example.

Man pages are for reference, not learning.

Same outcome even if you read man pages

Consider this, nearly every major distro (and some minor distros like Alpine) has a wiki (or is based on a Distro that does).

Some mans are unreadable. I've been curling cheat.sh/[command] and its been great for example commands. Highly recommend.

I really like the man pages, but they're an encyclopedia, not a tutorial. Great for looking up specifics when you already have a foundation. Not so great when starting out

After many years of tiptoeing through the distros, from RedHat 5 and Mandrake6 to Slack to Gentoo and now Fedora 41. The last thing I want anymore is to need to go RTFM.

I don't want to open a terminal to compile anything, (I got stacks of tee shirts), or goggle, (yes goggle), to make things work. I'm too old for this crap and I don't have that much longer to live wasting my short time remaining staring at a terminal and reading man pages. Distros and Linux by extension should "just work" in 2025. And thankfully they do-- most of the time.

You want to be a Sysadmin and a cmd line commando, have at it. I'm peacing out.

Now if only GUIs could be called and worked telepathically. Or better yet, fix any problems before they happen without me even knowing about it.

If you want to really learn what you're doing, try info coreutils

To be fair we do the same with windows.

My dryer broke the other day, which turned out to be the heating element. I watched a bunch of videos to try and figure out how to troubleshoot the problem and hopefully address it.

One of the videos, after an intro, claimed to have the solution. Then they proceeded to talk about the temperature control features of the machine and how I should make sure the heat is turned on.

That is the level many of the unix / software development videos out there. Just literally some AI slop or silly person who doesn't know what they are talking about uploading a quick clip to grow their channel.

what the fuck is a man page

Don't forget the HEAVY Indian accent

I had to run this command once, not for the faint of heart, and takes about as long as a full OS reinstall...

sudo aptitude reinstall '~i'

This command reinstalls all registered packages on a Debian based distro, including Ubuntu and Mint.

Was totally worth it though, it kept all my files and config intact, and repaired all the packages that Timeshift borked up (my experience with Timeshift was BAD!)